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RSA Creating RFID Blocker Tag
burgburgburg writes "RSA is introducing a new RFID cloaking system to guard secret data. The RSA Blocker Tag technology uses a jamming system designed to confuse RFID readers and prevent those devices from tracking data on individuals or goods outside certain boundaries. At its security conference, RSA demonstrated the blocking technology in a pharmacy setting. The pharmacist provides your prescription in a special bag with the Blocker tags. When the drugs are in the bag, RFID readers are blocked. Take them out, they're readable. The tags work by emitting radio frequencies that fool RFID readers into thinking they're receiving unwanted data, causing them to shun data from that source. RSA promises that this new technology will not interfere with the normal operation of RFID systems or allow hackers to use security technology to bypass theft-control systems or launch denial-of-service attacks." Maybe it's just me, but this seems to not address any of the important RFID issues at all.
I see a new business opprotunity! Several states decided a while back to make a profit off of the backs of the citizens by selling government databases to spa^H^H^H marketers. One of those databases was the registration data from the DMV.
Combine that with RFIDs scanned as they leave the store, returning to the car, and I think we will have an incredible insight into the nature of those people's purchases. I'm sure some clever individuals will be able to build a portable scanner and have some underpaid kids key in the corresponding plates... won't this be wonderful!
Sig under construction since 1998.
So what keeps someone from sneaking DVD's out of a store in one of these magic bags?
Cube On! (http://stores.ebay.com/PuzzleProz)
Great, now I have to wear a body condom to block my RFID's... Actually, i'm glad to see companys looking at RFID in a responsible way. Hopefully between that and angry consumers, this can be a usefull technology without being a privacy hazard.
That's what shoplifters use right now to defeat the currently used radio tags. 60 minutes did a segment on professional shoplifters last Sunday. It's a $10 billion a year industry.
Who told the criminals about Faraday cages? Did they learn it on the Internet? We need to remove this dangerous physics information from places kids and robbers can get it!
The latest Slashdot meme.
As described, what they've built is pretty much the embodiment of "harmful interference". It'll require an amedment to the FCC's Part 15 rules to be legal. Which seems fairly unlikely...
Or perhaps...
<conspiracy> It sounds to me like RSA actually has some other use in mind for these tags. </conspiracy>
Children in the backseats don't cause accidents. Accidents in the back seats cause children.
blocks from 10 MHz to 20 GHz mobilecloak
Uh...why would you need to put RFID tags on drugs or on drug containers in the first place?
If you're talking about prescription filling errors, that would be solved overnight by two things:
a)making doctors fill out prescriptions similarly to how most government forms are- one box per letter,capital letters(and when a prescription is rejected- the pharmacy makes it clear to the patient, AND the hospital, WHY. Doctors who can't be bothered to write clearly for the safety of their patient find themselves on the street).
b)training pharmacists better, holding them and their employers accountable for mistakes, and FDA(or state) conducted spot checks(we check health codes at restaurants to make sure Jenny the short order cook doesn't store that pot in the wrong place, but we can't be bothered to have someone fill a prescription a few times a month and check the results at a lab?)
If we're talking about theft(gillette's supposed reason for doing RFID), the major source of theft is armed(or claiming to be armed) robbers stealing powerful painkillers that have value on the black market.
RSA is grasping at straws here, finding a solution to the problems with a solution that was invented out of thin air(for a real problem). Say that 5 times fast.
Please help metamoderate.
...so I get RFID tags on my bottles of pills. Great. Then I put them in this bag and the tags are jammed. Ok.
SO WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF THE TAGS IN THE FIRST PLACE!?!
If I have to take the bottle out of the bag to show it to the pharmacist or cashier or whoever when I want to get a refill or pay, why not just put a goddamn BAR CODE on the stupid bottle!?! There! Done! I show you the bottle, you do something with it. Bam! Just like what we have today! No extra cost! No upgrades! No new hardware! This is like inventing Caller ID so you can sell everyone Called ID Blocking! Why have BOTH? We can just live without the RFIDs in the first place!
"Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
- The tags themselves have to be designed with fusible links (so that they can be overloaded & die), and
- The POS devices have the option of tag nuking, or maybe some area at the POS where tagged goods can be placed that will nuke them. (Many stores already have those pads that wipe out inventory control tags to prevent theft - same kind of notion.)
So, the question at a practical level is - is the industry actually responding to this, or is RSA's announcement just bandwagon hopping?"The time is always now" - Victor
FCC regulations prohibit deliberately interfering with radio communication. 47 CFR 15.5(b)
We have spent billions of dollars and centuries of research and development on a technology to prevent this kind of abuse. It can be embedded or layered onto another invention called "paper." Using a portable delivery device known as a "pen," pricing information can be recorded at the point of delivery. This technology can also be combined with device we call a "printer" to produce "bar-codes" that are machine readable. The resulting data-carrier, referred to as a "label," can be enclosed in another device known as a "bag" or "envelope," thus preventing any unwanted scanning by third-parties.
Seriously, why the hell does your medical information need to be transmitted by radio to a fscking cash register? We can't train people to fscking READ anymore? Christ.
We've tested it here at the UCONN Library. We use RFID tags on our books, and if you know where the tag is and hold a pack of cigarettes in front of it when you leave, it will block the tag from being read. In this case, tinfoil really WILL protect you!
1994: Since when do people want to visit other computers on a giant network?
1984: Since when do people want an entire television channel devoted to videos of musicians singing and dancing?
1974: Since when are terrorists going to attack airplanes?
Just because it isn't happening now, doesn't mean it's not right around the corner. C'mon dude, get your head out of the sand.
Just the thought of these tags gives every Walmart exec a permanent erection, from the distribution department to the ad department, and every department in between.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I can't speak as to Best Buy Specifically, however, I did some contract work for another Big Dept store a few years back (about 2-3 years before they went out of buisness)... I wasn't doing security but I saw the security offices and whatnot (in fact, I stayed overnight in the store, sometimes with a security person, sometimes with just a manager - only once did we get a request by one of them to check our tool bags at the end of the night, but when we said ok immediatly, she just let us go - but she was just a biutchy manager that gave us an attitude all night long - she was also the only one that complained about me wanting to take a book and sit on one of the futons in the store when I had an hour of downtime waiting for data to copy... bitch)
Anyway... my point... ive seen the way their security operate and talked with them about it a bit.
From the moment you enter the store, you are on tape. They may or may not be watching you specifically... you just don't know. Rest assured they are watching somewhere in the store. They know what to look for, they know how to tell who to watch.
Who is the security guy? Well I will tell you, he is probably dressed well, but not like an employee. He/she wont wear the store colors, or a name tag, and he is watching the cash registers as much as anywhere else.
In fact, the store I saw had a very old system overall that hadn't been upgraed in years, not like all these new Best Buy stores. Yet still with that old system they could watch a cashier (what? you think the shoppers are the only people the security folks watch? notice the camera density by the checkout - those are for watching the clerks as much as you) and on a seprate terminal he could watch the transactions go by as the clerk scanned items and input stuff into he register to make sure the clerk wasn't putting through improper transactions or helping people steal from the store.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
You can't really get around the fact that a foil bag blocks all electric fields passing through it. It would act as a Faraday cage. Now IANAP, but if I recall from Physics class, the foil bag, as a conductor, acts as a sort of ground for all electic fields attempting to pass through it, so the charge from the filed ends up on the surface of the bag, so none penetrates into the center of the bag. Now of course a tin foil bag isn't a perfect conductor, so it will let a little bit of the electric field through, but with a fairly highly conductive bag you could cut the electric field down significantly. Unless the readers use extremely high powered signals, they wouldn't get through. Plus, the tag doesn't transmit a very high power signal to begin with, so the signal will never get out.
If you can read this then I forgot to check "Post Anonymously"
We all need to start carrying RFID jammers.
paranoia? In a german supermarket (just bigger, for people who have their own store), they have actually built this into some products and cards.
read this or just look at the pictures
It's bad enough that every corporate conglomo is going to be allowed to invade your privacy for their own records, but now there is going to be a second conglomo who is going to SELL you products to protect you from the first! Jesus H. Christo! We need to elect another political party because both current groups somehow think this is a good idea. They have both been sucking on the corporate teat too long.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright