Radio frequency technologies are put to tests of security - The Boston Globe
The same technological advances that are making personal computers smaller and phones more energy-efficient are turning gadgets that use radio frequency identification, or RFID, into appealing targets for hackers.
Radio frequency chips and antennae, which typically transmit small amounts of data in quick exchanges with reader devices, are used in E-Z Pass systems on highways. Consumers who tap their MasterCard PayPass bank cards on wireless readers are also using RFID technology.
But as radio frequency chips evolve to store more data and to transmit signals over greater distances, the devices can also be coaxed into giving up personal information, specialists say.
Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, is among the privacy advocates worried about RFID security. Ozer said an RFID-enabled passport card issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, called US Passport Card, is vulnerable to wireless attacks.
