RFID Chips Reveal the Undercover Agents

Aurelia Masterson asked:


Executive Summary – At the Defcon Hacker Conference in Las Vegas, Undercover Federal Agents, and probably foreign agents, were attending. Probably to see what is going on, look at the booths and identify attendees through photos taken surreptitiously. The hackers set up RFID chip readers at a table the attendees needed to walk by in plain site. They started getting hits from government agency issued ID cards. Undercover operatives like to carry their credentials with them and these credentials have RFID chips. The credentials help them explain concealed guns and other problems that may come up when they are undercover. Their credentials are usually like a two fold wallet, say about 6″ by 3″. They look very official and apparently now have RFID chips placed inside them. The hackers were kind enough to snap the photo of everyone who they got an RFID hit on.

They also got whatever data that was contained on the chip. The govt RFID chips would be encoded but their other RFID chip cards on them would have real id info on them, think driver licenses, passports, credit cards etc. Apparently the effort was designed to show the feds that these RFID chips are extremely privacy invasive. They made their point. Any business wishing to see who is an agent need only set up an RFID chip reader at the entrance point. The data collected by the RFID chip reader in plain site was destroyed. Allegedly 30 or so individuals were walking around the conference with RFID readers in their backpacks collecting data that was not destroyed.

RFID Chip Readers – These can be obtained very cheaply. Some new ones will be hitting market soon for under $50. They can be set up at entrances to businesses, homes etc. Interesting concept.

Anti RFID – There are faraday-shielded wallets and passport cases being sold that prevent these RFID chips from being read while contained in the case. Here is one company that sells them