RFID-all

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Prologue

This text is aimed at an extremely wide range of readers. First and foremost it isintended for students and engineers who find themselves confronted with RFID technologyfor the first time. A few basic chapters are provided for this audience describingthe functionality of RFID technology and the physical and IT-related principles underlyingthis field. The text is also intended for practitioners who as users wish to or need to obtain as comprehensive and detailed an overview of the various technologiesthe legal framewor! or the possible applications of RFID as possible.

Although a wide range of individual articles are now available on this sub"ect thetas! of gathering all this scattered information together when it is needed is a tiresomeand time-consuming one # as researching this text has proved. This text thereforeaims to fill a gap in the range of literature on the sub"ect of RFID.

This text uses some pictures and diagrams to attempt to give a graphic representationof RFID technology in the truest sense of the word. $articular emphasis isplaced on the physical principles of RFID which is why the chapter on this sub"ect isby far the most comprehensive of the text. %owever practical considerations are alsoassigned great importance.

Technological developments in the field of RFID technology are proceeding at sucha pace that although a text li!e this can explain the general scientific principles it isnot dynamic enough to be able to explore the latest trends regarding the most recentproducts on the mar!et and the latest standards and regulations. The basicconcepts and underlying physical principles remain however and provide a goodbac!ground for understanding the latest developments.

At this point we would also li!e to express our than!s to those webs whichwere !ind enough to contribute to the success of this pro"ect by providing numeroustechnical data sheets lecture manuscripts drawings and photographs.

Introduction

RFID its application standardisation and innovation are constantly changing. Its adoption is stillrelatively new and hence there are many features of the technology that are not well understood by thegeneral populace. Developments in RFID technology continue to yield larger memory capacities widerreading ranges and faster processing. It&s highly unli!ely that the technology will ultimately replace barcode - even with the inevitable reduction in raw materials coupled with economies of scale the integratedcircuit in an RF tag will never be as cost-effective as a bar code label. %owever RFID will continue to growin its established niches where bar code or other optical technologies aren&t effective. If some standardscommonality is achieved whereby RFID e'uipment from different manufacturers can be usedinterchangeably the mar!et will very li!ely grow exponentially.

This document tries to set out the basic information about RFID in a simple format that can beunderstood by everyone.

What is RFID?

The ob"ect of any RFID system is to carry data in suitable transponders generally !nown as tagsand to retrieve data by machine-readable means at a suitable time and place to satisfy particularapplication needs. Data within a tag may provide identification for an item in manufacture goods in transita location the identity of a vehicle an animal or individual. (y including additional data the prospect isprovided for supporting applications through item specific information or instructions immediately available

on reading the tag. For example the colour of paint for a car body entering a paint spray area on theproduction line the set-up instructions for a flexible manufacturing cell or the manifest to accompany ashipment of goods.

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A system re'uires in addition to tags a means of reading or interrogating the tags and somemeans of communicating the data to a host computer or information management system. A system willalso include a facility for entering or programming data into the tags if this is not underta!en at source bythe manufacturer. )uite often an antenna is distinguished as if it were a separate part of an RFID system.*hile its importance "ustifies the attention it must be seen as a feature that is present in both readers andtags essential for the communication between the two.

To understand and appreciate the capabilities of RFID systems it is necessary to consider theirconstituent parts. It is also necessary to consider the data flow re'uirements that influence the choice ofsystems and the practicalities of communicating across the air interface. (y considering the systemcomponents and their function within the data flow chain it is possible to grasp most of the importantissues that influence the effective application of RFID. %owever it is useful to begin by briefly consideringthe manner in which wireless communication is achieved as the techni'ues involved have an importantbearing upon the design of the system components.

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Automatic Identification Auto-ID systems have become commonplace in accesscontrol and security applications in industries re'uiring the trac!ing of productsthrough the supply chain or manufacturing process and in industries re'uiring

the identification of products at the point of sale or point of service. $erhaps themost widely recogni/ed Auto-ID system is the bar code system developed duringthe early 0123&s. 4ore recently Radio-Fre'uency Identification RFID systemshave begun to find greater use in automatic identification applications. RFIDsystems consist of Radio Fre'uency RF tags or transponders and RF tag readersor transceivers. The transponders themselves typically consist of integratedcircuits connected to an antenna 567. The use of silicon-based microchips enablesa wide range of functionality to be integrated into the transponder. Typicalfunctionality ranges from large read+write memories to integrated temperaturesensors to encryption and access control functionality. The transceivers 'uerythe transponders for information stored on them. This information can rangefrom static identification numbers to user written data to sensory data.The potential applications for RFID systems are numerous. 8onsider for example supply chain management applications and the use of 9A:-;88 bar codes. Today over < billion bar codes are scanned daily world-wide 5=7. >etmost bar codes are scanned only once during the lifetime of the item namely atthe chec! out. RFID systems if strategically deployed are a single platform onwhich a number of supply chain management applications can be simultaneouslyimplemented benefiting all parties involved in a commercial transaction? themanufacturers the retailers the users and even regulatory bodies such as theFood and Drug Administration FDA in the ;nited @tates. Automated itemlevel inventory identification using RFID systems will revolutioni/e supply chainmanagement by enabling applications such as automated real-time inventorymonitoring at the shelf and in the warehouse automated 'uality control andautomatic chec!-out.The significant benefits that an inexpensive open standards-based RFID systemcan provide are widely understood and ac!nowledged. At the same timetypical low-cost transponders are priced in the range of ;@3.<3-;@0.33 andRFID systems lac! widely accepted and implemented standards for communication

and functionality thereby limiting their practical usefulness and !eepingtheir system costs too high for many applications. In order to achieve significantitem-level penetration within most supply chain applications transponders willneed to be priced well under ;@3.03 and preferably under ;@3.3<. These costtargets cannot be achieved without a system-level approach that encompassesevery aspect of the RFID technology from I8 design to RF protocols from reader design to bac!-end data systems and from I8 manufacturing to antenna manufacturing.The challenge has been to develop a complete open standards-basedsystem that enables the design and manufacture of low-cost RFID systems.The Auto-ID 8enter an industry sponsored research center with laboratoriesat 4assachusetts Institute of Technology ;@A 8ambridge ;niversity ;B andthe ;niversity of Adelaide A; has designed developed and deployed withina large-scale field trial an open standards-based system that enables the uni'ueidentification of and retrieval of information on ubi'uitously tagged items. The

8enter in con"unction with its sponsors has also underta!en pro"ects to designand manufacture open standard low-cost RFID transceivers and transponderscapable of little more than communicating a uni'ue identifier stored within them.

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Cow-cost transponders enable the tagging and uni'ue identification of virtuallyall man-made items.The commercial availability of low-cost Auto-ID 8enter standards-basedRFID systems by mid-33E has poised these systems to be one of the earliestand perhaps most explosive opportunities in ubi'uitous computing. As thesesystems leave the industrial applications and enter our daily lives privacy andsecurity related issues will play an increasingly important role in their use and

ubi'uity. The purpose of this paper is to explain the technology the challengesand the opportunities ubi'uitous RFID systems present to the security and privacycommunities.

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RFID Actually

$otential applications for RFID may be identified in virtually every sector of industry commerce andservices where data is to be collected. The attributes of RFID are complimentary to other data capturetechnologies and thus able to satisfy particular application re'uirements that cannot be ade'uatelyaccommodate by alternative technologies. $rincipal areas of application for RFID that can be currentlyidentified include?

• Transportation and logistics

• 4anufacturing and $rocessing

•

@ecurity

A range of miscellaneous applications may also be distinguished some of which are steadily growing interms of application numbers. They include?

• Animal tagging

• *aste management

• Time and attendance

• $ostal trac!ing

• Airline baggage reconciliation

• Road toll management

As standards emerge technology develops still further and costs reduce considerable growth in terms ofapplication numbers and new areas of application may be expected.

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@ome of the more prominent specific applications include?

• 9lectronic article surveillance - clothing retail outlets being typical.

• $rotection of valuable e'uipment against theft unauthorised removal or asset management.

• 8ontrolled access to vehicles par!ing areas and fuel facilities - depot facilities being typical.

• Automated toll collection for roads and bridges - since the 0163s electronic Road-$ricing 9R$

systems have been used in %ong Bong.

• 8ontrolled access of personnel to secure or ha/ardous locations.

• Time and attendance - to replace conventional slot card time !eeping systems.

• Animal husbandry - for identification in support of individualised feeding programmes.

• Automatic identification of tools in numerically controlled machines - to facilitate condition

monitoring of tools for use in managing tool usage and minimising waste due to excessivemachine tool wear.

• Identification of product variants and process control in flexible manufacture systems.

• @port time recording

• 9lectronic monitoring of offenders at home

• Gehicle anti-theft systems and car immobiliser

A number of factors influence the suitability of RFID for given applications. The application needs must becarefully determined and examined with respect to the attributes that RFID and other data collectiontechnologies can offer. *here RFID is identified as a contender further considerations have to be made inrespect of application environment from an electromagnetic standpoint standards and legislationconcerning use of fre'uencies and power levels.

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Future Research Directions

*hile this candidate design partially satisfies some desired security propertiesmore secure implementations re'uire several developments. Hne !ey line of researchis the further development and implementation of low cost cryptographic

primitives. These include hash functions random number generators and bothsymmetric and public !ey cryptographic functions. Cow cost hardware implementationsmust minimi/e circuit area and power consumption without adversely affecting computation time. RFIDsecurity may benefit from both improvementsto existing systems and from new designs. 4ore expensive RFID devices alreadyother symmetric encryption and public !ey algorithms such as :TR; 503 0E7.

Adaptation of these algorithms for the low-cost ;@3.3<-3.03 passive RFIDdevices should be a reality in a matter of years.$rotocols utili/ing these cryptographic primitives must be resilient to power interruption and fault induction. 8ompared to smart cards RFID tags possessmore vulnerabilities to these types of attac!s. $rotocols must account for disruptionof wireless channels or communication hi"ac! attempts. Tags themselvesmust gracefully recover from power loss or communication interruption withoutcompromising security.

8ontinually improving technology will steadily blur the line between RFIDdevices smart cards and ubi'uitous computers. Research benefiting the securityof RFID devices will help pave the way for a universal secure ubi'uitous computingsystem. Developments related to RFID tags and other embedded systemsmay all contribute to the creation of a robust and secure infrastructure opperingmany exciting potential applications.

8onclusionsThe effort has been fuelled by the potential economic impact of inexpensiveubi'uitous item identification in the supply chain. The roadmap towards cheaptags has been laid out but li!e any research effort uncertainty is a part of the challenge. @everal technology alternatives will need to be tested for eachcomponent of the system before the optimal one is determined. 9ven after thefirst cheap tags have been manufactured scaling production to the volumesneeded to meet expected demand will be a challenge. It may be years before thesupply meets the enormous demand that a technology of this type is pro"ectedto generate. %owever it is these very volumes that ma!e it necessary for the

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technology to be carefully thought out to save every fraction of a cent in thecost of a tag and to ensure the security and privacy of its future users.

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References0. 4. Abadi 4. (urrows 8. Baufman and (. *. Campson. Authentication and

delegation with smart-cards In Theoretical Aspects of 8omputer @oftware pagesE=-E< 0110.. R. Anderson and 4. Buhn. Cow cost attac!s on tamper resistant devices. In I*@$?International *or!shop on @ecurity $rotocols C:8@ 0112.E. (. (ing. (roadband *ireless Access (oston Bluwer Academic $ublishers 333.. D. (oneh R.A. De4illo and R.J. Cipton. Hn the importance of chec!ing cryptographicprotocols for faults. In 9;RH8R>$T&12 volume 0EE pages E2K<0. Cecture:otes in 8omputer @cience Advances in 8ryptology 0112.<. @. 8hari 8. Jutla J.R. Rao and $. Rohatgi. A cautionary note regarding evaluationof A9@ candidates on smart-cards. In @econd Advanced 9ncryption @tandard A9@8andidate 8onference Rome Italy 0111.=. 9A: International and the ;niform 8ode 8ouncil :ote to 9ditorshttp?++www.ean-int.org+index633.html2. D. 9ngels. The Reader 8ollision $roblem. Technical Report. 4IT-A;THID-*%-

332 330. http?++www.autoidcenter.org+research+4IT-A;THID-*%-332.pdf.6. B. Fin!en/eller. RFID %andboo! John *iley L @ons. 0111.1. %. MobioN @. @mith J.D. Tygar and (. >ee. @mart cards in hostile environments.In nd ;@9:IO *or!shop on 9lec. 8ommerce 011=.03. J. %oNstein J. $ipher and J.%. @ilverman. :TR;? A ring-based public !ey cryptosystem.Cecture :otes in 8omputer @cience volume 0E 0116.00. International Telecommunications ;nion. Radio Regulations Gol. 0 0116.0. (.@. Balis!i Jr. and 4.J.(. Robshaw. 8omments on some new attac!s on cryptographicdevices. R@A Caboratories& (ulletin :o. < July 0 0112. Available fromhttp?++www.rsasecurity.com+rsalabs+bulletins+.0E. :TR;. MenuID. http?++www.ntru.com+products+genuid.htm.0. @. @arma B. Ashton D. (roc!. The :etwor!ed $hysical *orld Technical Report4IT-A;THID -*%-330 0111. http?++www.autoidcenter.org+research+4ITA;THID-*%-330.pdf.0<. @. @arma. Towards the < cent Tag Technical Report 4IT-A;THID -*%-33=

330. http?++www.autoidcenter.org+research+4IT-A;THID-*%-33=.pdf.0=. TA4$9R Cab. ;niversity of 8ambridge Tamper and 4onitoring $rotection 9ngineeringResearch Cab http?++www.cl.cam.ac.u!+Research+@ecurity+tamper.02. T. @charfeld. An Analysis of the Fundamental 8onstraints on Cow 8ost $assiveRadio-Fre'uency Indentification @ystem Design. 4@ Thesis Department of 4echanical9ngineering 4assachusetts Institue of Technology 8ambridge 4A 30E1 330.06. @.%. *eigart. $hysical security devices for computer subsystems? A survey of attac!sand defences. 8%9@ 333 Cecture :otes in 8omputer @cience volume 01=<pages E3KE02 333.01. *orld *ide *eb 8onsortium. http?++www.wEc.org+@HA$+3. *orld *ide *eb 8onsortium. http?++www.wEc.org+O4C+

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