This week's overblown privacy scare, courtesy of RFID tires

Alright, everybody panic: they can track us through our tires! Just like how all those nefarious nasties have been stalking our women and children via Nike+iPod, it turns out the new RFID-based pressure gauges in our tires can be turned against us for tracking purposes by the evil hax0rs. Of course, with the kind of range available to RFID, if you're close enough to a car to track it via RFID, you can probably see it with your eyeballs, and data collected by stationary RFID sensors to track the comings and goings of such compromised vehicles seems to be of minimal use, but that doesn't mean we can't get our panties all in a wad and start screaming bloody murder about privacy and stuff. But in all seriousness, would it really hurt to put a bit more encryption on these things?

[Via Techdirt]

[Mike @ Dec 27th 2006 11:39PM]

You're RFID range logic doesn't make sense. In all likeliness the roads will soon be embedded with trackers for possibly traffic monitoring or something, which would allow someone to crack into a system and track a person in their car from the moon!

[Sid Upadhyay @ Dec 27th 2006 11:41PM]

Personally, all the hoopla over this is ridiculous. We need the tech and the abuses of it are minimal so the over baring mothers whom are worried over this are at the best misinformed and just being protective.

[RijilV @ Dec 27th 2006 11:42PM]

Hardly over-blown: it would be much easier to install a RFID sensor on a curb or at the gate to a parking garage and track vehicles than it would be to get a clean shot of the license plat and do OCR on it later. Also, you run into a similar idea with passports; rigging a bomb to explode when the correct tag was in close proximity. The argument is this requires much less gear and is much cheaper than any other way of fingerprinting a car.

If the tags fall into easily identifiable groups, such as by year or by area of distribution, that is also a concern. An attacker could notice if a tire from a batch that was delivered to the USA showed up in Iraq and trigger an "improvised explosive device".

For the record, Michelin has been putting RFID chips in tires for years now...

So what does it take before people get concerned? Round up all the handicap and Gypsy's? Or maybe we need 24/7 satellite tracking of everyone on the planet? Any amount of tracking, watching, surveying, logging, or collecting information about the whereabouts of citizens should be closely examined - this is where it starts.

[Deluxe @ Dec 28th 2006 12:14AM]

I think tinfoil comes in 50 meter rolls now :D

[Osborne @ Dec 27th 2006 11:54PM]

This is ridiculous. RFID isn't yet the technology to be worried about. Cell phones are far easier and more useful to track than this, everyone has one, no worries. When there's a complete RFID network such that any THING can be tracked anywhere in the world then let's be scared. Or rejoice that the world has that cool technology :)

[Salad @ Dec 28th 2006 1:14AM]

Yes, but it's hard to keep the tinfoil stuck to your tires.

[pvilleSE @ Dec 28th 2006 1:32AM]

If you are really concerned they make metal duck tape which should block the signal just put some of that over the tag. Or we could go back to those cool cars that had the body of the car cover the tires and so long as the body is metal that should block the signal well enough.

Anyway I don't know how much of a concern this is since I don't know much about it and how the tags are being linked to people(if there is a database or what). Personally I buy most my tires used from a junk yard so I think I'm safe.

[Kevin Murphy @ Dec 28th 2006 2:40AM]

Umm... encryption on RFID? Whatever do you mean? RFID is passive, powered by the incoming signal, which also limits the range, so active encryption ain't going to happen. If you mean that the number returned is encrypted, how about we just return the number and claim it's the "encrypted" version of some other number.

[CritSafetyBoy @ Dec 28th 2006 6:58AM]

Re: Sid Upadhyay

Personally, I am in favor of over baring mothers. Most of the mothers I see dress much too conservatively.

[Eddie @ Dec 28th 2006 7:21AM]

Heh. Nice one.

[jbz @ Dec 28th 2006 11:27AM]

If all the RFID tags in this system are being used for is to track the current inflation state of the tire, it seems like there would be an easy fix - just use repeating identical tags in the tires. You'd have to make sure the same tag wasn't duplicated anywhere on the car, but otherwise, it'd be just like locks at Home Depot - there's a standard number of combinations in the keylock, and you pick one off the shelf. Much harder to ID your particular tire that way, esp. if they sell zillions of tires with the same RFID.

Now, if you're the only person in the neighborhood using them, maybe not.

[Matthew @ Dec 28th 2006 4:27PM]

Another abuse of the term RFID unfortunately. The Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems are not about identification, they are about sensor data (pressure). That said, whenever you have a mandated feature in a car (thank you TREAD act) it is cause for companies to do it as inexpensively as possible. Since these sensors in the valve stems of the tires need to talk to the specific vehicle they need to be identifiable so the car knows which ones to listen to, hence the identification.

I see 2 options, but I am sure there are more
1) Be willing to pay an extra 10 dollars on your new vehicle, as well as on each new tire purchased from now on, in order to have some additional level of encryption, and remember to thank the government and society that LOVES litigation.
2) Live with the fact that if someone wants to track you they can and will be able to, and they will most likely NOT be using the TPMS in your vehicle to do so.

[p taylor @ Jan 18th 2007 4:09AM]

Remember that RFID is primarily a stock control device so is very useful for keeping track of tires let alone any other use. The RFID is also useful if another tire recall is ever instituted and yes it does work with TPMS but that is not a mandatory use as TPMS sensors can transmit their own ID.

One thing overlooked here is the truck re-tread industry where tires go through the process up to 3 times. Companies feel a lot better getting back their own re-treaded carcasse rather than just anybodies re-treaded tire. Michelin embedded tags will stay with the carcasse for life.

It will be even more important if run-flats gain ground as writing the miles travelled on a flat tire will decide whether it is safely repairable.