Something with a RFID chip

Yesterday, I decided to do a little snowboarding before the year is over. Last time I was at this ski resort, they used magnetic strips on their lift tickets. This season however, they changed to a new ticketing system and instead of swiping; one could just walk up to the gate wearing the ticket and it would let them through.



It didn't really occur to me until after I left the resort that the new tickets used RFID chips. I just finished examining the ticket itself by shining a light through it and found some "wires" running through it connected to a small rectangle section off to one side. A quick search on the internet for the company "Teamaxess" on the ticket lead to Austrian based Axess AG which makes ticketing systems for theme parks, ski resorts, and stadiums. The RFID technology they used in the lift ticket was developed by a company better known for graphing calculators and Digital Light Projection HDTVs. You can pretty much figure that one out.


(You can see the "chip" over on the left underneath the picture of the snowboarder on the rail)

http://www.teamaxess.com/en/systems/skipass.htm
http://www.ti.com/rfid/default.htm

Cool!

Shortly before this pass would expire, it would have been interesting to test my RFID zapper on it and find out if it would still be recognized.

http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/10/08/rfid-zapper/

It expired shortly after I left the resort (1/2 day pass)

I have a rare-earth NIB magnet on my fridge door that I use for erasing old credit cards before I cut them into shreads but I wonder if a strong magnetic field will damage RFID cards as well. I don't have an RFID reader to check though.

My other idea was to microwave it and see if it does burn like in the 20$ bill story.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/022904rfidtagsexplode.html

I hope there's some way to hack that.

Actually, it would be fun to test an RFID reprogrammer on it

How'd you like a never-ending pass?

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/29/0321219&tid=158&tid=172

http://www.tgdaily.com/2004/07/30/black_hat/page2.html

Julian Holtz said:

Cool!

Shortly before this pass would expire, it would have been interesting to test my RFID zapper on it and find out if it would still be recognized.

http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/10/08/rfid-zapper/

Click to expand...

Hitting it several times with a hammer is also supposed to disable it (I saw that in passing on some tech blog).

greenlight said:

I hope there's some way to hack that.

Click to expand...

The basic concept is simple. You have a plug in for for your laptop that is run by a little piece of software. Either automatically or on command it sends out the same read signal as the gateway would. When the RFID gets the signal it replies. You record the reply and play it back at will. The gate doesn't know the one from the other.

Interesting discussion. Fortunately it's not too difficult to protect one's privacy from covert and scurrilous RFID scans.

WHHHhhhhaaaaaaat? Where have I been? RFIDs in Andrew Jackson's right eye? Is this for real?

Ken_McE said:

The basic concept is simple. You have a plug in for for your laptop that is run by a little piece of software. Either automatically or on command it sends out the same read signal as the gateway would. When the RFID gets the signal it replies. You record the reply and play it back at will. The gate doesn't know the one from the other.

Click to expand...

Unless it knows each individual rider... Maybe if it saw the same rider on 2 different places on the mountain (or more_) it would de-activate the pass.

Very interesting, Eye-Opening thread here !

Just stumbled upon this 4-year-old thread, and wanted to share it.

Like Sigman posted above -- i had NO IDEA ! ! !




_

RFID, or the SpyChip as some refer to them has the potential to be perhaps the most invasive, privacy intrusive technology ever devised. Eventually, corporations and governments plan to put them in EVERYTHING according to the many patents that are on file. As of now RFID chips are used in US passports, Green Cards, Enhanced Driver's Licenses, various currencies, credit & debit cards, products, packaging, shipping containers and pallets as well as many other things. Plans are in place to create what is being called an "Internet of Things" that can report on the location and use of every product and item and the people who use them. For example, it is planned and already beginning to be implemented to place highly durable, washable but almost too tiny to detect RFID chips in clothing and in all products and packing. There are plans to monitor the consumption of food in your refrigerator and the drugs in your medicine cabinet via internet enabled appliances. In theory it would be possible for someone to drive by your house and scan your garbage to learn a great deal about you. Patents have been filed for tracking people, so for example when you walk into a store a scanner in the threshold of the door will scan your wallet for your identity, financial information, credit history and bank balance so that products in the store will change price on the fly according to your net worth and previous spending habits and in-store displays will target advertising to you personally. Of course the RFID chips in the clothing you are already wearing will be scanned along with all the items on your person. When you leave the store and enter another store, the new store will already know what you purchased in the previous store, etc. All the items you've purchased will have RFID chips that can be tracked for a variety of reasons after you take the products home and will continue to track YOU and the items as you use them because this technology will know WHERE you are at all times. As has become so common in today's society criminals and hackers will target this technology. (and already are)

As paranoid as this all sounds it is real, it is well documented and it is indeed being implemented.

Although it will be easy to protect oneself from a few individual chips with shielding or by damaging individual chips they will become so pervasive that it may become impossible to avoid them.

There is also a highly controversial technology that is human implantable. A well known one is VeriChip for tracking individual people and animals. Some of these types of technologies like those being sold by the related firm Positive ID Corporation and their subsidiary VeriMed are being touted as being beneficial for medical purposes (RFID human-implantable microchip that links to a personal health record) or tracking your Granny with Alzheimer's (It is called wander control) but the concern is that this will eventually have far more sinister uses. Just a few weeks ago a rather creepy RFID electronic Tattoo called EES (epidermal electronic system) has been introduced.

Check out the SpyChips.com web site for further information about this subject.

If you really want to know more about this technology I highly recommend reading the book behind the above mentioned website - SPYCHIPS: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Purchase and Watch Your Every Move by Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre. When I first read this book six years ago much of what was in the book was projected or speculation based on interviews and filed patents but it has now become fact!

See also, Radio-frequency identification

Euro bank notes to embed RFID chips by 2005

US passports can be read and copied from a moving car using a $250 rig

Futuristic stick-on tattoos monitor health, link you to the Web

Datasaurusrex said:

Hitting it several times with a hammer is also supposed to disable it (I saw that in passing on some tech blog).

Click to expand...

This universal method works it's way into many useful applications.

EZO, that's just sad. Everything gets corrupted. Thanks for the links.

Widespread use/misuse of RFID would rely on consumer ignorance and/or consent, as it is a simple matter to block RFID signals in a way that renders the device unreadable.

EZO said:

RFID chips in clothing

Click to expand...

No more missing socks.

Norm

Pretty damned scary...

DM51 said:

Widespread use/misuse of RFID would rely on consumer ignorance and/or consent, as it is a simple matter to block RFID signals in a way that renders the device unreadable.

Click to expand...

I read the book SPYCHIPS when it was first published in 2005 and have kept an eye on the development and implementation of RFID technology ever since. Although the technology has and is becoming more and more pervasive, when I ask people about it more often than not they are completely unaware of it. Like Burgess says in Post #11 " I had NO IDEA ! ! ! "Many folks are shocked when I point out that the technology is already in the passport they may be carrying or in a PayPass Credit Card in their wallet, for example. Consumer ignorance appears to be the norm here.

While RFID has many useful and practical applications the fact is that more sinister uses such as tracking individuals are literally baked into the cake because that is how they were intended to be used in the first place. The 2001 filed patent owned by IBM, "Identification and tracking of persons using RFID-tagged items" is but one example.

DM51, what is the method you would use to make it a "simple matter to block RFID signals in a way that renders the device unreadable" if they are embedded in virtually every item of clothing, your shoes, your cell phone and every other product and item around you? They are already in clothing sold at Walmart. RFID is intended to replace the bar code and already is being used in a hybrid form using electronic inks. As I mentioned in my other post, "Although it will be easy to protect oneself from a few individual chips they will become so pervasive that it may become impossible to avoid them."

EZO said:

what is the method you would use to make it a "simple matter to block RFID signals in a way that renders the device unreadable" if they are embedded in virtually every item of clothing, your shoes, your cell phone and every other product and item around you?

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Anything made of metal will block the signal. It's similar to the Faraday Cage principle. For example, a wallet made of Aluminium foil will stop a reader from accessing your passport/CC details.

As for info in clothing etc, maybe we'll soon have to resort to wearing these: :tinfoil:

You can purchased RFID hobbyist kits from Sparkfun, Makershed and similar sites. I have a couple of these kits. It becomes a little less scary when you actually start playing with the technology and understanding it's limitations.

DM51 said:

Anything made of metal will block the signal. It's similar to the Faraday Cage principle. For example, a wallet made of Aluminium foil will stop a reader from accessing your passport/CC details.

As for info in clothing etc, maybe we'll soon have to resort to wearing these: :tinfoil:

Click to expand...

Yes, there are already a range of signal blocking products on the market such as the Identity Stronghold line of wallets, cell phone bags and credit card sleeves. When these chips are in all everyday items blocking them may indeed require tinfoil hats and stuff. I can just see it now, lots of people walking down the street wrapped up in aluminum foil! Perhaps someone will invent a simple jamming device one can wear on a neck chain or a belt. As the Identity Stronghold site points out there is a already a concern about the threat of "contactless crime" and a nascent RFID crime wave. While it could be argued that this company is being alarmist to support the sale of their products they are hardly the only ones expressing this concern. Identity Stronghold points out that you can indeed use aluminum foil instead of their products in this newscast where they demonstrate how easy it is to steal credit card data. In the same video the Secret Service claims it is not a problem because they haven't seen much of it yet. :shakehead

Here's an interesting tid-bit: Adam Savage of the science TV show MythBusters stated during the July 2008 HOPE conference in New York City, that when they were going to demonstrate how RFID worked and the vulnerabilities in financial exchange cards, their lawyers were challenged by other lawyers representing RFID vendors and several banking institutions. It was made verbally clear to the Mythbusters team that advertising for their show would be pulled by the finance industry if any demonstration of contactless card vulnerabilities was conducted.

Here's the video of Adam telling this story.