RFID and ID cards
Wednesday, June 21st, 2006 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanIt’s been a while since I ranted about ID cards, but a friend has emailed me a couple of links on his favourite bête noire, RFID. He is no fan of the ID card, either, but feels (rightly so) that RFID is especially intrusive.
For those of you who are unaware, RFID tags are increasingly being used for stock control and anti-shoplifting. They are short range radio chips which help locate the item they are incorporated in. You may have seen the adverts on TV in which IBM are pushing them as a business solution (the lost trucker in the US mid West being told by his dispatcher that he is lost; the cargo knows where it is, the trucker doesn’t).
The Government is, I believe putting them in passports and would like them to be included in their biometric ID cards, too so not only can they download your entire history from the card, they can track you. You may even have one already in your credit card. HM Government would have you believe that this is not a breach of privacy and/or civil liberties because the range is too limited to be of general use (pace the IBM ad already mentioned above). The propeller beanie and lead helmet brigade have been predicting portable extended range black market scanners for a while now, which would enable you to make transactions on a card without having access to any of the details. Unsurprisingly, this prediction has been somewhat controversial and there are those who would have you believe that this is all paranoia and hysterical antiestablishment blather.
Can’t be done, won’t be done.
Except.
Given the chance, what self-respecting propeller-head wouldn’t go out and make one if he’d been told it can’t be done? Just to ensure that the debate gets a proper airing, a couple of researchers will be doing a presentation and demonstration at the next USENIX conference: including making purchases from credit cards.
As my friend says, time to wrap your passport in silver foil.
If you don’t fancy paying over the odds for a black market scanner, details on how to build one for yourself are discussed on this security blog and direct access to the paper, complete with schematics is here.
The Government would like us to pay a great deal of money for something that we don't want, don't need, which will be ineffective and which will aid identity theft.
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
For those of you who are unaware, RFID tags are increasingly being used for stock control and anti-shoplifting. They are short range radio chips which help locate the item they are incorporated in. You may have seen the adverts on TV in which IBM are pushing them as a business solution (the lost trucker in the US mid West being told by his dispatcher that he is lost; the cargo knows where it is, the trucker doesn’t).
The Government is, I believe putting them in passports and would like them to be included in their biometric ID cards, too so not only can they download your entire history from the card, they can track you. You may even have one already in your credit card. HM Government would have you believe that this is not a breach of privacy and/or civil liberties because the range is too limited to be of general use (pace the IBM ad already mentioned above). The propeller beanie and lead helmet brigade have been predicting portable extended range black market scanners for a while now, which would enable you to make transactions on a card without having access to any of the details. Unsurprisingly, this prediction has been somewhat controversial and there are those who would have you believe that this is all paranoia and hysterical antiestablishment blather.
Can’t be done, won’t be done.
Except.
Given the chance, what self-respecting propeller-head wouldn’t go out and make one if he’d been told it can’t be done? Just to ensure that the debate gets a proper airing, a couple of researchers will be doing a presentation and demonstration at the next USENIX conference: including making purchases from credit cards.
As my friend says, time to wrap your passport in silver foil.
If you don’t fancy paying over the odds for a black market scanner, details on how to build one for yourself are discussed on this security blog and direct access to the paper, complete with schematics is here.
The Government would like us to pay a great deal of money for something that we don't want, don't need, which will be ineffective and which will aid identity theft.
We have always been at war with Eastasia.