Everyone who has been part of the internet technology knows what an RFID chip is and probably what it’s used for, or perhaps we should say, what it will be used for. The tiny chips that are called RFID are actually becoming a rapid part of the offline and online world.

Even if you have no idea what Radio Frequency Identification Devices are, chances are that you have one in your pocket right now, or at the very least in your wallet or purse. They are small radio frequency chips. That is to say, they transmit waves on a radio frequency.

A vast array of the credit cards that you are carrying will be touched up with RFID chips. It takes a lot less time to complete your credit card transaction when they are. Now honestly, they are fairly harmless all on their own. They don’t make a move without your approval.. well, sort of. They don’t do a single thing unless someone around you is in possession of a credit card, or an RFID reader.

Now unknown to most of us, when you step inside your local Walmart you’re walking through an RFID reader. Those two big bars that you walk though are RFID readers that send out signals to your credit card. Who knows, maybe they are what gets you to spend more than you meant to. We’re kidding, but the reality is that RFID technology isn’t that secure. In fact, its frighteningly insecure considering what they are being proposed for.

Today’s gasoline pumps give you an RFID reader. It lets you go out to the pump and pay your bill rather than paying it inside the store. For those of you who are not aware of this some of those RFID chips charge you a holding fee after hours. They may bill you as much as 100 dollars extra on the pump after closing hours, so take care when you use the RFID pump payment method. We digress however, the point of this was to tell you more about the RFID technology.

We’ve all seen the new RFID readers that let you just hold up your card and swipe it randomly across the window to get what you want. Nice touch isn’t it, and so handy. Did you know that the RFID readers that you’re seeing in that store can be built for your own use, or that of an identity thief for as little as 250 dollars using equipment that is easy as pie to get . The directions are available to you online on multiple websites. Here’s one now as a matter of fact. http://wearables.cc.gatech.edu/resources/wearableRFID.html

And another. . .http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~yash/kw-usenix06/index.html

And another. . http://www.rfidtoys.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=210&PID=970&title=how-to-build-a-handheld-rfid-reader

Well you get our drift. They aren’t the least difficult to make, none of these parts are even remotely restricted, and anyone can use your RFID chip against you. The most interesting RFID reader that we saw built online was one sewn into a glove. With a bit of range extension, you could actually get your card read simply by someone walking past you or shaking hands with you.

The positive side of the RFID is that is can save you valuable time. The truly down side is that you can lose your identity and your money. There have already been cases of RFID impelled identity theft. The technology isn’t very old to be this well used and the subject of theft.

New passports contain the same RFID chips now. The government tells us that’s so we’re more secure and we’d just love to buy into that theory… except for that pesky thing called reality. Since RFID is proven to be insecure, and those who use it and study it know it to be an insecure technology why on earth would someone add it to your passport and tell you it’s to keep you safer.

Does the whole thing sound a bit on the dodgy side? Defcon 2009, which I was proud to be a part of, showed the government and the world how on what shaky ground they were basing their claims of improved security. DEFCON, for those of you who don’t know, is a hacker convention but the goal isn’t to commit a crime, it’s to show you, and the world what can happen using the technology that is touted as secure.

If you’re interested in how it all turned out, check out the ZDNET blogs from last year’s DEFCON and find out what could have happened and realize that it could have happened as easily on the street as it did in the hotel. Federal agents carrying RFID cards found out how easily they could be and in fact were owned by the well meaning hackers of the convention. RFID is exploitable. It is remotely readable.

Believe us when we say that someone, sometime, when we least expect it WILL exploit them and the results won’t be as pretty and nicely wrapped up and given back to you as they were at DEFCON.

Adam Laurie, author of the RFIDiot (RFID I/O tool) says, “It takes a few milliseconds to read and, depending on what equipment I’ve got, doing the cloning can take a minute. I could literally do it on the fly.”

RFID wallets and other things are being offered as the means to protect you. In all honesty, they aren’t going to completely protect you. Buying one as a method of shielding you may work. We hope it works.

Here’s the freakishly scary part of the entire RFID technology thing; the United States government in their infinite wisdom claims that RFID will assure your security. DEFCON and the federal agents being discovered by the RFID reader that was build there, apparently taught the government very little. The proposal now is that RFID chips be embedded in national identification cards for you to be forced to carry, or be unable to work in the United States.

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100519/the-national-biometric-id-card-the-mark-of-the-beast/print.html

Does that frighten anyone else but us?

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