Transcript Standardisation of the silent tag and the Privacy Ensuring Affordable

Privacy Ensuring Affordable RFID
System (PEARS) – Feasibility study
By Humberto Morán
Friendly Technologies Ltd
hmoran AT friendlytechnologies.eu
Conventional RFID Tag
Who is
around?
5342324
Issues with conventional RFID tags
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Privacy and security
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Cost
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Industrial
Consumers
Complexity
Dependency on silicon
Reliability when tag density is high
Easy to clone
Limitations of proposed solutions
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The most usual – disabling, removal or “killing” of the tag
 Prevents many pre- and post-POS applications
 Requires additional action by consumers
 Vulnerable groups (e.g. children, the elderly or technology-unaware
people) might fail to protect themselves
 Distrusted by consumers
Use of cryptography
 Tags are either too expensive, too slow or both
 Public keys can always leak and threat an entire population of tags
Watchdog devices or blocker tags
 Complex and unreliable
 Interfere with RFID networks
Introducing the Verification Tag –
only replies to its identity
Is 5342324
around?
YES
Verification Tag – remains silent
to generic interrogations
Who is
around?
(Silence)
Who invented Verification Tags?
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Invented by Cardullo and Parks in 1973 and described in
their original patent for the passive tag (US-A-3713148):
“Such an answerback signal can take the form of an
identification signal indicative of a particular transponder
means or, alternatively, the answerback signal could be such
that it would only be generated in response to a
predetermined interrogation code wherein the device would
operate as a verification system”
Advantages of Verification Tags
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Cannot be read without authorisation
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Increased reliability (no collision)
Reduced cost
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Privacy and security by design
Simpler tags
Suitability for printing
Can be built into products
Impossible to clone by non-trusted partners
Ideal for product authentication and integrity
Disadvantage: require an intelligent network able to
distribute identities as objects move around.
Advantages of Verification Tags –
authentication and integrity
Advantages of Verification Tags
– secure stock control
Advantages of Verification Tags –
Use in domestic applications
Only challenge of Verification Tags
– distribution of identities
Introducing the Predictive RFID
Network
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Special software and network of readers
Polling Readers
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interrogate in quick sequence the IDs of objects likely within
their interrogation field
able to follow objects as they move around
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Identities are sent around by an intelligent SW
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Privacy and security are embedded in the network
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More than RFID we are talking abour The Internet of
Things
Supporting Verification Tags – the Predictive
RFID Technique in a Supermarket
Exit
Entrance
Other input for the Predictive
RFID technique
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Business Workflow
Heuristics and “learning” algorithms
Reader workload
Security considerations
Timeouts to broaden polling area
Dynamic input for mobile readers
Anti-interference and anti-eavesdropping mechanisms
PEARS – Project objectives
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To explore Commercial and Technical feasibility of a highvolume RFID system based on the Verification Tag and
Predictive RFID
Commercial feasibility:
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Alternatives to print tags – cost reduction
Capacity planning
Business cases
Technical feasibility:
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Manufacturing options
Reader and tag speed
Development of protocols
Simulation SW
Project details
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18-months (until June 2009)
Approx budget of £250k (Scottish Government, project
partners)
Partnership is flexible and voluntary
No co-funding for associated members
Every partner keeps own background and foreground IP
The long-term objective is to pave the way for a bigger
research, development and standardisation project
PEARS Partners (commited
and/or interested)
Verification Tags and Predictive RFID: enabling
the socially-acceptable Internet of Things