> Even an easily photo-copied cheap barcode is more secure because the
> owner would be able to secure it. RFID can be copied as owner walks
> past a car.
RFID is a fairly generic term used to cover a number of different but
related technologies. On the low end you have transponders which just
contain unique ID's like animal identification chips and proximity
building entry systems (HID). On the mid end you got encrypted memory
transponders as used on the Luas smart card and World Cup tickets
(Mifare). On the high end large memory/processor cards with Triple DES
or PKI as used in ePassports (SmartMX). Also many newer cars make use
of RFID for keyless entry/start and engine immobilisers.
I'm not even sure it's possible to copy a HID type RFID transponder, the
only hardware projects I know about are http://cq.cx/proxmark3.pl and
http://www.openpcd.org/openpicc.0.html and both of these emulate/replay
the transponder signals. Can a transponder by cloned? Probably, but
it's not be trivial.
Don't get me wrong there are security issues when you rely on a system
based solely on UID's (or other insecure implementations issues), and I
also have big privacy issues with the general use of RFID. But it can
be a very convenient solution.
Robert
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