Passport RFIDs cloned wholesale by $250 eBay auction spree. "Using inexpensive off-the-shelf components, an information security expert has built a mobile platform that can clone large numbers of the unique electronic identifiers used in US passport cards and next generation drivers licenses.
The $250 proof-of-concept device - which researcher Chris Paget built in his spare time - operates out of his vehicle and contains everything needed to sniff and then clone RFID, or radio frequency identification, tags. During a recent 20-minute drive in downtown San Francisco, it successfully copied the RFID tags of two passport cards without the knowledge of their owners."
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Feb 3, 2009 -
24 comments
The guy over at
Make Your Nut is facing a dilemma I've wondered about myself: what to do about the security risks that are inherent in the many RFID-chipped credit and ATM cards that banks are so keen on issuing today? There's a
lot of evidence out there that indicates that the highly personal information these cards (and the new
US passports as well) carry can be stripped away by a thief with a little motivation and access to relatively low-cost equipment. You can go with the nifty
RFID-blocking wallets (discussed
here previously), or, according to some, you could just
grab a hammer.
posted by shiu mai baby
on Apr 30, 2007 -
26 comments
We've
discussed it before, but
RFID, that fun-loving little radio transmitter that can be attached to everything from that stereo system to a carton of milk, is plowing ahead faster than you can say "unregulated." Earlier this year, Wal-Mart
issued a mandate that required its top 100 suppliers to include RFIDs on their merchandise by 2005, bringing new meaning to the phrase
"panties in a bunch." (Incidentally, Wal-Mart was also the benign corporation
that ushered in bar codes for mass consumption in the late 70s and early 80s.) With no regulations on the table, the
New York Times reports that
the Defense Department plans to issue a statement requiring all suppliers to use RFID.
Hitachi has even offered to put it in your currency. Imagine a store a few years from now that can track all of the objects in your cart, and that, thanks to a microscopic RFID stuck to your shoe when you slide through the doors, can determine how many seconds you or your children react to a display. Imagine a world that tracks exactly where each one of your dollar bills go. (So much for the anonymity of johns and porn enthusiasts.) Is this the kind of world we want to abdicate to large retail corporations? Is this the kind of information that governments or private institutions are entitled to know? Discuss.
posted by ed
on Sep 29, 2003 -
96 comments
Not embedded in your hand, just your credit card. Your Providian VISA with Smart Chip Technology comes with a smart chip that's embedded on the front of the credit card. Soon, a smart chip will let you store information and applications that make shopping easier and more secure. Anyone here a little leary of this kind of "smart"ness? Thoughts?
posted by thunder
on Jul 3, 2001 -
23 comments
