Re: Some more background on the RFID experiment in Hiroshima

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Eric Rescorla wrote:
> At Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:57:02 -0700 (PDT),
> Ole Jacobsen wrote:
>>
>> Inline.
>>
>> On Fri, 11 Sep 2009, Eric Rescorla wrote:
>>
>>> At Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:23:31 -0700 (PDT),
>>>> * Each attendee will be issued an RFID card at the registration desk. 
>>>>   The information stored on the card is ONLY a number, no personal 
>>>>   data is stored on the card. (Note: the attendee can opt out at any
>>>>   time, including not collecting the card, see below).
>>> Note that removing your name from the database doesn't remove the
>>> ability of someone to track you via the tag.
>> If this is a great concern I would suggest either returning the card 
>> or not collecting it in the first place. Also, the type or readers 
>> used require close proximity to trigger, you literally have to touch 
>> the reader with your card to make it work. So nobody from the host 
>> organization at least will be tracking you. I am also not sure what 
>> value there is in knowing that 3478273983421 spent 10 minutes in trill 
>> and then moved on to behave (pun intended).
> 
> Well, I think it's important to distinguish two different threat
> scenarios: 
> 
> 1. Tracking via the sensors that IETF has emplaced.
> 2. Tracking via sensors that others emplace [it's important to
>    note that just because the readers you have are low power
>    and can only work at close range, that doesn't mean it's not
>    possible to have readers that work at longer ranges.]

spoofing via replay is an equally viable and entertaining possibility
for something you might in the future, potentially use for an attendance
tracking system.

> In the first scenario, it's probably true that you can only
> gather limited amounts of information, but in the second scenario,
> the amount of information that can be gathered is limited primarily
> by the number of sensors you're willing to emplace. I can 
> imagine a number of scenarios where it would be attractive
> to know where a given individual is at all times (for starters,
> people often have private side meetings with customers at IETF
> and if you had positional information you might be able to learn
> about this). I certainly would not want to be tracked everywhere
> I went.
> 
> This brings us to the question of the identifiers: it's certainly
> true that systems which are anonymous but linkable offer a higher
> level of privacy than those which do not. However, it's often
> possible to determine which identifier a given person has 
> (e.g., by observing a specific persons card being read), then
> you can of course track them by name. In addition, if the
> identifier->person mapping isn't generated securely and kept
> confidential, then you may be able to quickly determine a
> large fraction of the mapping.
> 
> 
>>>> * The "information" (number) on the card is not encrypted and could be 
>>>>   read by any RFID reader, but again, it's only a number.
>>> How are the numbers assigned?
>> Don't know, but I have asked. I am guessing they are pre-assigned in 
>> the sense that each card has a unique ID that is later mapped to the
>> database.
> 
> OK, but the details matter here. For instance, if you have a stack
> of cards with sequential serial numbers and you assign them in
> sequence to the people in the attendee list (e.g., at the time
> right before the meeting), you wouldn't need to know too many 
> mappings to determine most of the database.
> 
> 
> I'm not trying to make an argument for or against this experiment:
> I don't even expect to be in Hiroshima, so it doesn't really 
> matter to me one way or the other. However, given that the IETF has
> extensive experience in this kind of secure systems design and
> in fact has an entire WG (GEOPRIV) devoted to thinking about the
> dissemination and privacy of positional information, it seems like
> it would be nice to get a little more clarity about the security
> of the proposed system.
> 
> -Ekr
> 
> 
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