Security Company Tries To Hide Flaws By Threatening Infringement Suit

An anonymous reader writes: An RFID-based access control system called IClass is used across the globe to provide physical access controls. This system relies on cryptography to secure communications between a tag and a reader. Since 2010, several academic papers have been released which expose the cryptographic insecurity of the IClass system. Based on these papers, Martin Holst Swende implemented the IClass ciphers in a software library, which he released under the GNU General Public License.

The library is useful to experiment with and determine the security level of an access control system (that you own or have explicit consent to study). However, last Friday, Swende received an email from INSIDE Secure, which notified him of (potential) intellectual property infringement, warning him off distributing the library under threat of "infringement action." Interestingly, it seems this is not the first time HID Global has exerted legal pressure to suppress information.

Comments

Most hated character flaw

[Kevin Fishburne]

Nothing worse than a person who always finds a way to blame someone else for their own mistakes, except perhaps cold coffee or warm beer.

Re: Most hated character flaw

[Kevin Fishburne]

Good coffee, like Italian espresso, is awesome cold with ice.

I've heard of such drinks but never tried them. Perhaps on a hot day they'd be both refreshing and invigorating. Down with room-temperature coffee, then. Here's to piping hot or icy cold coffee and cold beer.

Logical

[Tablizer]

"Being a security company, we wanna keep our mistakes secure."

Re:IClass?

[Jahta]

NoClass sounds more like it.

"When they said you was IClass, well that was just a lie".

(ducks and runs)