you may clone as many people’s RFID passcards as you like, but it won’t change the fact that when you swipe it at the border it’ll be some other dude’s face that comes up on the screen.

using the RFID tags people regularly carry to ‘profile’ and thus track them is an issue that has been discussed for years, and it being reiterated by mr. paget doesn’t really bring anything new to the table.

to be honest, recently it seems that purely by playing with RFID and making some sarcastic comments one can go far in the ‘security’ community. obviously we need to approach new technologies with a cynical eye (and rigorous testing), but in this case chris paget doesn’t really say or do anything novel.

I would like to propose a new direction for further research:

The long range antenna stuff is nice for record breaking. For security there is no point in increasing the range any further. I can read your tag without you noticing … that should be far enough.

But Antenna gain and more power can also help against shielding.
Have you ever wondered why your cell phone still shows network bars within the microwave? (don’t turn it on!) The oven shields but only some dB. The GSM signal will be attenuated but there is still enough left for establishing a connection.

Same thing could be done with better antennas and higher power. A tag within a shipping container or a truck might still be readable. Or probably tags with the tin foil shield could then be read?

Only for short distance, high power and antenna gain – but there would be no way of escaping any more …

would anybody notice?