LuminousVoid

Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins, who has in the past critiqued electronic voting systems, has with a team of colleagues cracked the encryption on the Mobil Speedpass and Automobile security RFID chips (these auto RFIDs are in keys, and prevent a car from starting unless they are present).

As they describe, the problem appears to be more a function of the weak encryption than any RFID related problem. But there is one particular RFID angle to this: the environmental promiscuity of the RFID chips. The chips will answer any scan within range without the “aid” of the owner — like how you swipe a credit card, but just need to stand there with this one. Though their chips’ range is short, a couple of inches, they have a video demostrating a scan of a person sitting next to them.