Configurable RFID Tag From 7400 Logic Chips

October 12, 2012 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

This soldering nightmare is a configurable RFID tag which has been built from 7400-series logic chips. The beast of a project results in an iPhone-sized module which can be used as your new access card for security systems that uses the 125 kHz tags. The best part is that a series of switches makes the tag hand programmable, albeit in binary.

Of course this is an entry in this year’s 7400 Logic Competition. It’s from last year’s winner, and he’s spent a lot of time documenting the project; which we love. We were surprised that this many chips can be powered simply by what is induced in the coil from the reader. This is just one of the reasons the 7400-series have been so popular over the years. After working out the numbers, a 64-bit shift register was built to feed the tag ID to the encoding portion of the design. There were many kinks to work out along the way, but once it was functional a surface-mount design was put together resulting in the final product shown off in the video after the break.

Continue reading “Configurable RFID Tag From 7400 Logic Chips” →

Store Your RFID Transit Card Inside Your Cellphone

July 17, 2012 by Mike Szczys 54 Comments

Check it out, this is a Boston transit pass — or at least the parts of it that matters. [Becky Stern] got rid of the rest in a bid to embed the RFID tag inside her cellphone.

The transit pass, called a CharlieCard, started out as a normal credit card shaped tag which you might use for access in the workplace. She unsheathed the chip and its antennae by giving it a generous soak in acetone. In about thirty minutes the plastic card looks more like paper pulp, and you can gently fish out the electronics. These are now small enough to fit in the back cover of a cellphone much like those inductive charging hacks.

[Becky] put hers in an iPhone. But the idea comes from [Dhani Sutanto] who used the same technique to extract the coil from a London transit pass. He then embedded the hardware in a resin cast ring.

Continue reading “Store Your RFID Transit Card Inside Your Cellphone” →

RFID Jukebox For The Kids

March 14, 2012 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

[Dominik] built a fun musical toy for his daughter [Anna]. It’s a jukebox that lets her play her favorite tunes using RFID tags to select between them.

The project is simple, yet robust. The enclosure is a wooden craft box that you can pick up for a couple of bucks. Inside there’s an Arduino with a Wave Shield which handles the audio playback. An RFID reader takes input from the set of card-tags he procured. An internal Lithium battery powers the device, with a USB port for charging.

Sure, those guts have some cost involved in them. But there’s no LCD which can be broken, and we thing the boards will hold up well to abuse if mounted correctly. Plus there’s a lot of future potential here. When we saw the cards we thought of those toys which make the animal sounds (“what does the cow say… mooo”). This could be used for that with really young children. Then repurposed into this jukebox as they get a bit older. If you put the guts in a new enclosure it will appear to be a brand-new toy, right?

See a demo of the project in the clip after the break.

Continue reading “RFID Jukebox For The Kids” →

Passive RFID Tag Cloning

September 30, 2011 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

Here’s an open source RFID cloner design that is about the same size as a standard RFID key card. It doesn’t need a battery to capture key codes, just the magnetic field generated by an RFID reader. You can see the functionality demonstrated in the video after the break. By holding the bottom button as the cloner is moved in range of the RFID reader, the microcontroller goes into learning mode. Now just hold up the card you wish to clone and the LED just above the buttons will light up when it has captured the code. Now the device will act just as the original RFID tag did.

This was developed by [Ramiro], the same person who built the barebones RFID emulator we saw a few days ago. When researching that story we complete skipped over this gem. He’s posted a ton of information on the tag itself. It doesn’t look like he has any PCBs or kits left, but the schematic and code are available for download. You should check in on the design considerations section because it discusses the read/write function that isn’t built into the current version. That’s why you see some add-on components on the hardware used in the demo video.

It seems like this is a lot more user-friendly than the last RFID spoofer we looked at.

Continue reading “Passive RFID Tag Cloning” →

Bringing The Game Of Tag Into The Digital Age

May 12, 2011 by Mike Nathan 8 Comments

tagurit

How long has it been since you’ve played a game of tag?

[Sylvia Cheng, Kibum Kim, and Roel Vertegaal] from Queen’s University’s human media lab have concocted a fun twist on the classic game that just might compel you to start playing again.

Their game, called TagURIt, arms two players with Lumalive LED t-shirts which sport embedded touch sensors. A third player, known as the “chaser” attempts to touch either of the other players in order to capture the token displayed on the player’s chest-based LED matrix. The game is score-based, awarding points to the chaser for capturing tokens, while giving the other players points for avoiding capture.

If both players wearing the LED shirts are near to one another, the token will jump to the other player in an attempt to thwart the chaser. In this game, each player is a location-tagged URI, and proximity is determined by either tracking the users with cameras indoors, or via RF sensors if the game is played outside.

It is definitely an interesting way of playing tag, and we imagine it could be quite fun in large groups.

Continue reading to see a video demonstration of the TagURIt game being played.

[via Adafruit blog]

Continue reading “Bringing The Game Of Tag Into The Digital Age” →

Keep Your Kids In Line With A Time Clock

December 19, 2010 by Mike Szczys 68 Comments

When the cat’s away the mice will play, but a least you’ll know when they came home if you use this time clock. It’s called the Kid-e-log and [John Boxall] developed it to help a friend who wanted to keep track of their teenage children’s after school activities while they were still at work. He figured having them punch a time clock would at least let you know if they came straight home as they were supposed to. An RFID tag was issued to each (no, they didn’t implant the tags) and used to record the time. To keep fraud to a minimum the hardware has a battery back-up for its real-time clock, and the tag read events are stored to EEPROM for retention between power cycles. This doesn’t prevent common tricks like taking the reader with you, or sending your tag with a sibling, but it’s a start. See it in action after the break.

Continue reading “Keep Your Kids In Line With A Time Clock” →

RFID Spoofer With Code And Instructions

November 28, 2010 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

Here’s a field-programmable RFID spoofer developed by [Doug Jackson]. He was inspired by the spoofers we looked at near the end of September that didn’t have source code available. With the idea seeded in his mind he figured he could develop his own version, and then decided to share the build details with the rest of us.

The tags that he purchased for testing and developing the spoofer have a code printed on the back of them. A bit of sleuthing at the data from a tag reader and he managed to crack the code. From there he built this tag spoofer with a keypad on which you enter the number from the back of any 125 kHz tag and the device becomes that tag. If you have been waiting to test your RFID hacking skills there should be nothing holding you back now that [Doug] shared the details of his own adventure.