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Real RFID Hacking Scenarios

kjh1 writes "Wired is running an article on RFID hacking that has potentially scary implications. Many RFID tags have no encryption and will happily transmit their information in the clear if they are active or within range of a reader. Worse yet is that they can be overwritten. Some interesting scenarios and experiments: snagging the code off of a security badge and replaying it to gain access to a secure building; vandalizing library contents by wiping or changing tags on books; changing the prices of items in a grocery or other store; and getting free gas by tweaking the ExxonMobil SpeedPass tags."

180 comments

  1. patents available by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know of at least one lucent patent on RFID security.

  2. Regarding security badges by benjjj · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think it's common practice for most serious security badges to rely on RFID for part of the verification, but some sort of user input for the rest. I have a prox card at work (which, I assume, is an RFID-based card), but the card only activates a keypad. Without my PIN, it's useless.

    1. Re:Regarding security badges by Hoho19 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My college has no keypad. You just swipe your card. That's a huge security risk. Imagine if some sexual predator got access to a dorm. That's scary!

    2. Re:Regarding security badges by Toba82 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, because I'm sure everyone takes PIN security seriously and doesn't use an easily memorized pattern. Nobody I know would ever do that at the expense of their own security.

      Isn't that a bit like saying "It's okay that the deadbolt can be smashed with your pinky, I still have a screen door!"?

      --
      I pretend to know more than I really do by mooching off google and wikipedia.
    3. Re:Regarding security badges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      i thought they live in there

    4. Re:Regarding security badges by nharmon · · Score: 1

      Except the keypad is digital so the digits don't always show up in the same order. Thus if somebody shoulder surfing sees you input your code and remembers the pattern, he/she still won't know the correct PIN.

    5. Re:Regarding security badges by Hoho19 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Frat boys tend to live in frat houses :-P

    6. Re:Regarding security badges by Aranth+Brainfire · · Score: 1

      In my experience, college dorm security is a joke. They tell you not to hold the door for anyone, but are you really going to slam it shut in the face of the guy who says he lost his keycard, and is hovering right outside the door? And there are people coming back at all times of the night. There are, however, locks on all of the room doors you should probably make good use of...

      Not that your general concern is entirely wrong, but this specific case isn't terribly strong. Better, maybe, is that a few of the other, non-dorm buildings on my campus are locked by only a card reader, I think. The individual rooms still take old-fashioned metal keys, and I've seen more than a few fingerprint readers with number pads...

      --
      "Quoting yourself is stupid." -Me
    7. Re:Regarding security badges by Kadin2048 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Except the keypad is digital...

      Huh?

      I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're saying. Of course the keypad is digital. My keyboard is digital. Pretty much anything except for a mechanical combination lock is going to be "digital." (Well, even that you can argue is 'digital,' in the non-computerized sense of the term.)

      Are you saying that the keypad appears on a screen, with the numbers in a random order in the array? E.g., so that some person might get a keypad numbered [[6,2,9][5,4,7][8,1,3]] and the next person would get [[3,8,4][5,2,1][6,9,7]]?

      Seems like a system like that, which requires a touch-screen instead of a regular el-cheapo numeric keypad, would be pretty expensive to implement. If you have a small number of chokepoints where you can put them, it might work, but if you're trying to secure all the exterior doors of a large number of buildings, I could see it getting prohibitively expensive fast.

      I have seen a lot of places that use Prox-Cards as their only form of authentication for access control: for whatever reason, people seem to think they're "more secure" than swipe cards. They were actually implemented at a place that I worked a few years ago this way, and I argued against them because of the RFID interception risk, but I got shot down by the PHB's and the system vendors, who said this was 'totally impossible.' I was tempted to try and figure out how to intercept the transmission, but I never had the time to get started.

      At any rate, I don't work there anymore.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    8. Re:Regarding security badges by tinkertim · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm recollecting many, many instances where I got through a door swiping a key with no pin or other authentication based on what I know.

      Ideall you authenticate on 2 out of these three:

      1 - what you know
      2 - what you have
      3 - what you are (or aren't, depending).

      Now that I think about it, most buildings I've been in that use RFID tags to open doors do not use anything but #2.

      I found this gizmo at fidgetsjust poking around on Google after reading TFA and feeling curious. That's the biggest one I found, the rest once stripped of their case would be very much like the scanner described in TFA.

      I'm sure this will become a growing problem, quickly.

    9. Re:Regarding security badges by LiMikeTnux · · Score: 0

      you don't need a touch screen, just some clear buttons with any-digit LEDs behind em. Like the ones they use in older calculators and clocks.

      --
      yap
    10. Re:Regarding security badges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ExxonMobil SpeedPass tags require nothing beyond swiping the tag in front of the reader. So stealing gas would be possible... despite being unethical.

    11. Re:Regarding security badges by Programmer_In_Traini · · Score: 1

      I can sense the pun here.... man, i just WISH!!! i had access to the girls dorm when i was a student.... wouldnt have had to go thru so much trouble to get in and stay in overnight :)

      --
      If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
    12. Re:Regarding security badges by Panaflex · · Score: 1

      Not true - there's a brute force required to get at the key. Once you have the key, yes - you just swipe.

      --
      I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
    13. Re:Regarding security badges by jandrese · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, because nobody in a dorm would be able to hear someone screaming for help...

      Dorm security is a joke because for the most part it's not necessary. The people who break into dorms aren't sexual predators, they're common thieves trying to make off with a laptop or two. Most of the time they have legitimate access to the dorm anyway so the front door security is useless to begin with. Lock your door when you go to bed or leave the room, that's all there is to it.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    14. Re:Regarding security badges by jandrese · · Score: 1

      That's pretty common. Most RFID systems that are implemented for actual security require a second authentication method (usually a pin pad, but sometimes biometric) for this very reason.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    15. Re:Regarding security badges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you mean to equate Brute Force with kicking the sh** out of the guy who currently has the speedpass tag in question? If so I think what the article was trying to suggest was that by modifying your own speedpass key perhaps you could discover a way to send data to the reader that will make your purchase free.

      I would expect it would be time consuming and difficult to find a sequence of data that tells the reader to enter "debug" mode where it runs as normal but does not charge the credit card. However there is always someone out there willing to spend the weeks required to rip a company off. Additionally I would bet that all your failed attempts would be logged and someone would start monitoring the security tapes to see who tried to hack the machine... but who knows maybe someone could pull this off.

    16. Re:Regarding security badges by Icculus · · Score: 1
      Are you saying that the keypad appears on a screen, with the numbers in a random order in the array?

      Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what the poster was talking about. The systems I've seen are actual physical keys with old-school-calculator-type led displays inside. Some have a little shroud so you have to duck down and get your face right in there to see what the numbers are. I've only seen them in higher security areas (like NOC of a bank is the one that comes to mind).

      My current employer uses card-only authentication for its doors, but our entrances are pretty high-volume. If everyone entering had to punch up a code we'd have a line out to the avenue to get in in the morning. I'm surprised to see we don't have those keypad deals for our data centers, though.

    17. Re:Regarding security badges by ScottLindner · · Score: 1

      Security is not guaranteed, even if they were to secure the ID cards. Just by issuing them and requiring their use you already significantly reduce the issues. If a criminal of any type (sexual or whatever) was so determined to try to crack the RFID cards, having the encrypted will just force them to find another hole in the system... or circumvent the system entirely.

      You cannot guarantee anything. YOu can only reduce the probability of it happenings.. but as you approach very high tolerance, the costs go up enormously for very little benefit.

      It's a choice.. higher tuitition to support better security, or some fairly reasonable security at low cost to you? There's no wrong answer.. but it's a choice you have to make.

      --
      Slashdot.. where people join together in deliberate ignorance.
    18. Re:Regarding security badges by Isotopian · · Score: 1

      Not the smart ones! Oh wait.... yeah, never mind.

      --

      It's poetry with a beat behind it! And guns! They're like beatniks with automatic weapons.

    19. Re:Regarding security badges by lowrydr310 · · Score: 1
      Imagine if that same sexual predator had access to a physical metal key? It would be no different.

      The only problem with insecure RFID tags is that someone could potentially grab the info from your key without you knowing, and then using that info to gain access at a later time.

    20. Re:Regarding security badges by kramdam · · Score: 1

      I've implanted a chip into my hand and have no worries it's going to be cloned. www.taggedlife.com

    21. Re:Regarding security badges by bill_kress · · Score: 1

      Are you saying that the keypad appears on a screen, with the numbers in a random order in the array? E.g., so that some person might get a keypad numbered [[6,2,9][5,4,7][8,1,3]] and the next person would get [[3,8,4][5,2,1][6,9,7]]?

      That's how ours work here. Most of the time all our security keypads are dark. You use the RFID to light them up and randomize the number positions, then type in a 4-digit code.

      In order to get in during off hours you must have MY badge and MY four digit code.

      That said, during working hours it just takes a touch of the badge (but then, you can also walk in the front door half the time and not be challenged.)

    22. Re:Regarding security badges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sadly, although that would be a fairly obvious security precaution, many workplaces do not take that step. I worked for a summer at a (Canadian) federal research facility. The only barrier to entry was a wave of your security badge against the reader. It's not like it was a high security operation, but still. Most secured areas at my alma mater had the same protocol.

    23. Re:Regarding security badges by jacksonj04 · · Score: 1

      Similar but admittedly not dorms, our school is considering going major RFID cards with *every* door lock. Each card is keyed to a unique person, and they can have room access tailored accordingly. Staff and 6th Form students will have them. It will also be used to check out library books, have a 'top-up' system for buying lunch and snacks.

      Why not integrate RFID tags into college IDs? Each dorm can then be locked to all except those who are actually in that dorm, but the building is locked to far fewer people. If you're particularly worried, use RFID for most locks but require secure ones (Such as individual dorm doors) to have the card inserted into a smartchip reader.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    24. Re:Regarding security badges by l1gunman · · Score: 1

      Your second statement contradicts your first.... The fact that someone could "grab the info", essentially stealing/replicating your key without your knowing it is gone, makes this problem clearly different, and more dangerous, than a physical metal key, the absence of which is conspicuous.

    25. Re:Regarding security badges by kaden · · Score: 1

      Imagine if some sexual predator got access to a dorm. You mean... like a drunk frat boy?

    26. Re:Regarding security badges by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 1

      It's not limited to college dorms...take *any* office building that requires a security badge swipe to get in. Count how many times you can ask someone to hold the door without offering ID.

      You'll get right in 99% of the time.


      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    27. Re:Regarding security badges by necro81 · · Score: 1

      My college has no keypad. You just swipe your card. That's a huge security risk. Imagine if some sexual predator got access to a dorm. That's scary!

      The irony of this statement, in the case of my alma mater, is that they prox card system was implemented largely out of fear of sexual predators. There were a few incidents where an unidentified male, not a student, was found lurking in a women's bathroom/shower in one of the dorms. Previously, all of the dorms were left unlocked during daylight hours during the academic calendar. Ground floor women's bathrooms had keypads.

      So they bring in this two-million dollar system, replace everyone's old ID cards with RFID-based ones, and implemented a security policy where all the dorms are locked all the time. Depending on a person's access privelages, undergrads can get into all the dorms, grads can only get into the dorm they live in (if they're on campus), and the academic buildings (except the libraries) get locked at night to anyone who doesn't have a reason to be there.

      But, there are two significant problems with the system, as with any security system:

      1) The system can be hacked. As this article points out, it only takes some specialized, but easily gotten, equipment and a little practice.

      2) Human factors. My college isn't located in an urban center. There is little crime in the area, and the students are pretty nice outgoing people. If someone that looks remotely like a student were to hang around one of the doors, claiming that they'd lost their card, I'd guess 75% of the students would let them into the building.

    28. Re:Regarding security badges by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      Why not integrate RFID tags into college IDs?

      My college ID number was a letter + my social security number + 3 digits. I don't think I'd want its RFID chip broadcasting that number.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    29. Re:Regarding security badges by electr01nik · · Score: 1
      When I was at Clark University, an individual slit the screen on a first floor, ground-level, window, gaining access to an all-girl suite, walked into one of the rooms and proceded to climb onto one of the beds and grope one of the girls. Now, why (a) a normal screen, and not a metal mesh security screen, was used and (b) RLH (residental life and housing) placed an all-girl group (not mixed) in a first floor, ground-level suite is beyond me, since doing so is against policy according to the workstudies I knew working in RLH at the time. The dorm was the only one without the metal mesh security screens on ground level screens too. My best friend, and her suitemates had their space invaded and violated because of policy. Both written policy was disregarded (because of space considerations) and security was disregarded because, well, I don't know why, but I'm sure we all have a few guesses.

      So yes, dorm security is a joke, but very necessary, and sometimes it's completely out of the hands of the students.

    30. Re:Regarding security badges by Marlow+the+Irelander · · Score: 1

      Nope. "Brute force" is a security phrase, meaning trying all the possible forms of encryption in order to randomly find the right one.

      How it works is, you grab the encrypted data (using this RFID scanner thing), then try using all the different encryption keys you can to decrypt it (using, say, a laptop). When you get usable plaintext (i.e. "OIL 2.74 GALLONS $5.67") then you've cracked the key, and you can use that key to encrypt the phrase "OIL 700 GALLONS $0.00" correctly.

    31. Re:Regarding security badges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are letting Frat boys into the dorms again?

    32. Re:Regarding security badges by lowrydr310 · · Score: 1
      I was responding to the original poster.

      My college has no keypad. You just swipe your card. That's a huge security risk.

      I pointed out that losing a swipe card that doesn't utilize a PIN is no different than losing a physical key.

      I wasn't saying that RFID-grabbing is the same as a loss of a physical key. I was trying to say that it was clearly different. (Perhaps if I got more sleep last night I would have been able to make my point clearer. Oh well)

    33. Re:Regarding security badges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps he meant swipe as in gleen the information on it.

    34. Re:Regarding security badges by jacksonj04 · · Score: 1

      What the hell was your college doing using that in your ID? Mine is year of entry, initials, 4 numbers.

      Anyway, it doesn't have to broadcast your actual student ID, just something unique to that card. That way if the card is lost its access can be revoked and you issued with a new one without changing your student ID.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    35. Re:Regarding security badges by Bryansix · · Score: 1

      My college has no keypad. You just swipe your card. That's a huge security risk. Imagine if some sexual predator got access to a dorm. That's scary!

      While you are correct that not requiring a pin is a security risk; this has almost nothing to do with the access of a sexual predator into a Dorm. Even the most secure dorms I have been to only restrict access at night. During the day you wait for someone to open the door and you follow them in. Simple as that. When they do restrict access, they ask for someone to vouch for you and they take down your name. Woopidee doo! So they have a record of me being there. That's not going to stop a sexual predator. Especially since they probably know the policy and will enter during the day unchecked and then hang out for all the parties to start.

      Where I went to college they used regular pick-resistant locks with keys. I lived in one dorm but had many friends in another dorm. I rarely had access problems. When I did, sombody (hehe ya right, "somebody") unscrewed the latch on the back door and I had access whenever I wanted no matter the time of day.

      The real issue is that people living in dorms need to lock the doors to thier individual dorms. If they do not then they are responsible for the consequenses.

    36. Re:Regarding security badges by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      What the hell was your college doing using that in your ID?

      Being irresponsible with people's personal information of course. The SSN was also on Faculty-Staff IDs.

      You can imagine how uncomfortable I was while employed by the campus network administration (as an undergrad) being assigned the task of calling every user and getting their ID numbers, which had not been collected when accounts were assigned, so as to be used to challenge identities later in case of unauthorized access and other account administration issues.

      I expressed my concern to my boss, and he said I could accept any number they provided, but to request the ID number. Only one user elected to provide a much longer string of letters and numbers instead.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    37. Re:Regarding security badges by moro_666 · · Score: 1

      i've trouble getting through this door here, would mind giving me a hand on this ?
      i've got the chainsaw right if cutting it it off is the problem ...

      --

      I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
    38. Re:Regarding security badges by skintigh2 · · Score: 1

      That is true at places like Air Force bases and buildings owned by defence contractors, but in the building I work in (which is rented by a certain defence contractor) just has badges you hold against readers to get into the building and any room in that building.

  3. Encrypted RFID too expensive? by tinkertim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From TFA:

    A typical passive RFID chip costs about a quarter, whereas one with encryption capabilities runs about $5. It's just not cost-effective for your average office building to invest in secure chips.

    Ok, office with 200 people. You mean to tell me a lousy thousand bucks isn't worth preventing an intrusion? Some places spend that much a month on copy paper.

    I'd call it cost effective considering the alternetive possibilities :)

    1. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by Aladrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It costs a LOT more than $5 to hire someone. If you count the cost of the name/rfid badge in the newhire cost, it doesn't look nearly so bad anymore, either.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    2. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by Ulrich+Hobelmann · · Score: 1

      Um, why does the chip, i.e. the hardware, have to support encryption?

      Why not just store *encrypted* data on it? My hard disk doesn't support encryption, but I can store encrypted files (even partitions) on it nonetheless.

      I don't get this. The price difference between a computer system + RFID reader/writer and one that also supports encryption should be zero. I think ANY computer system nowadays is perfectly capable of encrypting data.

    3. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't understand. The card is still copyable.

      The more expensive cards we're talking about have a challenge-response system.. i.e. one cannot simply buy some card reader off of ebay and snag the data, there is a more complex handshaking procedure involved (think like how an SSH session works.. even if I am sniffing all the data, including the session initiation, I myself would not be able to steal your credentials)

    4. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by Thuktun · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why not just store *encrypted* data on it? My hard disk doesn't support encryption, but I can store encrypted files (even partitions) on it nonetheless.

      When you're talking about authentication tokens, this does absolutely ZERO to block a replay attack.

    5. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by RpiMatty · · Score: 1

      Why don't you store some encrypted data on a plain rfid tag. Then I will get my reader to make an exact copy of your tag.
      Then I can go to your tag reader and swipe in just like you could.
      I don't care whats on the tag, as long as I can still make a bit perfect copy.

    6. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by Kadin2048 · · Score: 1

      If all you did was store the key on the card in some encrypted form, and send that every time the card was swiped, you wouldn't have added any security.

      The way most (insecure) RFID systems work is like this.
      Reader: What is your key?
      Card: My key is 123456.
      Reader: (consults lookup table to see if that key is authorized) ... (opens door).


      Since the key is being transmitted in the clear, it's trivial for someone to snoop on the conversation and then repeat that key to the reader, and also open the door. This happens whether the key is encrypted or not: if all the card has to do is transmit something, and the result is that the door opens, then you can sniff that transmission and use it to open the door.

      The cards with "encryption capabilities" don't just store encrypted information, they actually do the encryption on the card. At least this is my understanding of them. There are some smartcards that do stuff like this also. I assume that their "conversation" with a reader is something like this:

      Reader: What is your public key?
      Card: (sends its public key)
      Reader: The time now is "20060525131827" ... authenticate.
      Card: (takes timestamp from reader, and appends it to its owner's secret identity string and other salt, then encrypts it with its private key) I authenticate with "6baff175ed8a185356d0bc66c892a974"
      Reader: (attempts to decrypt card's authentication string with the public key previously sent, if successful, checks the owner's identity string against lookup table) ... Authentication okay ... (door opens)


      In the latter case, the challenge-response key exchange ensures that even if someone is snooping on the entire transaction, they don't get anything of value. This would not be possible unless the card had enough logic to do the encryption on its own.

      There might be more-secure ways to do this than the way I'm envisioning, but I think this at least avoids having the key blasted out into the RF in an unencrypted form that could be easily reused.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    7. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by John+Harrison · · Score: 1

      It is the card (not the reader) that supports encryption ON THE CARD. I have a stack of contactless smart cards sitting here on my desk that do 3DES and RSA in the chip. These are much hard to crack than a dumb RFID tag.

      Think of the reader as simply being a network connection between one computer (the card in this case) and another (your desktop or whatever it is that is letting you in the door).

    8. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by MarkGriz · · Score: 1

      In the latter case, the challenge-response key exchange ensures that even if someone is snooping on the entire transaction, they don't get anything of value. This would not be possible unless the card had enough logic to do the encryption on its own.

      In theory anyway. IIRC, the weakness with the Mobil Speedpass was that with only a couple of challenges, the responses were captured and used to crack the private key. Not a big deal if all you can do with a cracked tag is buy some gas, but clearly not strong enough for large scale widely accepted payment systems or for controlled access to high security locations.

      --
      Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
    9. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by GreyyGuy · · Score: 1

      If you broadcast a static encrypted signal, then all someone has to do is copy that static signal and they are good. Something like that that supports encryption likely has a chip that will encrypt the data dynamically before broadcasting it.

    10. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by SydShamino · · Score: 1

      My company has ~2000 employees, and it took years for them to pay $2000 for an automated external defibrillator. I think there actually was a heart attack before they bought one.

      The cost of losing just one employee is far more than that, but some people fail to properly judge the risk of an event occurence when paying for safeguards to avoid it.

      --
      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
    11. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by Ulrich+Hobelmann · · Score: 1

      Thanks, very informative.

      I thought it was only about some data that's supposed to be private (like the encrypted hard disk, or maybe every person having a single data card where your doctor, your gas station etc. can store persistent data that only they can read, like a cookie), but of course for authentication the issue is very different.

    12. Re:Encrypted RFID too expensive? by Braf · · Score: 1

      An RFID card would be more likely to use a rolling-code instead of a challenge-response type of interaction. The challenge-response requires the RFID tag to both transmit and receive which is more expensive to produce. With a rolling-code, the RFID reader would activate the card, which would transmit its identifier and its current code, roll to the next code, and go back to sleep like the common keyless entry on cars. The card would require a small battery to save its state information, but the electronics would be much simpler. RFID is also slow and so can't transmit too much information without the user noticing the delay.

  4. Stop your worrying! by gasmonso · · Score: 4, Funny

    Never fear, the DMCA is here to protect us from that sort of behavior. It's illegal, so I doubt criminals would even try it ;) Thanks god for big government!

    http://religiousfreaks.com/
    1. Re:Stop your worrying! by sepharious · · Score: 1

      besides, I'm sure the NSA and the CIA are on top of any potential abuses of the system, because god knows we don't want prices remarked and security compromised. perhaps everyone should have a RFID-monitoring RFID chip installed to ensure 'Merica's success over the turrists!

      --
      Did you know that you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
  5. With Every New Technology... by InsomniacMK5 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There will be those who can manipulate it. On one hand I think it's awesome that people have the technical expertise to do it. On the other hand it's scary when you want to play by the rules and be affected negatively by something of this sort.

    --
    Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no
  6. Make has a project in the current issue by hal9000(jr) · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is interesting reading and looks like a fun project. RFID for Makers

  7. Needed: RFID lockers. by Demon-Xanth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What is really needed for security applications that use RFID is a kind of shielded wallet, that when an RFID tag is placed inside would keep the RFID tag from being read. Preferably one that could carry multiple cards and such. When you want something to be able to read it, you open it up. When you don't, you close it.

    I don't think many people carry thier credit cards out in the open.

    --
    If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
    1. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by Gattman01 · · Score: 1

      Like a tin-foil hat for your wallet?

      So all these years they've been trying to read my RFID implant, and not my mind.

      Wow, that sure takes a load off.

    2. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 1

      Yeah I started thinking about this as well, when I first saw those MasterCard and Amex credit cards that have embedded RFID chips so that you can use them to pay for things without having them swiped. (I forget what the system is called...FastPay? SpeedPay?)

      I don't know whether they use the encrypting chips or not, but my feeling is that they probably don't. Call me cynical, but I have a feeling that if an encrypting chip costs 2,000% more than a non-encrypting one, the credit card companies are probably going to go with the cheaper route and just figure that they'll make up the costs of fraud with the savings.

      Plus, there are other kinds of RFID cards besides credit ones: in the Washington, DC area, the Metro system uses RFID cards for payment of fares and parking, and it's not uncommon for people to keep a hundred bucks or more stored on their account (figure they load it once a month and pay for two metro fares and parking every day, that could be $250+), depending on the fare. I'm almost positive that those cards aren't encrypted: all they do is chirp back a serial number, which is then looked up in the system to find the value associated with it.

      If you could build a small "harvester," a passive receiver that you put next to a legitimate RFID scanner and which recorded the transmissions of all the cards swiped past it, you could probably get hundreds of numbers a day, from any number of places in the metro system. (Next to a scanner on the exit of a parking garage, etc.) And depending what the frequencies are that the MasterCards use, you might get their numbers as well, if they're activated by the Metro cards' scanners.

      I foresee a huge demand for shielded wallets and card-carriers, once the first large-scale RFID scams hit. And they're going to, sooner or later. The public is just setting itself up for a giant reaming: right now is the calm before the storm, because the black-hat technology hasn't been developed or perfected to the point where any idiot script kiddie can use it. When it gets to that point, and I suspect that it will eventually, people's unwarranted feelings of personal security are going to be deflated in a hurry. It's not going to be pretty.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    3. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by qwijibo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I dislike the idea of shielded wallets because it misses the point. If you want something to default to off without user interaction, you shouldn't be using something that is always on plus another thing that mitigates the always on effect. Why not just make the rfid circuit default to open and make you do something like squeeze the badge to close the circuit and enable the RFID capability? Always on means always vunerable. That gets sold based on convenience, but is it ever really a good idea?

    4. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by jefu · · Score: 1
      Perhaps the RFID makers are also investing in RFID shielded wallets :
      1) Sell the RFID chip for a nickel
      2) Sell the shielding for $25
      3) ???? (engineer a very public RFID scam)
      4) Profit!

      (Sigh. I never wanted to do that, but it seemed appropriate.)

    5. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by Demon-Xanth · · Score: 1

      The reason I was saying shielded wallets, is that it is something people are used to. You show someone your driver's license, you open your wallet. You show someone your passport, you open it up. You need to use your credit card, you open your wallet up (you just don't have to actually pull it out anymore). It's a simple action that can be done easily, and in most cases, 90% of the work (pulling it out of your pocket) is done anyways.

      Walk upto toll reader, pull out "wallet", open up as you walk by, close it, stick back in pocket.

      Simple, easy, fast, and doesn't require training or retooling of the infrastructure.

      --
      If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
    6. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by dwandy · · Score: 1
      What is really needed for security applications that use RFID is a kind of shielded wallet, that when an RFID tag is placed inside would keep the RFID tag from being read. Preferably one that could carry multiple cards and such. When you want something to be able to read it, you open it up. When you don't, you close it.
      ...more like what's needed for tags that contain private data is for the tag to be physically activated by the holder. It would only work when you press a 'button' on it...It's the passive nature of these cards that is the issue.
      Alternatively, for pure authentication purposes they could respond to a challenge, that way if it was passive it wouldn't matter. The tag wouldn't broadcast a static number, but rather a response...

      What kills me here is that lots of the solutions to security have been dealt with in 'fixing' the internet. We have here a chance to learn from all the mistakes we made by not making security a fundamental component of the 'net... and do we? nope. Just broadcast numbers and leave tags writable. That makes good security sense.

      --
      If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
    7. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by Maximum+Prophet · · Score: 1

      They had this on Max Headroom (TV series). Your ID was a thing the size of a pen that you had to insert into the reader.

      The real trick is getting everyone to standardize on the same device, so that you wouldn't have to carry a dozen of these things around.

      --
      All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
    8. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by shawb · · Score: 1

      Don't knock it. I made a tin foil wallet (well, actually metallic tape as used for ductwork.) If I put my RFID card in it, the scanner at work would not open the door. That, and I got a whole lot of cashiers to break out of zombie mode and actually smile with my uber-shiny wallet. Big problem is the folds... metal tends to fatigue fairly quickly, so the wallet split along the seams in a few weeks. Never got around to making shiny wallet 2.0 with a new material for the seams.

      What got people is that it was actually made of the tape (plus a piece of plastic over the driver's liscense for flashing my ID) and not just a tape covered wallet.

      As the top is open it is not quite a full Faraday Cage, so I have no idea how well it would stand up to a higher powered attack, but it would definately reduce the range of long distance reads.

      --
      I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
    9. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by plate_o_shrimp · · Score: 1
      Yeah I started thinking about this as well, when I first saw those MasterCard and Amex credit cards that have embedded RFID chips so that you can use them to pay for things without having them swiped.
      My new Amex card had (past tense) one of those. 30 seconds on the drill press and now there's just a hole.....
      --
      This sig has exceed its monthly bandwidth allotment.
    10. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by Pope · · Score: 1

      Do you think something like electrical or duct tape on the seams would stand up to the repeated bending? Might be fun to try that out! :)

      --
      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
    11. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by shawb · · Score: 1

      I'm thinking about it... and about to make wallet 2.0 as we speak. Or as I write, or...

      Anyways, I'm thinking that simply covering the seams with duck tape would really do all that much good, as once the metallic tape fatigues and rips it is quite sharp and would just cut through the duck tape. I'll probably end up using duck for the seams and leaving a small space between the panels of metallic tape.

      Oh, and for those about to flame me, the name is duck tape. Gray fabric tape was originally produced for sealing ammunition cases, keeping the contents dry. Hence the name duck, as in "water off a duck's back." In fact, using gray fabric tape on heating/cooling ducts is against the building codes of a large number of municipalities. The proper tape to use in these situations is... the silver metallic tape that I use for the body of the wallet. So, my wallet will be comprised of duct and duck tapes. I suppose I could be flamed for failing to capitalize and possible use a trademark sign on the brand name "Duck Tape" but... eh.

      --
      I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
    12. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by shawb · · Score: 1

      Oh yeah... I was originally going to use Duck Tape (R) but my preliminary research (I.E. farting around on the internet) revealed that the adhesive of this product melts over time when exposed to the heat expected when held close to a body (I.E. in a back pocket.) This leads to a sticky mess where all the stuff in the wallet gets covered in gooey adhesive. I get the feeling the situation would be at least as bad with electrical tape... that stuff ends up being a real mess after a while.

      --
      I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
    13. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by joe+155 · · Score: 1

      I've got a sheet of metal in my wallet which works well to stop the RFID from working through it... although it might be bit more effort I could just wrap it in tinfoil; but the metal sheet works just as well

      --
      *''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
    14. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by Eil · · Score: 1

      I have no RFID equipment to verify this, but it's been reported that card sleeves made of partially conductive material (such as that used in some anti-static bags) are effective at shielding RFID chips from casual activation. So if your card can be activated from a reader 4cm away, one of these sleeves might reduce the range to 0.5cm, meaning you can still authenticate with the card still in the sleeve (by touching it to the reader), but any person on the street with a hand-held RFID reader disguised as a walkman won't be able to just walk by you in order to clone your card.

    15. Re:Needed: RFID lockers. by Bromskloss · · Score: 1
      Big problem is the folds... metal tends to fatigue fairly quickly, so the wallet split along the seams in a few weeks.
      I realize it's not as nifty as hacking your own, but mabye an off-the-shelf metal wallet would do. I'm a bit worried about the seams where the two parts come together, though. :-/
      --
      Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
  8. RFID Spoofing Guide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. Re:RFID Spoofing Guide by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I have to hand it to that guy, that's some pretty brilliant homebrew. (He even has a home-built PCB router!)

      He's right though that if you did a multilayer board that you could make the device a lot smaller; and I tend to wonder if you used an FPGA if you couldn't make it even smaller, down to around key-fob size. At any rate, he already seems to have achieved the "cigarette pack" size benchmark for a portable device, or close to it.

      From his "Security Implications" section:
      I could also exploit the fact the distance at which the cards will be powered is less than the distance at which they can be read; if another reader is exciting the card then my reader can read that card from the other side of a wall!

      This means that a sniffer concealed somewhere near a legitimate reader could intercept real transactions at a significant distance. This sort of attack is particularly good because the card repeats its id over and over as long as it is in the field, so that I could use signal processing techniques to combine multiple copies of the pattern to further improve my read range. This is easy--if I sample all 64 bits of the id then I don't have to get word-sync, and if I oversample then I don't even have to get bit-sync. Even if I capture the id with a few bit errors it is still useful; I could try the captured id, then every id with a Hamming distance of 1 from the captured id (one bit flipped), then 2, and so on. One or two bit errors would take seconds; three would take minutes.
      I think this is worth pointing out, because most people think of RFID cards as line-of-sight devices. But there's nothing stopping someone from burying a sniffer on the other side of the wall that the reader is mounted on, or maybe some distance away if they have a high-gain receive antenna and some good pre-amplification and filtering (not too hard: they're only trying to receive on one very particular frequency, so the whole setup can be tuned for that purpose).

      It's also worth noting the date on that article: October 2003. It's almost three years old at this point -- and I'm not convinced that RFID equipment has gotten any smarter, the installed base has increased significantly. The demand for sniffing equipment is going to be pretty big, and there are a lot of grey-market factories in Asia (like the ones that make console mod-chips) that will be happy to supply the hardware.
      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  9. Nothing New by WebHostingGuy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While they may have just realized this everyone else has already known about it. Three years ago I attended BlackHat in Vegas and they presenters already were doing this.

    They showed live examples and had very interesting stories about how they were reprogramming cheese to send RFID signals saying they were shavings products. Also, the store they were doing this in used RFID on all their products to make sure everything is shelved in the right place. They would reprogram an item on the shelf (already in the right place) to emit a signal saying it was something else. When the store came by to move the item to the correct place all they would find is the correct item. The presenters say it drove the store nuts.

    --
    Quality Hosting e3 Servers
    1. Re:Nothing New by goldaryn · · Score: 0

      They showed live examples and had very interesting stories about how they were reprogramming cheese to send RFID signals saying they were shavings products.

      Hmm. What with the Gillette/Walmart scandal, I was quite worried about all this stuff. But your point is a good one: well-armed consumers could perhaps thus sabotage tags if their use they become widespread? Or clone the data and flood it everywhere so it becomes useless?

    2. Re:Nothing New by Stradenko · · Score: 1

      Sounds like the presentation by Lukas Grunwald at defcon 12.

      (more resources here (and video!) -- just search for "smart-labels")

    3. Re:Nothing New by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now I understand the link between my Souffle tasting bad, and all the cuts on my face.

  10. Speedpass IS encrypted... by nweaver · · Score: 3, Informative

    Speedpass is encrypted, they just did a really bad job of the custom cypher they decided to use for it.

    --
    Test your net with Netalyzr
    1. Re:Speedpass IS encrypted... by kalirion · · Score: 1

      Yup, just like it says in the article.

  11. Very interesting by goldaryn · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Interesting points raised in TFA. It's worth bearing in mind, though, that the average range for a passive RFID tag is only a few yards..

    The Wikipedia article on RFID states "The US state of Virginia has considered putting RFID tags into driver's licenses ostensibly to make lookups faster for police officers and other government officials." Now that would fun, if you had a cloner!

    By the way, read the "Religious Reaction to RFID" part if you haven't. It's "interesting".

    1. Re:Very interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A few yards under the best of conditions. Add some ferrous metal near the tag and the range drops to nearly contact. Is that a chunk of iron in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

    2. Re:Very interesting by Loco3KGT · · Score: 1

      because the two different bar codes we have on our licenses are apparently slow. :-| Or typing in our driver's license is so difficult? please.

      I love government. Especially mine (Virginia).

      --
      Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
    3. Re:Very interesting by element-o.p. · · Score: 1

      Okay, I'm putting on my paranoia hat here, and I'll admit that I am far from an expert on RFID technology, so I *might* just be exposing my ignorance here...

      ...BUT...

      ...if you can build a Yagi to let you receive a WiFi signal from distances far in excess of the manufacturers' stated reception range, it seems reasonable to assume that a sufficiently motivated and knowledgeable person could build an RFID reader that would work from a few feet away. Or, at the very least, that it would be possible to read an RFID tag from someone walking down the street next to you, standing next to you on the subway, etc.

      --
      MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
  12. A squirt of electrons??? by ebcdic · · Score: 2, Informative

    "They send a signal only when a reader powers them with a squirt of electrons". Definitely not. Just some radio waves (think crystal set).

    1. Re:A squirt of electrons??? by styryx · · Score: 1

      LMFAO. You'd think the 'RF' part of RFID would have maybe given the game away.

  13. FUD by QuartzDuane · · Score: 2, Informative

    The cheapest RFID chips - by and large - are not read/write. They're read-only. The Wal-Marts of the world aren't putting read/write RFID in their products. This strikes me as largely a non-issue. As far as the securty-badge scenario; you'd have to be pretty close to the badge to get it to transmit. Like, close enough to have it in your hand. If the bad guy has your badge in his hand, you've already got bigger problems.

    1. Re:FUD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ummmm, why does Walmart pay me to reactivate all of those tags on the return items before we put them back on the shelf?

    2. Re:FUD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Walmart employees read Slashdot??

    3. Re:FUD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you sure you are referring to RFID tags and not EAS tags.

      Please note the difference.

      EAS (Electronic Article Survellience) can only contain a 0 or 1. It is swithced to zero at the register so the alarm does not sound. You probaly switch it back when an item is returned.

      RFID much more complicated. Walmart is not tagging everything at the item level. They are requiring their top veondors to tag at the PALLET LEVEL so you should not have to switch something back on.

      Also, if you have to swicth it back you you must be assuming that Walmart is "killing" the tags upon exit. This is not the case. It would be very difficult to kill all the tag going out the door IF they were tagging everything.

      --RFID guru

    4. Re:FUD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The tags themselves are not 're-activeted'. What you are doing is telling Wal*Mart's inventory system that those particular items are now back in inventory.

    5. Re:FUD by Maximum+Prophet · · Score: 1

      As far as the securty-badge scenario; you'd have to be pretty close to the badge to get it to transmit. Like, close enough to have it in your hand.

      Nope. I know many people who keep the badge in their wallet, and just bump the reader with their hip. Works fine. In the example given, the cloner did bump into the guy with the real badge.

      --
      All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
  14. "If I don't understand it, it must be secure." by dpbsmith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dilbert once ran a strip in which the PHB says "Reasoning that anything I don't understand must be easy..." before assigning Dilbert a monumental task on an impossibly short deadline. This is a mental trap that's easy to fall into.

    Another similar trap is "Any security technology I don't understand must be secure."

    Everyone has some vague notion of how a traditional lock and key work, and how they might be circumvented.

    But if there is no hole where the keyhole should be, and what IS there has some spiffy up-to-date appearance, and is "electronic" or "digital," the natural assumption is that because it clearly isn't a traditional lock and key, it must not have the traditional security vulnerabilities of a traditional lock and key... and since we aren't familiar with the new technology, we assume that "no traditional security vulnerabilities" = "no security vulnerabilities."

    And, obviously, the vendor of the new system, who is likely to be in the best situation to know them, isn't likely to explain them to us.

    1. Re:"If I don't understand it, it must be secure." by stienman · · Score: 1

      I don't think the security people are as trusting in black box technology as you seem to indicate.

      Like everything else there is a cost/security decision that has to be made. One could invest in a system that would use all three possibly keys (biometrics, passcode, key), or one could invest in a regular tumbler lock with 6 tumblers.

      The reality is that of the population that wants to break into your office, most of them would be stopped by the lock - they don't want to break in badly enough to obtain and learn to use lock picking tools. They'd rather social engineer a way in.

      Of the population that wants to break in, more would be stopped by the more secure system, but the improvement might only by perhaps 1-5% fewer possible break-ins. Again, a social engineering trick is also going to work here depending on the people who have legitimate access.

      The RFID is going to be, for quite some time (measured in years) better than the tumbler lock. Simply because most of the possible miscreants would rather employ a social hack than obtain and learn to use the equipment necessary to conduct and electronic attack. Further, social hacks are much easier to defend if caught. If caught with electronic RFID hacking equipment, you're going to be hard pressed to prove that you use it on a day to day basis for legitimate purposes. Eventually cell phones will be used for these attacks, but again that's several years down the road.

      For right now the cost is more than the tumbler lock, and the security is measurably greater. It's not a double digit improvement, though - few security advances are, and even fewer organizations need a double digit improvment.

      -Adam

    2. Re:"If I don't understand it, it must be secure." by swillden · · Score: 1

      Another similar trap is "Any security technology I don't understand must be secure."

      Here on slashdot the trap is different, though no less wrong. Slashdotters tend to think "Any technology I don't understand is probably insecure."

      People just don't want to admit that "I don't know" is a valid answer.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  15. How many times are we going to see this story? by Assmasher · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It was up a loooong time ago with the same info about wiping library tags, reading a security manager's badge and gaining entry as a test, yadda ^ 3.

    --
    Loading...
  16. Over the edge by packetmon · · Score: 1

    As noted in the article: "Private citizens and the government could likewise place cookies on library books to monitor who's checking them out." And how is this not being done as is. For anyone who goes into a library, records of what books you check out are kept since you have to submit your library card. Most public libaries are known/thought to share this information with government as it stands. In response to Exxon Mobile SpeedPass ""Texas Instruments used an untested cipher." The Johns Hopkins lab found that the code could be broken" ... That was then, this is now... The test in question was done some years back. How about verifying something now instead of crying over spilled milk. Can this be replicated now, if so why didn't they write about it. Did they solely include this information to inject FUD into the RFID security scene. Another noteworthy statement: "VeriChip, the only company making FDA-approved tags, boasts on its Web site that "this 'always there' identification can't be lost, stolen, or duplicated." It sells the chips to hospitals as implantable medical ID tags and is starting to promote them as secure-access keys." Of interesting note would be that, many hospitals' maternity wards have chips for newborns that are supposed to alert staff if a baby is removed. While parents may find this "useful", it does nothing if someone simply... (drum roll) cuts off the tag. Aside from that instance of stupidity, in many instances, one need only to inject noise interference to disable many RFID tags... So instead of getting all geeky and narrowing down a band, find yourself a decent noise generator capable of jamming a frequency and just do a five finger discount on a bag of Doritos. Go for it, its on the house and I'm sure those security personnel whose jobs were lost from companies depending on RFID will love you for it

    1. Re:Over the edge by VP · · Score: 2, Informative

      And how is this not being done as is. For anyone who goes into a library, records of what books you check out are kept since you have to submit your library card. Most public libaries are known/thought to share this information with government as it stands.

      I don't know where you get this idea, but currently most public libraries make it a point to destroy the record of you checking out a book after you return it, just so that they don't have this information available if/when the government comes around asking for it. Here is some relevant reading material: http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/usapatriotact. htm

    2. Re:Over the edge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of interesting note would be that, many hospitals' maternity wards have chips for newborns that are supposed to alert staff if a baby is removed. While parents may find this "useful", it does nothing if someone simply... (drum roll) cuts off the tag.

      That may have been the case originally, but the current situation (having done the Maternity Ward tour in the last month) at my local hospital is that the alarm goes off/floor goes on lockdown if the tag is cut or if the tag gets too close to an exit door without being turned off at the main system.

      Can it be circumvented? Sure, but the point isn't to protect the babies (the numbers of babies stolen from hospitals was very low before the system was implemented), it's to give the new mothers peace of mind.

    3. Re:Over the edge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Several problems with your statements about libraries:

      1) Library RFID tags are write once tags. They cannot be written to again, and only contain an ID that looks up to the books information. The patron information is NEVER stored on the books in any way.
      2) When you return a book to a library all links back to your record are removed. Some libraries keep the patron information linked until the book is checked out again incase the patron returns it in the book drop and it is damaged. This is not always the case.

    4. Re:Over the edge by porcupine8 · · Score: 1
      And how is this not being done as is. For anyone who goes into a library, records of what books you check out are kept since you have to submit your library card. Most public libaries are known/thought to share this information with government as it stands.

      Actually, many libraries are no longer keeping this information specifically so that they can never be forced to give it to the government.

      I recently found about $30 in a book - the library had no way of telling me who the last person to check the book out was so that the money could be returned.

      --
      Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
    5. Re:Over the edge by ArtStone · · Score: 1

      Aren't most libraries owned and run by "the government"?

      Do libraries make backups of their databases from time to time?

      Once data has been captured, it is impossible to know for certain that there is no copy of the data that survives.

      --
      Final 2006 "Proof of Global Warming" US Hurricane Count -> 0
  17. Mod up the "FUD" factor of the headline by RagingChipmunk · · Score: 2, Informative

    Its really no big deal. The vast majority of RFID chips are simply read-only, because thats the bottom of the line cheapest way to go. The card is "pinged" with a radio-field, and the chip burps out its serial number. No over write. No virus attack potential. Nothing of interest... Sure you can spoof these by putting a different tag in its place - oh yay, you've done the same cleverness as peeling a price sticker from a different product.

    Read/Write tags are a step up in cost. They range from 20 bytes to 256 bytes of data with a 10 digit serial number. Some brands support encrypted encoding formats. There is a trivial one byte "access key code" that prevents a Writer from writing to an RFID tag if this "access key code" byte doesnt match. Its really more of an accident prevention mechanisim (so you dont accidentally overwrite an ExxonSpeedPass if it was put in a WalMart system).

    Encryption of the "Writable" tags is the responsibility of the application. Since you only have 20 bytes (on the more common, cheaper tags) there isnt much you can do anyway as the number of permutations at 20! is low enough for most script-kiddies to crack. When you start getting upto 256 bytes, then sure it makes absolute sense to encrypt the contents. But, when you're at that price level, you're already considering the hardware that can encrypt at the signal level.

    (Yes, I write code dealing with RFID tags)

    -Mike

    --
    The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
    1. Re:Mod up the "FUD" factor of the headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mike,

      Thank you for being reasonable!! It is a bit lacking on this site. I am setting up the RFID system for my company and there are limitations that people outside the industry do not understand.

      So what middleware company do you work for?

    2. Re:Mod up the "FUD" factor of the headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wouldnt the permutations be 2^160 (assuming 8 bit bytes)?

      Or is each byte unique? Then if so yes it is 20!.

  18. Uhhhh... by k-0s · · Score: 2, Funny

    Remind me again how getting nearly $4/gallon gas for free from ExxonMobil and it's $8.4 billion quarterly profit is scary.

    1. Re:Uhhhh... by warpSpeed · · Score: 1
      Remind me again how getting nearly $4/gallon gas for free from ExxonMobil and it's $8.4 billion quarterly profit is scary.

      Well if you are morly challenged, then I would say nothing is wrong with it. Stealing from anyone, is, well, stealing, no matter how big a boogie-man you make the large "heartless corperations" out to be.

  19. Good new for people with implated RFIDs by danceswithtrees · · Score: 1

    For those who leaped before looking, this must be great news. Take for example

    http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/12/003 1213 or this guy
    http://www.bmezine.com/news/presenttense/20050330. html

    Oh well.

  20. Hacking? by tehcyder · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Have we now given up on using the word hacking except in a perjorative sense?

    The examples given all appeared to be illegal to me.

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  21. Well by ShooterNeo · · Score: 3, Informative

    RIFD technology has the potential to do everything it's backers claim. Inventory tracking for all manner of transportation and commerce could be MUCH more efficient because it is possible to read hundreds of tagged items at once, and without having to rotate the items to expose the barcodes. Unlike a barcode, or a credit card which is basically just a magentic barcode, easily readable with commonly available readers or even iron filings, RFIDs can be made to keep their codes secret with encryption. It has to be competently done encryption, with secure, proven algorithms and a unique encryption key for EVERY device (it would be retarded if a bank made all of it's rfid credit cards, for instance, use the same key)

    Credit card theft and misuse could be almost eliminated with better cards that use encryption so the code changes every time they are used. No longer would the number of your visa card suffice, every transaction would need a new code. For a business relationship, you would press a button on the card to generate a code that a particular merchant could then use repeatedly to charge the card from, and only that merchant.

    Of course, every security measure can be broken. Thieves could still swipe actual cards (and they could be cancelled just as quickly like it is today, but no thief could use the card without phyisically possessing it). With electron microscopes and specialized equipment someone could read the codes out of memory for a card, and create duplicates : but the cost and time involved could easily be so onerous that no criminal ever did it.

    I think the slashdot mentality is one of fear of the tech because if the megacorps deploying these cards screw it up, we could end up with a system far less secure than we have now. For instance, wireless internet could have been made pretty much 100% secure from the start, but instead was pathetically easy to hack and far less secure than standard cat-5 jacks with no log on.

    I imagine a future walmart or best buy where you grab anything you want to buy and throw it in a mostly plastic shopping cart. You wheel it through a special detector booth enclosed on three sides, and with one big electronic beep EVERYTHING gets instantly scanned, and a total price comes. You take your credit card out of its protective foil sheath, push a physical button ON the card (or press your thumbprint to it), and put it into a little recess on the self checkout machine. You close the foil lined door, another beep follows, you open the door and the transaction is done. 15 seconds, start to finish, whether you are buying 1 item or an entire cart full. No more lines at stores that use the technology, ever. Instead of 30 clerks on the job at Walmart, there are just 4 or so "customer service representatives" to handle problems that come up. There's a roll of bags if you want to bag your own stuff, but otherwise you just push the cart right on out of the store. The guards even at best buy never bother to inspect your cart because each expensive or routinely stolen item has a deeply embedded rfid tag with a writable (WRITE ONCE) field that "knows" if it has been bought. Everything in your cart gets interrogated when you push it through the doors.

    No need for a paper receipt, either - a customer id for who bought the item is on the tag for each item. When you return stuff, you don't need a receipt, either, the clerk can quickly scan all your items when returned and press one button to instantly refund your money or give you store credit with your store card.

    Course, this is the real world. We can't get fcking word processing to work without any trouble at all on computers in offices because viruses, bloatware, stupid users, features creep, and constant other problems mean that the commonly used Word is MORE trouble prone that windows and DOS word perfect I used back in 1990. That's like a modern car being out performed by a model T! I can imagine this RFID stuff not working right either, or a health scare starting up due to the magneti

    1. Re:Well by fredklein · · Score: 1

      "The guards even at best buy never bother to inspect your cart because each expensive or routinely stolen item has a deeply embedded rfid tag with a writable (WRITE ONCE) field that "knows" if it has been bought. Everything in your cart gets interrogated when you push it through the doors."

      Problem: When an item is returned, how do you change the "WRITE ONCE" field to reflect the item is no longer sold???

      Problem: What if someone makes an emitter that set all the "WRITE ONCE" fields to 'sold' as they walk around inside the store? Even if they don't steal any items themselves, it could cause problems.

      Problem: I use my own bags to bag my products. My bags are foil-lined. This method is currently used to defeat EAS tags now.

    2. Re:Well by Mark_Uplanguage · · Score: 1

      I think the slashdot mentality is one of fear of the tech because if the megacorps deploying these cards screw it up, we could end up with a system far less secure than we have now.
       
      Even in the ideal example you provide, I STILL need to SEE the receipt to make sure I was charged the right amount for each item. This doesn't guarantee that the system is up-to-date with prices, coupons, rebates, sales, etc. One big beep, and I can get screwed even with all the security measures in place and working properly because the company messed up their inventory system.
       
      I see this scenario most likely in a grocery store where price change is probably more frequent than anywhere else (of course I'm making that statistic up, but it seems likely).

      --
      "The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." -- Albert Einstein
    3. Re:Well by ShooterNeo · · Score: 1

      Ideal solution : throw even more tech at the problem! Use LCDs or OLEDs for the SIGNS labeling products on sale. So, above/below each item for sale an electronic display would have both the name of the product and the current price as of right now. This information would be pulled from the same database that the store computer looks up the price from when you go to check out...

      Course, you can see where this is going. A good implementation, using high quality electronics and software...with the level of care put into it that the software that say, runs on TI calculators, has, or maybe good medical equipment, would work better than the system of paper tags we use now. (and clueless store employees who screw up entering into the 'system' the new prices)

      But a mediocre, 'Microsoft' grade implementation...would have so many glitches and mysterious problems you'd WISH there were just simple paper tags. Lol people would hand-write labels and afix them over the electronic labels that either are out of order or show the wrong price.

      Oh, and a hackers dream if you could get in, say if the store computers were running M$ SQL connected to an accessible network...
      Imagine typing a few keys and watching the prices on the item you want to buy plummet as you watch...or installing a 'prank' application that randomly adds or subtracts from each price in the store a penny at a time, EVERY SECOND.....so as you look around at the countless glowing labels, they change price constantly...

    4. Re:Well by ShooterNeo · · Score: 1

      Problems 1 and 2 are easily addressed. The tag is write once but has an additional field that can be incremented to show the item as having been returned, resold, ect. Each tag has a unique 128 bit encryption key (unique to THAT tag...yes it's a lot of data to process I suppose, but nothing to modern computers, much less the ones when this tech hits the mainstream) that must be known by any equipment that communicates with the tag. So an emitter wouldn't work unless it had access to this database, and any applications accessing the key database would have to be carefully written and kept simple.

      Problem 3 is what the guard at the door is for. He doesn't need to check receipts any more, but he does need to look for items that are bagged supiciously, no different than today with clerks at clothing stores. Bags would be transparent, or at least very translucent, so the guard can spot foil linings.

      Another idea is that the store continuously pings every few seconds every expensive item in the store that has not yet been paid for. If someone puts one into a foil bag, "kidnapping" the RFID chip, the store quickly notices and notifies someone. This would require VERY rock solid technology to not have an obscene number of false alarms, however. Also, passive RFID chips wouldn't cut it : have to use active ones with tiny lithium ion battery packs, would only be cost effective for VERY expensive, small items.

    5. Re:Well by llefler · · Score: 1

      Ok, I'll waste those mod points I used... Problems 1 and 2, the item itself doesn't care if it's been sold, the store's security system does. The register marks item 245435 as sold in inventory, and the security system queries the inventory. If the database says sold, no need to sound an alarm. If the item is returned, it's added back to the store's inventory. All you have to do is verify that the tag can't be destroyed or removed, and that the security system is capable of scanning any tag leaving the store. They already have experience with that kind of thing.

      --
      It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
    6. Re:Well by ShooterNeo · · Score: 1

      Oh. Yep, easier solution and the tags don't have to be writable. I'm not an RFID programmer, I just thought it seemed like a cool way to do it. No need for any tags to be writable actually, just that they have a unique tag code and encryption key. Oh : they need to make sure the tags have enough bitspace for any conceivable use of the tags. Would be a real pain if every store in every major country went to the system, and then we run out of bitspace for the tags and readers at some future date. I think 128 bits for the tag code, and 128 bits for the security key should be sufficient, I vaguely recall 2^128 is more particles than there are in the universe.

    7. Re:Well by Kirth+Gersen · · Score: 1

      So you're leaving Walmart, you already paid. Then an alarm goes off as you pass the double secret sensor. You're surrounded by armed guards, who whisk you off to a Homeland Security interrogation center in Pakistan to find out how you managed to disable the RFID on one of the items at the first sensor.

      A couple of years later, as you sit drinking Victory gin...

  22. Hobbiest hacking of RFID by Iphtashu+Fitz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    After the recent reports that companies like Levis were testing RFID tracking in their clothes I started searching around to see what it'd cost to get an RFID reader if I wanted to start tinkering. Although self-contained hand-held readers are still quite pricey I did find an alternative. There are companies that are selling RFID attachments for Palm and Windows CE devices. For about $200-$400 you can buy an RFID device that plugs into an SD slot. Depending on how much you want to pay you can get just a reader or a reader/writer. With a little bit of software work it probably wouldn't be very difficult at all to whip up an RFID "skimmer" that you could just stick into your pocket. Just casually walk buy a security guard and steal his access card, walk around a store and reprogram prices, etc. and nobody would know it was you since you're just walking around and the device in your pocket is doing all the real work.

  23. Re:Uhhhh...Someone pays by SirLanse · · Score: 1

    Unless you are spoofing the speedpass of the CEO of Exxon,
    the poor schmuck whose speedpass you cloned will get the bill.
    It is stealing from that person. They could notice the extra
    fill-ups on the bill and try to fight Exxon about them.
    I'm sure that they would win any court battle.
    Feel good that you are getting "FREE GAS" and forget that
    you may have robbed some poor kids of christmas.

  24. Kick Me by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why not just tattoo our personal ID info on our foreheads in radar-colored ink?

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  25. Needed: RFID shredders by Secrity · · Score: 1

    A common paper envelope provides sufficient shielding to prevent the visual reading of a credit card, and the credit card holder can visually determine the likely effectiveness of the shielding. Reading the magnetic stripe of a credit card while it is inside a paper envelope might be possible, but is not a likely threat. Simply putting a credit card in a shirt pocket is sufficient to prevent the surreptitious reading of common credit cards. A wallet that is shielded to prevent the reading of RFID tags would be much more complex than a paper envelope or shirt pocket, and the holder of the RFID cannot determine for himself the likely effectiveness of the shielding. When a user opens an RFID wallet, would he be exposing the rest of his RFID's so that they can be read?

  26. Shouldn't another concern be.. by dyslexicbunny · · Score: 1

    privacy concerns? Assuming the signal was strong enough and the RFID was embedded in the product (so I can't remove it), couldn't someone drive by my house and see what sorts of things I buy? Or use them to track me with tags embedded in clothing or a watch?

    I understand how they work but only know a little about RFID's integration into inventory management and the like. Are they deactivated when you check out? If not, how long would they last?

    1. Re:Shouldn't another concern be.. by Wescotte · · Score: 1

      privacy concerns? Assuming the signal was strong enough and the RFID was embedded in the product (so I can't remove it), couldn't someone drive by my house and see what sorts of things I buy?

      Let's say a company A was collecting data for marketing purposes on their product and they had an RFID tag. They drive around and collect regional data to help better market this product.

      Now let's say company B has a similar product but no RFID tag so they survey this data.. Maybe they ask if you could fill out the survey after you buy the product or maybe they just survey random people at random times attempting to collect the same information as company A.

      Now for the sake of arguement that both methods collect the same information who's will be more accurate? cost less? take less time? Now let's say this information is so vital (ignoring time/money constraints) to the company B that they are willing to go door to door to collect this information.

      What method would you rather have them use?

      Call me me crazy but in a perfect world I think privacy wouldn't exist.

  27. factual error in TFA about SHA-1 by pikine · · Score: 4, Informative

    The last sentence on page 2 says: "Compare that to the hundreds of years experts estimate it would take for today's computers to break the publicly available encryption tool SHA-1, which is used to secure credit card transactions on the Internet."

    This is incorrect.

    SHA-1 is a digest algorithm. You give it some data, it outputs a 160-bit string that represents a fingerprint of the data. This fingerprint does not allow you to reconstruct the original input, but you can use it to verify data integrity, that data have not been tempered with. This does not protect against eavesdropping. Hacking a digest algorithm means to find, in a reasonable amount of time, two different inputs that produce the same digest.

    SHA-1 is not a cipher. A cipher takes plain-text and a cipher-key in, and produces cipher-text out, which would appear to a third person without a cipher-key as a pretty random string.

    --
    I once had a signature.
    1. Re:factual error in TFA about SHA-1 by patio11 · · Score: 1

      You're both right. You're right on what SHA-1 is. They're right on SHA-1 protecting credit card transactions. SHA-1 is used to digitally sign those little certificate thingees that the trust model for https:/// is built on, and https:/// handles most (competently implemented) credit card transactions on the Internet. Compromising SHA-1 (it would have to be a pretty darn severe compromise*) would theoretically allow you to compromise the security of a credit card transaction by maliciously altering certificates to represent your servers as the ones the mark should be doing business with.

      * It wouldn't be enough to just get *any* hash collision, you'd need a string of data which would both function as a certificate and collide.

    2. Re:factual error in TFA about SHA-1 by bitspotter · · Score: 1

      SSL

      The SHA series of digest algorithms are PART of the Secure Sockets Layer cryptographic protocols, which are far and away the most popular way to secure "https://" web sites that collect credit card information.

  28. June Consumer Reports on RFID by OzPeter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The June edition contains an interesting article on RFID and its security with respect to consumers. It is a good introductory article that covers all of the main security issues. It also talks about how various people who have been influential in teh government are now working for RFID companies (one being Tom Ridge former Secretary of Homeland Security)

    What was interesting to me in the same articla is a reference to IBM having a 2001 patent application for tracking individual persons using the RFID constellation they create when carrying around a significant number of RFID tags. You nominate your target and profile what RFIDs they have, and then just look for that specific profile as it floats from detector to detector. This is scary stuff.

    On a slightly related note, I remember seeing a comment somewhere about how teenage boys could profile the RFID constellation of hot looking women walking down the street and correlate this with the Victorias Secret catalogue in order to pick who was wearing the hot lingerie. This is a weird but possible new behaviour that RFIDs is opening.

    Of more importance, I saw recently a reference to an RFID tag that could be embedded in currency notes as an anti counterfitting measure. Imagine how the muggers would jump on board this if it comes true.

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    1. Re:June Consumer Reports on RFID by enjahova · · Score: 1

      A less scary and more useful application would be something that helps track TV remotes or keys.

      You would attach an RFID tag to each item, then set up a few readers to triangulate the position. If all the equipment becomes cheap enough (it will) you could set up readers around the house/appartment, then just look at your computer to see where your keys are on the map of your appartment.

      You just made me think of a useful application of position tracking with RFID

      --
      "how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
  29. Exxon Speedpass already being worked on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mean we are already working on a device that confuses the reciever into thinking it is being worked on by a technician and shuts of but lets the pump open for inspection thus letting it pump gas and whoala free gasoline. Plus, it is easy to break into one of those pumps and add in a card read that reads off the card number from your debit/credit card and PIN number if you use debit. Technology is amazing, is it not?

  30. I beg to differ by BitterAndDrunk · · Score: 1, Interesting
    All the locks in the public showers in the Cambell/Landon/Mayo dorms at Michigan State were installed because a "grabber" was hiding out in showers and . . . well. . . grabbing.

    Why do I know? BECAUSE I WAS THAT MAN. Not really. I lived there during that time, in 1995.

    --
    You better watch out, there may be dogs about . . .
    1. Re:I beg to differ by jandrese · · Score: 1

      Someone who cops a feel is a little different than a sexual predator at least in my mind.

      You also hear stories of college guys hiding out in the women's bathrooms to sneak a peek. That doesn't make them sexual predators either in my book.

      On the other hand, the RFID systems implemented at colleges seems like a good method of detering pervets like these, at least until they overwrite a card with someone else's ID and get them in trouble.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    2. Re:I beg to differ by MADCOWbeserk · · Score: 1

      Do it once to a girl you know, you are not predator. Starting hanging out in the shower and doing it to random girls on a regular basis than there is something wrong with you.

    3. Re:I beg to differ by jc42 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Someone who cops a feel is a little different than a sexual predator at least in my mind.

      Of course, the courts may think differently than you do.

      We had a good example hereabouts (a suburb of Boston) a few years back, when there was a news story about a college student who'd had a few drinks on a Saturday night relieved himself in an alley. Unfortunately for him, he was spotted by a cop, arrested, charged with, and convicted of indecent exposure. It was pointed out in the news stories that now he'd have to register as a sex offender anywhere he ever lived again.

      Among all the comments of the draconian nature of this, there were a few that pointed out another problem: To many of us who read the stories, the phrases "sex offender" and "sexual predator" now induce the thought "Probably another guy caught peeing in a dark alley."

      Someone once observed that a problem with unjust laws is that they bring the entire legal system into disrespect. Some of the best examples are the extreme reactions to things like this.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    4. Re:I beg to differ by metternich · · Score: 1

      Or, if you live in Maine, you might get murdered be some vigilante because you had sex with your 15 year old girlfriend when you were 16, (and therefore had to publically register as a sex offender.) This happened a few weeks back and was in the news, at least in the Boston area.

      --
      Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
  31. Hello noobcakes by BitterAndDrunk · · Score: 1
    It's not getting gas for free, it's getting gas from someone else's speedpass. I.e. identity theft.

    Which is pretty scary if it's YOUR SpeedPass they're using.

    Noob.

    --
    You better watch out, there may be dogs about . . .
    1. Re:Hello noobcakes by k-0s · · Score: 1

      I see you obviously own ExxonMobil stock. Please now, nowhere in the article does it state there was identity theft. In fact, if you read the article *gasp* it says the follow, "Using a laptop and a simple RFID broadcasting device, they tricked the system into letting them fill up for free." As for "Noob", please, maybe 15 years ago. *MAYBE* ten years ago that title might have offended me. Come on man, you're in your 30's now, no need to speak like a 14 year-old "k-rad leet haxor".

    2. Re:Hello noobcakes by nolife · · Score: 1

      I would not technically qualify that as indentity theft unless you consider the Speedpass part of your identity.

      I have a Speedpass and from what I've understood from the contract agreement they supply with the device is any unauthorized charges should be handled in the same manner as an unauthorized charge to the credit card that the Speedpass is linked to. Meaning, call your CC company and dispute the charge with the added step of calling Speedpass and disabling the device. I've never actually had to do that yet though so YMMV.

      --
      Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
    3. Re:Hello noobcakes by peacefinder · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Using a laptop and a simple RFID broadcasting device, they tricked the system into letting them fill up for free."

      As in so many things on slashdot, the definition of "free" matters here. In this case, it could mean
      1) no one was charged for the fuel by ExxonMobil.
        or
      2) some other ExxonMobil customer was charged for the fuel, but the pumper was not charged.
        or
      3) the fuel was liberated. :-)

      It seems to me that #2 is by far the most likely, which is probably what the GP poster was getting at.

      As for calling it "identity theft", as the GP did, that's daft. It's just a plain run-of-the-mill theft.

      --
      With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
  32. Ancient RFID Hacking at Bethel Park HS by Isquaredare · · Score: 0, Funny
    At the Bethel Park High School Library in 1977, they installed crude RFID tags in the spine of all of the books. As you checked out a book, the bold Librarian Gary Hutton would wanded the spine to deactivate the tag.

    If they failed to deactivate the tag, or if you tried to steal a book, the system would sound an alarm, and Gary would be in an uproar. He might even have called the elderly Mrs. Simpson as backup. I recognized the 400Hz. tone as being a Mallory Sonalert.

    Seeing as how we were already using the ASR-33 Teletypes with acoustic couplers in the Library to hack into local dial-up modem mainframes, I felt that a new hack was in order.

    I had a Mallory Sonalert from a recent dumpster dive where my brother worked. I wired it and a 9v battery to a momentary switch and kept it in my coat pocket.

    On occasions, I would situate myself in a library desk near the checkout. When Gary would wand a book, I would sound my alarm. Then, with a red face, he'd retrieve the book, and wand it again. I'd beep. He'd wand again. And again. Then, I'd stop before his blood pressure popped his head off.

    Sometimes, I'd activate my Sonalert when Gary walked past the sensor gate. Sometimes not. I was having fun.

    Why the long story? Well, just to let you know that hacking in a jovial sense can be a pantload of fun, and that you might not have to hack the internals of a system, to hack a system. That was 1977 folks - RFID (even in a crude sense) has been around for a while.

    Our hacking was not malicious, it was fun. We never caused harm, and we never left tracks.

  33. Subscriber only by poulbailey · · Score: 0, Troll

    That's cool. Do you have any other links to sites that don't contain the article you're talking about?

    1. Re:Subscriber only by hal9000(jr) · · Score: 2, Informative
  34. hm by xIcemanx · · Score: 1

    Some interesting scenarios and experiments: snagging the code off of a security badge and replaying it to gain access to a secure building; vandalizing library contents by wiping or changing tags on books; changing the prices of items in a grocery or other store; and getting free gas by tweaking the ExxonMobil SpeedPass tags.

    Interesting, though in today's climate it seems the fourth option is the only real way to make any money off of this.

    1. Re:hm by l5rfanboy · · Score: 1

      Unless #1 allowed you into areas wherein which there was expensive equipment, IP data, or any number of other things. Any company that relies solely on 1 piece of security is sorely lacking in that respect.

  35. Overstated by Mateo_LeFou · · Score: 1
    "are you really going to slam it shut in the face of the guy who says he lost his keycard, and is hovering right outside the door"

    No. It's not polite to slam doors in people's faces. But you could say "Sorry, I can't let you in" and just "close" the door. That guy might think you're a dick but the potential rape victims won't.

    --
    My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
    1. Re:Overstated by jsight · · Score: 1

      He also might grab the door and get in quickly behind you anyway. These are college kids, remember? So the next question is... would you report him?

    2. Re:Overstated by Mateo_LeFou · · Score: 1

      "He also might grab the door and get in quickly behind you anyway. These are college kids, remember? So the next question is... would you report him?"

      Here's the weird, counterintuitive bit: No. A predator would not grab a door and force hisher way in. Would draw attention (yours). So a person behaving rudely like this is almost certainly harmless.

      'Course now that I've posted this theory on /., all the stalkers know about it and we'll have to figure something else out.

      --
      My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
  36. do the WORM! by MrSquirrel · · Score: 0

    There are WORM (I think that's the acronoym) write-once read-many tags which can only be written to once (by the end-user, kind of like how you can print on a piece of paper just once but you can read it many times). These are relatively hacker-proof... the only danger is reading the information. Reading information from passive tags (WORM tags usually are) requires them to be very close to the reader (or the reader to be "MORE POWERFUL THAN HULK, HULK SMASH!"), so much so that the only viable scams would be to get people with RFID cards in their wallets to sit on your scanner. ...do I see Santa Claus stealing little kids' information in the future?

    --
    A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
  37. Most CARS have secret RFIDs to allow US gov spy ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    TOP SECRET FACT:Most modern cars have tracking transponders! While you drive on highways. Wires in the road and 14 feet above, work fine and log your car movement.

    Spy transmission chips embedded in tires that can be read REMOTELY while driving.

    A secret initiative exists to track all funnel-points on interstates and US borders for car tire ID transponders (RFID chips embedded in the tire).

    Yup. My brother works on them (since 2001).

    The us gov T.R.E.A.D. act (which passed) made it illegal to sell new passenger cars lacking untamperable RFID in the tires allowing efficient scanning of moving cars.

    Your tires have a passive coil with 64 to 128 bit serial number emitter in them! (AIAG B-11 ADC v3.0) . A particular frequency energizes it enough so that a receiver can read its little ROM. A ROM which in essence is your GUID for your TIRE. Multiple tires do not confuse the readers. Its almost identical to all "FastPass" "SpeedPass" technologies you see on gasoline keychain dongles and commuter windshield sticker-chips. The US gov has secretly started using these chips to track people.

    Its kind of like FBI "Taggants" in fertilizer and "Taggants" in Gasoline and Bullets, and Blackpowder. But these car tire transponder Ids are meant to actively track and trace movement of your car.

    Taggant chemical research papers :
    http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/ ~ota/disk3/1980/8017/801705.PDF
    (remove spaces in url from slashcode if needed)

    I am not making this up. Melt down a high end Firestone, or Bridgestone tire and go through the bits near the rim (sometimes at base of tread) and you will locate the transmitter (similar to 'grain of rice' pet ids and Mobile SpeedPass, but not as high tech as the tollbooth based units). Sokymat LOGI 160, and Sokymat LOGI 120 transponder buttons are just SOME of the transponders found in modern high end car tires. The AIAG B-11 Tire tracking standard is now implemented for all 3rd party transponder manufactures [covered below].

    It is for QA and to prevent fraud and "car theft", but the US Customs service uses it in Canada to detect people who swap license plates on cars when doing a transport of contraband on a mule vehicle that normally has not logged enough hours across the border. The customs service and FBI do not yet talk about this, and are starting using it soon.

    Photos of tracking chips before molded deep into tires! :
    http://www.sokymat.com/index.php?id=94

    PLEASE LOOK AT THAT LINK : Its the same shocking tire material I have been trying to tell people about since the spring of 2001 on slashdot.

    a controversial dead older link was at http://www.sokymat.com/sp/applications/tireid.html

    (slashdot ruins links, so you will have to remove the ASCII space it inserts usually into any of my urls to get to the shocking info and photos on the embedded LOGI 160 chips that the us Gov scans when you cross Mexican and Canadian borders.)

    You never heard of it either because nobody moderates on slashdot anymore and this is probably +0 still. It has also never appeared in print before and is (or was) very secret.

    Californias Fastpass is being upgraded to scan ALL responding car tires in future years upcoming. I-75 may get them next in rural funnel points in Ohio.

    The photo of the secret high speed overpass prototype WAS at :
    http://www.tadiran-telematics.com/products6.html ...but the shocking link finally died in July 2004 and the new location 2005 does not have a photo of a RFID bridge underpass RFID database collector. But this 20005 link below does discuss their toll booth RFID tracking uses...

  38. not so much of a fud but "heads up" by pikine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think you underestimated how a read-only RFID tag can still be subject to play-back attack. You can fake the presence of an RFID. This becomes a problem when the person deploying RFID doesn't understand the consequences. For example, since perimeter security assumes that authorization is equivalent to the presence of an ID, being able to fake RFID violates this assumption and breaches security.

    TFA mentions a couple of these examples, where deployment is flawed. The flaw is not in the RFID technology.

    As for encryption, if the RFID always echoes back the same cipher-text, then it is still subject to play-back attack. Encrypted authentication is only useful if there is some sort of challenge-response protocol. I'm sure you know all this.

    --
    I once had a signature.
  39. the courts beg to differ by BitterAndDrunk · · Score: 1
    Grabbers are considered sexual predators by the courts, in IL at least. And they should be. . . it strikes me jumping out of the bushes/hiding in showers to grab a woman against their will should be Not OK and is indicative of compulsion, not "kids will be kids".

    At 18 you should know better.

    --
    You better watch out, there may be dogs about . . .
    1. Re:the courts beg to differ by jandrese · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying it's OK behavior by any means, but it doesn't seem like something that should put the poor dumb 18 year old on a sex offender registry. It's certainly something the school should punish him for, but the last thing the kid needs is a felony conviction.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    2. Re:the courts beg to differ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Imagine such wisdom coming from someone who calls himself (herself?) Bitteranddrunk. sigh.

    3. Re:the courts beg to differ by mikelieman · · Score: 2, Informative

      If the ladies were properly armed with handguns, this sort of thing wouldn't happen.

      --
      Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
    4. Re:the courts beg to differ by CharlieHedlin · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it would be really convienent to carry a handgun into the shower... I am certainly for the right to carry, but it has some limits to its usefulness (but these shouldn't be legal limits).

    5. Re:the courts beg to differ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Yeah, it would be really convienent to carry a handgun into the shower...

      ...but, women have built-in holsters!

  40. You're Safe in My Library by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am a techie librarian, you can put away your pointy tinfoil hat.

    Our RFID tags are write-once-only. Once we've written the tag, it can't be over/re-written. Yes this means we have to throw a tag away if someone writes the wrong thing to it.

    Our tags only include the barcode of the item on the shelf. Our library catalog does not allow searching by barcode, so there is no way for an outsider to link the barcode to what the item is short of physically possessing the item.

    So, maybe all those other nightmare scenarios have some credence, but I can sleep at night about our RFID implementation, and you can too.

  41. I for one... by sherpajohn · · Score: 1

    welcome our new RFID Tag pirating overlords.

    Seriously though - I hope organizations which are implementing this are seriously considering the security risks and implications. Though I fear the people trying to sell them this technology are emphasing the cost-savings and largely ignoring the potential for abuse.

    --

    Going on means going far
    Going far means returning
  42. RFID used for the wrong thing by Proteus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A lot of these problems stem from using RFID as authentication (esp. single-factor) rather than identification.

    Most of the good RFID-enabled security measures I've seen essentially use the RFID as a rapid user ID. When I approach a secured door, the RFID says "this is Proteus", and a second device (PIN-pad, hand scanner, etc.) says "ok, prove it". That's much the same as a username/password pair, except cloning the RFID has a higher work-factor than guessing a user ID (e.g. it requires physical proximity and specialized hardware).

    That doesn't mean RFID isn't secure. It's just that too many people are using it as magical techno-faery-dust to solve security problems, and that behavior leads to insecurity.

    Of course, there are real security issues with certain RFID applications. The DoS that can result from removing/altering the tags is concerning -- makes one wonder why the RFID tag in a library book (for example) needs more data than an unalterable serial number. Can't the readers correlate that number with record in a DB?

    Add to that the issue of tracking that comes with things like implantable RFID chips. Yeah, those could just be a serial number. But imagine stores putting RFID scanners in their doorways: they know the ID# of everyone who went in and out of the store, and even if they can't correlate that with your identity, the police could. Now, what if I clone your ID# and rob a store?

    Again, though, that's not a problem with the RFID tech, but with an ill-concieved implementation and too much trust. The only security problem with the tech itself is the overwriting/erasing issue.

    --
    We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
  43. College Classrooms by azap · · Score: 1

    My College uses these to lock and unlock ALL the doors. The "security monoculture" is a serious issue that people will have to realize, but untill they do thing my get "stoled"

    1. Re:College Classrooms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those darn stolers.

  44. New Hampshire Resists Real-ID by Plugh · · Score: 3, Informative
    There is a very active resistance to Real-ID here in New Hampshire. We came within a whisper of passing a law (HB1582) that would have explicitly rejected Real-ID; there was an incredibly passionate speech on the floor of the House of Representatives: here's the video

    In addition, there was a large rally at the NH State Capitol; here is that video.

    Unfortunately, our State Senate pulled some extremely underhanded parlimentary tricks to kill HB1582; all the gory details (and sound bites from the Senate) are here. The good news is, we here in the "Live Free or Die" still actively resisting this intrusion into our privacy!

    We take privacy seriously here in New Hampshire, especially privcay from the gorram Government!
  45. Re:$1000 + Infrastructure + First Customer by mpapet · · Score: 1

    The cards alone aren't the cost barrier.

    It's the implementation of a contactless crypto card where it all goes to pieces.

    Your -special- prox card is one card per building/office that's duplicated many times. No crypto, it just sends it's unique ID to the reader when powered. The reader is programmed to accept that card code.

    Now, to add a little crypto to the system means perhaps the contactless card does a little computation, or decrypts a message sent from the reader to the card, then returns it to the reader. We're talking about 1 or more seconds passing. Definitely beyond the average medium-traffic door. I haven't even gotten into personalizing the card and sending that data over yet. And then there's the reader that is still horribly expensive.

    FYI, there are a number of proprietary contactless products out there:
    1. Sony's Felica(sp?)
    2. Mifare Some megacorp... (ISO 14443 + proprietary?)
    3. HID's "prox" (many buildings use this)

    The ISO standard is 14443.

    The insecurity comes from the really dumb contactless cards that are essentially open, just power the card and query for it's contents. This is where all the volume is and probably will be for quite some time.

    If you are actually concerned, then you should probably stick with magstripe insecurity for your bankcards in the U.S.

    Happy hacking!

    --
    http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
  46. Re:New Hampshire Resists Real-ID - not True by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    not true...

    new hampshire did nothign to stop the RFIDs hidden in cars from being used by federal authorities to track and log car movements.

    Refer to long detailed post regarding RFID in cars... all cars sold in New hampshire in fact without exception.

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=186652&cid=154 02408

    For some reason no one mods anymore on slashdot so people in New Hampsire probably over looked it unless they read at "anon whistleblower" level of 0.

    I agree newhampsire is more free than most any other state... but they do plan on tracking citizen movements... just as all gasoline sold in New Hampshire has chemical signature "taggants" added.

    The kids burning churches in geogia this year in 2006 were caught not from "luck" or "police talent" but because soley on the gasoline taggants traced back to point of purchase. Amusingly that fact was never divulged in the press. In fact disinformation regarding tire tread database was used. HA!

    The truth is taggants and RFID make lots of anonymous movement difficult.

    New hampshire does not care about rights.
    read http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=186652&cid=154 02408

  47. The technology is there - just use it... by simpleGeekMan · · Score: 1

    I am so sick of hearing people/articles complaining about RFID insinuating that simply because people don't know how to utilize it properly, it is an evil idea to implement it (for security purposes)...It is pretty similar to WiFi in that people who don't really know what they are doing will put it out there with no enccryption because they are stupid/careless, but the techology is there to lock it down. The RFID tags we use at my company cost ~$1.50, and have encyption capabilities. The way these cards work is the RFID reader/writer sends a signal activating the card. The card responds and you then have to provide it with the correct encryption key before it will send ANY data. In addition, the response time is (by-design) a slow .07 seconds, so to try to crack the 12 digit hex key by brute force could take up to 624 thousand years.

    (&HFFFFFFFFFFFF * .07 sec) / (60 sec/min) / (60 min/hr) / (24 hr/day) / (365 day/yr) = 624786 years

    Additionally, the readers we utilize have a relatively weak signal that is only good for a few inches, so for someone to try to steal the key while it is in the air, they would have to be pretty much touching the reader and the rfid chip during that .07 second transaction...

    People using unencrypted RFID are asking for trouble, but if you want to implement it securely, there are paths you can take to do so with confidence.

  48. RFID Hacking by sarlos · · Score: 1

    If RFIDs become as ubiquitous as people suggest, how about the simpler scenarios?

    Let's say a store begins tracking its inventory through RFID usage. One could potentially build transmitters that make it look like someone is pushing the equivalent of a tractor trailer full of goods around in their shopping cart. If these RFIDs are used to check items as someone is going out the door, how hard would it be to dump them on someone else to disguise your own act of shoplifting?

    These are rather tame examples, but I see RFID spoofing as the biggest immediate threat.

    --
    Government's view of the economy: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving,regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.
  49. Re:New Hampshire Resists Real-ID - not True by ravelkinbow · · Score: 1

    I live in NH and there are many people here who care very much. We have been fighting and are one of the only states even trying to stop Real ID. We also tried to do something about RFID with bill HB203 however the senate killed it as well. Don't confuse RFID with Real ID they are two separate and important issues.

    --
    "Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God."
  50. Producers of RFID-shielding wallets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  51. it's a tough call by BitterAndDrunk · · Score: 1
    I happen to know the NW University sexual offender. And he's . . . sort of creepy. And when I say sort of creepy, I mean really fucking creepy and should probably have to be supervised around women.

    He was complaining one night about the tests they make him take to determine rehabilitation and how they're rigged. He then went into how the questions were all subjective. Stuff like "when walking around at night do you look into people's windows" or soemsuch. They were really straightforward questions and he was getting them wrong.

    It was hilarious that he'd overthink it, but also sort of terrifying. THAT'S a grabber. Not some punk kid making an unfunny joke.

    --
    You better watch out, there may be dogs about . . .
  52. Re:Most CARS have secret RFIDs to allow US gov spy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because the gov't tracks when you sell your tires to your neighbor, put on snow tires, etc.
    You're nuts

  53. Re:Uhhhh...Someone pays by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Welcome to the USA, where you don't pay for anything when your card is stolen. Federal Law.

  54. Money talks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The story goes that when speedpass, or at least the patents it was based on, was originally being developed by Exxon engineers there was full intent to include encryption. Exxon, however sold the patents off to Mobile for the startling sum of 1$, and when mobile implemented it, they cut the encryption to shave a few bucks off the per-unit.

    Of course this was years and years ago so whatever encryption they had included would have been obsolete now, so I suppose the point it moot.

    We should; however, assume that any mass-produced rfid technology is going to have the least amount of security possible, just enough to not alienate the majority. Considering the majority thinks that opening internet explorer is synonymous with starting the internet, it will be a while before we see secure rfid in any notable capacity.

  55. dunno if you'll respond but by BitterAndDrunk · · Score: 1
    is there an objection to the content of my post, or simply the handle?

    That'll teach me for picking a handle after reading Alternet.org on a friday night.

    --
    You better watch out, there may be dogs about . . .
  56. Cookies? by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "He programmed RFDump with the ability to place cookies on RFID tags the same way Web sites put cookies on browsers to track returning customers. With this, a stalker could, say, place a cookie on his target's E-ZPass, then return to it a few days later to see which toll plazas the car had crossed (and when). Private citizens and the government could likewise place cookies on library books to monitor who's checking them out."

    This makes no sense. Either he has to get access to the library/E-ZPass data (in which case no cookie is needed) or the library needs to be writing to the tag - which it doesn't do.

    Can anyone invert the ignorant-reporter-transform which has been applied to this paragraph?

    --
    Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
  57. Security lapse down the road by sharpestmarble · · Score: 1

    From TFA: > "We don't expect that retailers will use RFID like this at the product level for at least 10 or 15 years." By then, Truchsess thinks, security will be worked out.

    Isn't this kind of lax attitude how a number of our current security flaws have come about? Through lax attitudes at first?

    Spam: Authenticating the other computer all the way back to the original computer could have helped with this.
    Phreaking: Likewise. DDoS: Likewise. Need I go on?

    --
    AC's modded -6. I don't see you, I don't mod you, anything you say is lost. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
  58. Conan the Librarian can tackle part of this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is a solution out there. Wierd Al knew about this and proposed the idea of having Conan the Librarian manning all libraries and keeping a check on people who vandalize books by swapping tags. Hasta la vista, baby! You'll never be back.

  59. My friend was luckier by lorcha · · Score: 1
    In college, a buddy of mine took a piss in the middle of the road in front of his apartment. Of course, as he's finishing, he sees the flashing lights behind him of a police car. When the cop found out that he was within 50 feet of his apartment which presumably contained a toilet, he was cited for (I shit you not) "depositing human waste".

    Fortunately for my friend, he went to court and the judge laughed his ass off before dismissing the charges. I guess not everyone is so lucky.

    --
    "Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent