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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.
OK paranoid people, now you've got something to line the inside of your tinfoil beanies!
I guess soon we will all want to start using lead paint again on our houses.
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.
After this, of course, Wal-Mart comes up with the RFID-blocker-blocker. And then RSA develops the RFID-blocker-blocker-blocker. And so on.
Why not just pull out the RFID?
RSA's next annoucment will be tags that will block the operation of the tags that block the operation of the tags on the things you buy. This will be offered as a security enhancement to stores to prevent the RFID system from being jammed.
www.eFax.com are spammers
About 6'2" tall, maybe... 2 feet wide... with a breathing hole if possible, and maybe some plastic towards the top to see out of.
Oh, I don't know about that. Seems this is just the thing to keep those guys wearing RayBans and black macks, lurking in an arcane sea-green Dodge Dart parked in the far corner of the drugstore parkinglot from discovering which medication you're on this week for your schizophrenia and irrational paranoia.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What I want is to be able to disable the damm tags on anything I've already purchased and taken home!
-MattT *** Not speaking for my employer, or any other sentient beings ***
The same thing that keeps them from doing it now (hint: it's not RFID).
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Essentially, the blocker tag system works by tricking readers that all the possible RFID tags are present at a given time. Because RFID readers can communicate with only one tag at a time, when multiple tags reply to a single query, the reader detects a collision.
When that happens, the reader tries to communicate with each tag individually, asking each for its next bit, which identifies the portion of a binary tree the tag resides on. However, when queried in the presence of a blocker tag, the blocker tag also responds, but with a "0" and a "1" bit, confusing the reader and preventing it from getting valid responses.
So couldn't you just always have a blocker tag with you at all times? Say you build one of these into your watch, for instance. Wouldn't that make a store's entire RFID system useless for the items you're carrying?
Also, blocker tags in bags don't do anything to protect your privacy once you take the item out of the bag; so if the RFID tag is on clothing, it would still be active while you're wearing it, but not while you're walking out of the store with it. Something about that definitely doesn't seem right.
You don't need a special chip to stop RFID tags from functioning. Look at the EZPass/FastPass/etc. systems in use on highway systems across the country. They come with a metallized plastic bag, similar to the antistatic ones that your hard drive came in, that blocks the signal from the EZPass so that you won't register when you don't want it to. All you need is your standard Anti-static bag. Drop your RFID tags in there and watch the readers try to find them. Signals won't penetrate: no chip necessary.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
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.
That reminds me of a news special I saw on TV about professional shoplifters. Apparently they had devised a way to smuggle clothing and other goods with RFID tags past those little scanner gates. You wanna know how they did it?
Tin foil lined bags!
According to the show, some of these shoplifting rings take millions of dollars worth of merchanise a year. So this method must be pretty effective. I love when people go through a ton of work and invest billions of dollars while ignoring something simple/stupid like tin foil.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The most important things that keeps the vast majority of shoppers from stealing DVDs, or anything else for that matter, are honesty and morals.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
We have a stupid FastTrak system here in California for the carpool lanes where you can pay even if you are by yourself in the car. They give you a transmitter box and it debits your account when you get in the lane. Long story short, they give you a bag made out of silver to put your transmitter in if you actually do have a passenger with you, so your account won't get debited.
Seems like one of these silver bags would work perfect to put RFID enabled items in.
"We need a fourth law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife"
I believe those bags are called Booster Bags and the are a felony to possess, in PA at least. My sister works in a retail outlet and they have caught ppl using them. Throw clothing in bag walk out store no annoying alarms.
"All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
- 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
Odd. When I want to block an RFID tag, I put it an ESD bag. (Electrostatic bag, the kind that come with many computer components). When I ordered an RFID based automated toll-booth system, it came with an ESD bag, and in their FAQ they explicitly state that if you don't want your tag read and your account charged, just put the device in the bag, easy as that. Presumeably, an ESD bag (which has enough metal in it to accomodate a random static discharge) would create a Faraday cage around the tag, and keep the radio signals from getting in or out of the bag. Now all I have to do is make a shopping bag out of ESD bags.... or just line a backpack, and _bam_. Shoplifter's dream. just remember to close the bag first....
"Is this not a rare fellow, my lord? He's as good at any thing, and yet a fool." -from "As You Like It", Act 5,
I submitted an article on this to /. a few weeks ago but it was rejected. Typical of /. to print every anti-RFID piece of FUD they get but to ignore anything that might indicate that some companines get it.
Lasers Controlled Games!
RFIDs arent meant to solely deter shoplifting. Hell, you can rip the security tags off.
They're more about inventory and process control. Store managers want to be able to walk down the aisle with their RFID-scanning laptop and instantly know how many of each item are there. Or, misplaced items can shout "hey, I'm on the wrong shelf!"
Or honest shoppers can take their stuff up to the self-checkout area, and the screen shows you whats in your bag and you sign off on it, rather than having to scan and rebag everything.
And, of course, the paranoid will tell you its so the CIA can scan you from a plain white van and know what kind of deoderant you use.
Shoplifters and thieves will always find a way around the system, so it doesn't matter.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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"
Conceivably, RFID tags could be constantly tracked in store and raise a red flag to security if they disappear.
Not sure if that would do any good. Someone goes into a store and grabs something with an RFID, places it in their foil lined hidden inner pocket in their jacket, and walks out. When the item goes off the RFID master radar image, it maybe sets off an alert, so then someone has to physically walk to the shelf to see what happened. By then, the thief is long gone. Plus, they aren't exactly super high-power devices, I'm sure they occasionally don't hear the query or respond back in time, so you'd get lots of false alarms.
If you can read this then I forgot to check "Post Anonymously"