[121235] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Default Passwords for World Wide Packets/Lightning Edge Equipment
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Wed Jan 13 13:46:37 2010
From: Barry Shein <bzs@world.std.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:45:42 -0500
To: "Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX)" <lyndon@orthanc.ca>
In-Reply-To: <131bdfb5cefa3ffcec401bc35352ad8f@yyc.orthanc.ca>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org, nonobvious@gmail.com
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about RFID tags. I'm hardly
an expert but I do know this much:
RFID tags are generic, you don't put data into them unique to your
application.
All they are is a range of long serial numbers guaranteed to be
globally unique, like ethernet macs more or less.
You get an RFID tag, associate it with a piece of equipment, enter the
tag serial number and other info INTO YOUR OWN INVENTORY DATABASE, and
stick it on the equipment.
Then you can later use a wand which can retrieve the RFID tag number
at some distance, a few feet, think: supermarket checkout.
The big advantage of RFIDs is that you don't need line of sight access
like you do with bar codes, they use RF, radio frequency.
Think: anti-shoplifting tags, most of them are basically RFID tags tho
older ones don't have a unique id which is why they had to be
physically removed or disabled.
More modern anti-shoplifting systems wand the tag id (possibly via an
externally printed bar code because point of sale (POS) systems aren't
quite there yet) into the POS system so the anti-shoplifting exit
system can look it up to see if the item has been paid for.
A system which also used these to track equipment being removed from
an area or building would be a relatively straightforward plus.
It may not stop someone but it might know exactly what time it passed
out the door to help with any investigation, or in a more secure
environment one might have to mark the RFID tag as authorized to go
out the door via some security process, or at least associate its
leaving with a security badge or whatever id is used.
It's much better than sliced bread for some apps except that they make
for really lousy BLTs.
On January 13, 2010 at 11:23 lyndon@orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX)) wrote:
> > Barry's right, for at least some scenarios. If I have an unauthorized somebody
> > walking down the row with a wand in their pocket, the fact they have a wand in
> > their pocket is the least of my problems.
>
> Encrypt the data?
>
--
-Barry Shein
The World | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com
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