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An RFID Privacy Platform (M)

Status: Abgeschlossen

RFID tags might replace and improve upon the traditional ubiquitous bar code in consumer products in the future. Due to the automatic and invisible nature of the tag detection process, the impending ubiquity of RFID tags also poses a threat to consumer privacy. Recent research to address the RFID privacy problem has mainly focused on securing the air interface between tags and readers such as the blocker tag or silent and random tree walking algorithms (insert quotes).

The goal of this Masters thesis would be to develop an RFID Privacy Platform that is based on the fact that novel generations of RFID readers can make only those tags respond with data over the air interface whose serial number match a certain pattern, e.g. certain shelf readers would only ask tags attached to Gillette products to respond. The RFID readers would in addition publish their "target serial numbers" and potentially corresponding product descriptions over a non-RFID channel. A personal mobile device carried by the user would receive this policy and compare it to the RFID policy of the consumer. The following negotiation could result in the RFID reader adjusting his policy depending on the services the user would like to receive.

This Masters thesis involves designing the proposed RFID privacy platform in detail, comparing it to existing approaches to address the RFID privacy problem and implementing the RFID privacy platform in a demo scenario.

Student/Bearbeitet von: Roland Schneider
Contact/Ansprechpartner: Christian Floerkemeier, Marc Langheinrich

ETH ZurichDistributed Systems Group
Last updated May 7 2012 07:19:04 PM MET cfl