Yahoo! News: Radio frequency identification technology (RFID) used in cash cards and passports can be copied, blocked or imitated, said Melanie Rieback, a privacy researcher at Vrije University in the Netherlands. Rieback demonstrated a device she and colleagues at Vrije built to hijack the RFID signals that manufacturers have touted as unreadable by anything other than proprietary scanners.
"I spend most of my time making the RFID industry's life miserable," the doctorate student said. "I am not anti-RFID. It has the potential to make people's lives easier, but it needs to be used responsibly."
RFID equipment makers would be wise to ramp up encryption and other security while technology is catching on, Rieback said. "If you are using RFID on cows, who cares?" she asked. "But, with a passport, it only takes one breach at the wrong time and it could wreck it for the RFID industry."
