Viudez_Mickael

RFID in Singapore Monday, October 1 2007 The company A*STAR is pushing ahead with efforts to help Singapore firms adopt RFID technology, according to news reports. Four agreements signed on Thursday indicated the technology will get a big push used in the retail, healthcare, pharmaceutical and logistics industries. MediaCart Asia, for one, will invest $2.5 million into developing RFID-enabled shopping carts, reports //Channel NewsAsia// http://www.rfidnews.org/weblog/2007/10/01/rfid-in-singapore/

RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification. It first appeared in tracking and access applications during the 1980s. These wireless systems allow for non-contact reading and are effective in manufacturing and other hostile environments where bar code labels could not survive. RFID has established itself in a wide range of markets including livestock identification and automated vehicle identification systems because of its ability to track moving objects.

Global standardization
The frequencies used for RFID in the USA are currently incompatible with those of Europe or Japan. Furthermore, no emerging standard has yet become as universal as the barcode. How come governments are just starting to use RFIDs now? Aside from the over-optimism common to many new technologies and the concerns of privacy activists, RFID did badly for two reasons. The first was that a veritable Babel of incompatible standards grew up. Despite the simplicity of the technology in the tag-and-reader system, which dates back to the aircraft transponders used in the Second World War, RFID systems needing co-operation between many links in a supply chain (called “open loop” systems) proved hard to set up. The lack of a common standard for tags and readers to begin with, and the later battle between various high frequency (HF) and ultra-high frequency (UHF) products meant you could not be sure the data on a tag could be read all along the supply chain.

Viruses
[|Ars Technica] Reported in March 2006 an RFID [|buffer overflow] bug that could infect airport terminal RFID Databases for baggage, and also Passport databases to obtain confidential information on the passport holder. Now, so as not to seem too alarmist, it's important to note that traditional computer systems are vulnerable to viruses as well. Still, we use them all the time, including for mission-critical applications. Hopefully, the new research will encourage the industry to beef up the security of tags, readers, and backend systems before RFID viruses move from theory into practice.

Passports
In an effort to make passports more secure, several countries have implemented RFID in passports. However, the encryption on UK chips was broken in under 48 hours leaving millions of citizens vulnerable. Since that incident, further efforts have allowed researchers to clone passport data while the passport is being mailed to its owner. Where before a criminal had to secretly open and then reseal the envelope, now it can be done without detection adding significant insecurity to the passport system. Without access to the digital signature used by the passport issuing authority to protect the integrity of the data, this can't be done. The forgers //could// therefore attempt to crack the signature for the passport variety of their choice, but simply gaining access to the key via corrupt officials or espionage could turn out to be a quicker route. With this in mind, it's worth noting that ICAO, which devised the system, anticipates that keys //will// be compromised, and puts forward steps that should be taken to protect the system when this happens.

Cancer risk
On [|September 8], [|2007], veterinary and toxicology studies spanning the last ten years surfaced indicating that RFID chips induced [|malignant tumors] in laboratory animals. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the agency that approved the use of the chips in the United States, refused to respond to questions from the media about their awareness of the studies. [|VeriChip Corp.] maintains that the chips are completely safe and that they were unaware of the studies. The studies were somewhat limited in scope, lacking [|control groups] that did not receive chips and failing to test large animals such as dogs, cats, or primates. As a result, most of the studies included cautionary language against making assumptions about the chips causing cancer in humans based on the study results. When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients' medical records almost instantly. The FDA found "reasonable assurance" the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005's top "innovative technologies." But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.
 * Along with Intel, big technology companies are showing greater interest in RFID, with giants such as SAP and IBM developing products to gather and organise the huge amounts of data associated with RFID systems. But nobody is predicting a sudden breakthrough. Mr Read says that RFID is now making progress a small step at a time. But he expects faster growth over the next three years, causing the global RFID market to swell from $2.8 billion in 2006 to $8.1 billion by 2010 (see chart). With many teething problems overcome, this might well happen. But similar claims have been made before.**