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Hacking the RFID Network
An anonymous reader writes "The world's largest retailers are developing the EPC Network as the infrastructure for a global rollout of item-level RFID. In many ways this 'Internet of Things' resembles the ISBN system or CueCat's codes-to-content. But the network built for tracking consumer goods could also be used for intangible items: airline seats, music tracks or service calls."
What they're saying is that RFID can be applied to intangible information - content rather than the physical media - just like ISBN/Library_of_Congress system uses an identifier for a book rather than an instance of it.
In other words: RFID can be extended to apply to an entire class, rather than instances of it, as is usually done.
Bet somebody'll mention how this is great for pr0n in the next 5 minutes.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
It is possible for users to deploy up to 20 billion unique transponders.
Google says that in here (maybe here?) there's a claim of supporting up to 550 billion unique ID codes with this manufacturer.
It seems to vary significantly depending on which provider you choose, but that's 91.6 RFIDs per human being on Earth. It's about 1800 RFIDs per human being in the United States.
(PSA of anti-slash)
...piggybacks on DNS to look up manufacturer info. The spec is here... nifty stuff!
The Army reading list
Well, there is 96bits on info on the tag (the 64bit tags are already just about dead). The reprogrammable tags (unsecure) will have something like 196 bits of scratch space. Secure tags are laser programmed. Of those 96bits, some are dedicated to the same functions as the old UPC codes. But you can imagine 48 bits as a serial number. There are various EPC standards proposed that will dictate how many bits are dedicated to each data type.
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
We are so far away from tracking at 100 feet - GPS type applications for RFID, that's even crazier. Right now WalMart suppliers are having trouble getting the tags to read on a case of liquid laundry detergent.
Damn, that's a good idea. Not necessarily for RFID, but in general. Too bad someone already beat us to market:
Magnetic
Infrared
Please do not use GPS as an example. The signal for GPS is sent by satellites, presumably with large antennae. The signal for RFID is sent by the RFID tag (at least, the signal you're interested in reading) which has a small antenna and operates with very low power. The GPS [transmission] antenna only needs to handle a certain range of orientations of receiver to sender, and RFID must broadcast omnidirectionally because you cannot guarantee the orientation of the tag.
What scares me is that eventually shoes will have RFID tags in them somewhere, and tires will have them too. This defeats the proxmity problem completely.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The commercial mentioned was an Ogilvy & Mather ad produced for IBM in 1999, and called "Checkout Line."
m ar ket.html
http://www.ogilvy.com/our_work/tvtemplate/super
(also available on AdCritic)
Transmission ranges on these things are VERY short. Keep in mind that the FCC regulates how much power you can pump through a reader, and that the tag is powered entirely by this transmission. With an RFID tag mounted to the pricetag on a shirt, you'll be lucky to get 3 feet of transmission. Also, the tag will most likely be killed right after the customer's credit card is charged, so sitting outside the door won't get you any data at all.
In answer to your first question, fairly difficult. You'd need an active device which listens for a query from a reader, and responds as though it were a tag. Also, the tag is just responding with essentially the same data as a barcode; any code that isn't in the master database in the sky will be ignored. And the readers can handle a large number of tags (read rate for some readers is >1000 tags/sec, and will only get better), so a DoS will be pretty difficult. Not something you'd wire-wrap in your garage.
Hamster
This is FUD, plain and simple. A tiny bit of research would show you that active RFID tags (that is, those which contain their own batteries and hence are so large as to be unsuitable for retail) work at ranges of about 100 meters. Their primary use will be shipping containers, freight trailers etc.
Passive tags, which are the ones being tried out in retail, generate their RF signal using current induced in them by an RFID interrogator. The power output is so low that the effective range is presently less than 2 feet; beyond that distance the read rates of the tags goes to nearly zeor. Check the specs on the tags.
Maybe if you spent less time perfecting the fit on your tin foil hat you could contribute something useful to the conversation instead of showing the rest of us how paranoid you are.