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Clipped Tags: IBM's solution to RFID security woes
Remember how we've been harping forever about how awful RFID is, security-wise? Specifically, how everything from your credit card data to your passport info can be hacked pretty easily? Well, IBM's new solution to this problem is not to change the way RFID works, but rather, to just snip off part of the antenna. Calling the new technology "clipped tag," Big Blue claims that this would reduce the range of RFID tags from 30 feet to mere inches, meaning a potential malfeasant would have to get awfully close to their target to steal data. Fortunately for us, clipped tags are set to ship this week, according to InfoWorld. The magazine also interviewed Dr. Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada, who said that "the clipped tag concept solves a problem she has wrestled with for years: how to protect a consumer's privacy while still offering them the benefits of RFID technology." And as we all know, as Ontario goes, so goes the rest of the world. [Via The Inquirer]
