It’s all about ensuring personal safety, when Wtek introduces their product line of RFID safety systems in Australia.


Wtek is a Norwegian based firm, specializing in track-and-trace solutions for harsh environments. Wtek is represented through partners in 26 countries worldwide. They have developed a unique RFID safety system, using their own Trailblazer RFID middleware.

By wearing a transmitter, the whereabouts of all personnel is verified in the case of an emergency.

The Watcherseries, with products for tunnels, mines, industrial buildings and offshore platforms will become a great contribution to existing safety systems throughout Australia.


Wtek’s RFID safety systems have already been installed in industrial production areas, maritime areas, tunnels and mines throughout Europe. Through a RFID or WiFi transmitter carried by personnel, and one or more receivers connected to a computer; administration or rescue personnel can at all times know the whereabouts of the workers.


For rescue teams, the systems are of great help if an incident should occur. For company administration the systems are of great assistance when increasing efficiency and establishing a feeling of safety among the workers.


The transmitters and receivers come in different sizes and with different specifications, to suit different customer needs. The flagship transmitter is using active RFID technology, and its size is roughly the same as a watch. Surprisingly small, when it can transmit its signal nearly 100 metres, comes with an Ex approval, and have a battery lifetime of up to 5 years.


A safety system is more than just knowing the whereabouts of missing workers, and the Watcherseries software comes bundled with a range of features for the specific environments. With many years of experience in the industry, Wtek can provide an integrated solution that will further enhance the safety in any workplace.


Source: Ferret.com


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Experts are divided on the scale of the security risk posed by radio frequency identification (RFID) wireless tag technology after a computer expert demonstrated that data held on the tags could be easily cloned.


At the Defcon security conference in Las Vegas, Lukas Grunwald of German security company DN-Systems demonstrated a way to copy information between RFID tags, including those used in new e-passports and corporate access cards.


Grunwald said the technique had taken just "two weeks and $5,000 in legal fees to develop" using inexpensive RFID hardware and scanners and homegrown software.


While Grunwald was not able to manipulate or change data held on the tags - limiting its usefulness for forging e-passports holding biometric data - the approach did quickly copy data onto new tags, posing a potential security risk for firms using the technology in corporate access cards or to authenticate products such as medicines or manufacturing components.


Nigel Montgomery of analyst firm AMR Research branded the demonstration as " sensationalist", and said the security threat posed by RFID tags was still " minimal", but admitted it was likely to hamper adoption of RFID technologies.

"RFID tags are not 100 percent secure, but what is?" Montgomery asked. " People could copy data held on tags, but it is far easier for them to copy a label and a barcode [on counterfeit medicines, for example] than find the radio frequency, copy the tag and decrypt it so they can understand what's on it."

Read more »

The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has announced plans to begin issuing electronic passports embedded with RFID chips.


By 2017, the government expects all American e-passports will eventually include RFID chips containing personal information, says Anna Hinken, a spokesperson for the DOS' Bureau of Consular Affairs.


All American passports, she says, have a maximum 10-year validity, and the DOS plans to transfer all passport production to e-passports by 2007, so by 2017, all U.S. passports in use will have embedded RFID chips. In October 2004, the DOS began testing e-passports in an eight-week trial program (see U.S. Tests E-Passports).
It started issuing e-passports to diplomats in December 2005, Hinken says, followed by government officials and their families in April 2006. Starting the week of Aug. 14, the DOS plans to begin issuing tourist e-passports for the general populace.



In January of this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) instituted a separate three-month trial to test the RFID technology underlying e-passports (see DHS Testing E-Passports in San Francisco), and in April, it started selecting interrogators and inlays for use in the eventual widespread deployment (see DHS Completes E-Passport Test at SFO). The US-VISIT Program, meanwhile, is testing RFID tags embedded in I-94A forms issued to visitors with nonimmigrant visas (see DHS Testing Tags for US-VISIT Program).

"By Oct. 26, 2006," explains US-VISIT's Kimberly Weissman, "Visa Waiver countries must begin issuing e-passports, so any traveler who wants to travel under the VWP must have an e-passport."

The e-passports can be read approximately 4 inches from a scanner. The passive 64-kilobyte RFID tags in the passports is being supplied by Infineon Technologies' San Jose, Calif., subsidiary and Amsterdam-based Gemalto.


The e-passports meet specifications laid down by the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations standards body that has urged its 189 member countries to adopt machine-readable, electronically enabled passports by 2010.


Source: RFID Journal

A number of countries around the world are introducing technology-enhanced passports designed to prevent or greatly inhibit forgery and counterfeiting. One of the key components is the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) memory chip. Residence visas and national identity cards are also beginning to include the chips.


The reason is that the chips are supposed to be nearly impossible to forge or tamper with. They are intended to store coded data, including biometric data such as fingerprints, face and iris scans, as well as all other necessary details to prove who the holder of the document is.


This week a German computer security consultant has demonstrated how to "clone," or duplicate, a specific RFID chip. Lukas Grunwald, a security consultant with DN-Systems in Germany and an RFID expert, says the data in the chips is easy to copy, and he demonstrated the technique at the Black Hat Security Conference in Las Vegas on 03 August.


The hack was tested on a new European Union German passport, but the method would work on any country's "e-passport," since all of them will be adhering to the same ICAO standard. He obtained an RFID reader by ordering it from the maker - Walluf, Germany-based ACG Identification Technologies - but also explained that someone could easily make their own for about $200 just by adding an antenna to a standard RFID reader.


A program that border patrol stations use to read the passports (Golden Reader Tool, made by secunet Security Networks) and, within four seconds, the data from the passport chip was displayed in the Golden Reader template.


He then prepared a sample blank passport page embedded with an RFID tag by placing it on the reader. The reader can also act as a writer, and the information is transferred in the ICAO layout. The basic structure of the chip now matches that of an official passport.


Finally, Grunwald used a program that he and a partner designed two years ago to program the new chip with the copied information.


The result was a blank document that looks, to electronic passport readers, like the original passport.

Read more »

Toronto-based Gao RFID, a provider of RFID interrogators, tags, antenna, modules, sample packages, evaluation kits and other products, has spun out from Gao Tek (formerly Gao Engineering), a manufacturer of engineering development tools, test and measurement instruments and electronic components for electronic engineers.


In a prepared statement, Gao Group CEO Frank Gao, explained,

"Our RFID business grows at a phenomenal rate. We have a fast-growing customer base with customers from all over the world, and developed a strong network of VARs and resellers in all of the countries with significant RFID markets. As a result, we feel that creating an independent company dedicated to RFID will serve our customers better."

Gao RFID develops integrated solutions designed to serve various vertical markets and is reportedly partnering with other RFID vendors to offer additional integrated solutions. Gao RFID and Gao Tek are members of the Gao Group of Companies, a privately owned consortium of corporations headquartered in Toronto, serving the high-tech sector.


The Gao Group also includes Gao Research, a developer of embedded communications software for voice, video, data and fax over IP/wireless, and Gao Engineering, a producer of engineering development tools, test and measurement instruments and electronic components for electronic design engineers.


Source: RFID Journal