Van Bokkelen enters the building, and Westhues returns to me. "Let's see if I've got his keys," he says, meaning the signal from Van Bokkelen's smartcard badge. The card contains an RFID sensor chip, which emits a short burst of radio waves when activated by the reader next to Sandstorm's door. If the signal translates into an authorized ID number, the door unlocks.
The coil in Westhues' hand is the antenna for the wallet-sized device he calls a cloner, which is currently shoved up his sleeve. The cloner can elicit, record, and mimic signals from smartcard RFID chips. Westhues takes out the device and, using a USB cable, connects it to his laptop and downloads the data from Van Bokkelen's card for processing. Then, satisfied that he has retrieved the code, Westhues switches the cloner from Record mode to Emit. We head to the locked door.
"Want me to let you in?" Westhues asks. I nod.
He waves the cloner's antenna in front of a black box attached to the wall. The single red LED blinks green. The lock clicks. We walk in and find Van Bokkelen waiting.
"See? I just broke into your office!" Westhues says gleefully. "It's so simple." Van Bokkelen, who arranged the robbery "just to see how it works," stares at the antenna in Westhues' hand. He knows that Westhues could have performed his wireless pickpocket maneuver and then returned with the cloner after hours. Westhues could have walked off with tens of thousands of dollars' worth of computer equipment - and possibly source code worth even more. Van Bokkelen mutters, "I always thought this might be a lousy security system."
Full story @ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/rfid.html
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on May 11, 2006]
Note: http://www.wired.com/wi...
Gizmo Geeks And The RFID Hacking Underground
Posted on Wednesday, May 10 at 08:56 by DiogenesContributed By
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I have worked many years in the security biz for many different agencies, and it makes me shudder to think that our over-reliance on technology may be allowing easier access than the technology it replaced.
Give me a good old lock and key any day.
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If there was ever a time for Canadians to become pushy - now is the time - for time is running out on this nation called Canada.
Very good article. Every piece of technology that makes things easier for us also opens us up to more invasions. The simplest way to avoid that is to live off grid. However, these issues were around for years before the advent of debit cards, RFID and the internet. The original mega fraudster, Frank Abagnale, wrote a book called the "Art of the Steal". Highly recommended. His life was the basis for the movie "Catch me if you can" with Hanks and Dicaprio. Many of the technology advents that have been created were to seal up weak links that he (and people like him) exposed. Unfortunately, the very technology used to secure information can be used to steal it as this article shows.
There is a tatoo parlour in Calgary that will implant a RFID chip in you, then help you set up your home and car to work on your personal code. Just wave your hand (with the implant), and the door opens. Until someone clones your implant.
Gimme a good dog over a keylock anytime.
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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden
How long before the so called "leaders" of this world will figure out this simple and 300 year old law and fact.
I use all the soft technology I can afford to help me do my work the esiest and quickest way possible, but I can also the all the work with handtools. Of course, computers are hi tech, but their use for communication is the greatest power in the hands of the human race in history, so we'll have to excuse them for now.
Automation and hi tech creates incompetence and helplessness, it is also the highest cost production system
in real economic terms, many times the cost of low tech and human labour. The difference is that hi tech appears to be so called "cheaper" in short term, monetary figures, but on the long term it could destroy the ecology and humanity on account of the vastly inflated resource and energy inputs it requires. Plus the inevitable breakdowns.
Ed Deak.