RFID Guardian Protects Your Privacy 65
An anonymous reader writes "A new device devised by Amsterdam graduate student Melanie Rieback is designed to serve as a portable firewall for RFID tags. The portable battery-powered RFID Guardian uses an access control list to filter RFID queries, blocking queries that aren't approved. Rieback, who is also known for being the first researcher to develop a proof of concept RFID virus, hopes to offer version 3.0 of the RFID Guardian to the public at cost."
RFID Guardian Website (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.rfidguardian.org/ [rfidguardian.org]
Dupe (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Back-compat? (Score:3, Informative)
It is an active, selective jammer for existing cards.
Re:Back-compat? (Score:3, Informative)
From TFA:
TFA goes on to explain exactly how it does it, but in a nutshell it has an internal list of RFID tags along with what it should do for each tag - block everything, only allow certain readers to access it, etc. If it's not allowed, then it blocks the RFID tag's response by jamming the signal.
But since it works by detecting and jamming the signals sent, and not by any physical connection or link to the RFID tags themselves, it should function with any pre-existing RFID tag.
Re:proof of concept RFID virus (Score:4, Informative)
ArsTechnica links to http://www10.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/technology/15
Basically, it uses buffer over flows to insert nasty code into a computer. The RFID chips contain the code and when read exploit problems in the reader. You can use commercially available tools to write your own RFID chips. Have fun.
Re:Betcha (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interesting (and not so legal) uses for this... (Score:3, Informative)
And not all chipped car keys use RFID. Some keys use the Dallas Semiconductor 1-wire technology, and require electrical contact to work. They can't be jammed by this little device.
Melanie @ WhatTheHack (Score:4, Informative)