[LINK] Researcher developing anti-RFID device

[Adam Todd]

Great so whilst the governments of the world are trying to implement them, 
technologist are trying to prevent them being useful.

I suppose there will be a law saying any person with a device or mechanism 
to prevent and RFID being read is guilty of a criminal offence and subject 
to ten years jail - next ...



At 11:30 AM 24/07/2006, brd at iimetro.com.au wrote:
>Researcher developing anti-RFID device
>By Laurie Sullivan
>24 July 2006 10:27
>itNews
>http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.aspx?CIaNID=35170
>
>Researchers in Amsterdam say they have completed a device that prevents radio
>frequency identification tags from being read. The university professor
>overseeing the project says the goal is to protect people from a technology
>that is gaining wide acceptance but has the potential to compromise consumer
>privacy.
>
>RFID chips, as small as a gain of sand, are being embedded in people, money,
>passports, and clothing from T-shirts to shoes. They're being used to monitor
>vehicle traffic, track inventory and livestock, identify missing pets, and 
>help
>pharmaceutical companies fight counterfeit drugs.
>
>Vrije Universiteit Professor Andrew Tanenbaum said this week that the PDA-size
>handheld device - dubbed RFID Guardian - beeps, warning a person when a RFID
>scanner is near and trying to read a chip embedded in a piece of clothing the
>person might be wearing, for example. advertisement
>
>"Industry thinks nothing about invading your privacy," Tanenbaum said. 
>"European
>banks plan to put RFID in money, larger bills. That means a robber can 
>walk down
>the street with a scanner to find out how much money you have in your 
>pocket and
>determine who will make the best target."
>
>The RFID Guardian runs on a 550-Mhz XScale 32-bit processor with 64 MB of Ram
>that functions as the central nervous systems. XScales are often found in PDA
>and mobile phones, said Tanenbaum. The protocol stack was written in C to run
>on top of eCos, an open-source operating system.
>
>Tanenbaum and a team of students are working on further developing the 
>software,
>looking into building multiple protocol stacks that can run on the device. 
>Plans
>also include fully debugging the device and securing the communication channel
>between the device and readers. Tanenbaum envisions spending the next few
>months debugging and preparing the device for commercial use.
>
>Forrester Research principal analyst Christine Overby, who follows RFID in the
>retail industry, said these types of devices points to a need for consumer
>privacy, but "I don't think you'll see any mainstream adoption."
>
>Some consumers view RFID technologies as a threat to civil liberties, said Liz
>McIntyre, co-author of "Spychips," a book on RFID and privacy. The technology
>industry would "love to shift the burden of protection onto consumers, who
>should not have to worry about whether the things they wear and carry contain
>tracking devices," she added.
>
>Other companies are also developing products designed to protect consumers 
>from
>RFID. Gartner research vice president Jeff Woods said RSA Security, a company
>that protects online identities and digital assets, created the RFID blocker
>that works similar to the RFID Guardian Project. "The RSA blocker is a system
>that 'confuses' an RFID reader and prevents it from reading personal or 
>private
>tags," he said. "The challenge for RSA was to define which tags were 
>private and
>who had access to them."
>
>--
>Regards
>brd
>
>Bernard Robertson-Dunn
>Sydney Australia
>brd at iimetro.com.au
>
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