Tiny Flaws Can Be Tracked to Make Mass-Produced RFID Tags Unique and Unclonable

Can't touch this

By Jeremy Hsu Posted 03.12.2010 at 5:20 pm 4 Comments

Unique RFID Physically unclonable RFIDs rely upon manufacturing flaws as their secret Verayo

Tiny manufacturing flaws on the atomic level might cause most companies to throw up their hands, but MIT-spinoff Verayo saw them as the key to creating the perfect anti-counterfeiting tags for everything from Walmart DVD shipments to futuristic passports. The company's radio frequency identification (RFID) tags rely upon no two chip being exactly alike on the atomic level, Technology Review reports.

Miniscule flaws because of a slightly thicker or thinner wire can mean tiny variations in how fast a circuit works on a chip. Srini Devadas, an electrical engineer at MIT and Verayo founder, saw that as as the key to creating physically unclonable devices.

Devadas realized that running a series of signals through the imperfect circuits can create a string of numbers unique to each circuit. The string of numbers became the basis for a whole series of mathematical equations that create many challenge and response pairs unique to the security of each chip.

That means a forger can't hope to copy an RFID chip even if he or she intercepts the RFID signals being transmitted, because it's literally impossible to perfectly replicate each and every flaw.

Someone could still beat the system by getting their hands on the challenge-response pairs for RFID tags. But these imperfect circuits should form just one part of a much larger defense against counterfeiting, experts say.

Verayo already has contracts for even more sophisticated systems with the U.S. Department of Defense, and other companies have begun developing physically unclonable security systems.

If you're not as worried about counterfeiters, and just want to keep track of all your personal gear, there are already DIY RFID kits that have you covered.

[via Technology Review]

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4 Comments

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tmarti69

03/14/10 at 4:17 pm

This concept may be used to increase human rights, union rights, and health care, by making a tariff at sales possible. Middle ticket items made in your country are given a unique ID tag and a unique sales tax. Rather then trying to control tariffs at the border of an entire continent, effectively control them at the sales counter. An island state or country like Hawaii or The United Kingdom can effectively tax importers without over taxing their own goods, but on the scale of an entire continent that is impossible till now.

Imagine being able to give tags and unique taxes to your own countries goods and other countries that have school systems and enforce child labor laws, thereby penalizing those that do not. Perhaps even enforce union rights abroad by unique sales taxes that create funds that allow and assist union workers abroad. Oppressed union members abroad are given currency to spend by internet on goods in your own country. This allows a country to directly enforce and give benefits to fellow foreign union workers abroad. Perhaps even donations on goods of countries of need can be directed right the cash register supporting foreign aid and commerce directly.

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soylent

03/14/10 at 6:21 pm

Why in the world would I ever want to enforce the rights of union parasites to use violence against their employers?(i.e. beat up "scabs" or force employers to negotiate with them)

To whatever extent unions are ever successful their wages are stolen from non-unionized workers.

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The Famous

03/15/10 at 3:59 pm

Wow, great job going off-topic! Next time I read a PopSci article about the newest camera feature, I think I'll begin a debate about the virtues of photography!

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airforce cmd

03/21/10 at 6:21 pm

I am not an expert, but it would seem that a stint in a microwave oven might change things just a bit.

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