RFID Watchdog
Normally, I don’t repost things I see on Boing Boing, but in this case [link to http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/06/personal_firewall_fo.html no longer works], I’ll make an exception. Cory linked to a paper by Melanie R. Rieback and Georgi N. Gaydadjiev titled, A Platform for RFID Security and Privacy Administration [link to http://www.cs.vu.nl/~melanie/rfid_guardian/papers/lisa.06.pdf no longer works] which discusses the design and implementation of RFID Guardian [http://www.rfidguardian.org/], which is in effect a mobile RFID firewall that in the long run could be built into a phone or pda.
I’m very excited about this project. We’ve posted several times here about various issues and solutions around RFID, and it’s nice to finally see a potential solution that does not involve wearing aluminum underpants.
I note with pleasure that Andy Tanenbaum is also listed as an author. IIRC his group also got some press for developing a proof-of-concept “RFID virus” about a year or so ago. Good stuff. The downside now is that for those of us who came to security via UNIX, the meaning of “SIGINT” has now been overloaded. :^)
Ms. Rieback gave a very cool presentation on RFID Guardian at Defcon last summer. Not often that you see the material from a Defcon talk in the LISA Best Paper 😀