[Rack] [Noisebridge-discuss] RFID tag research (was: Problem: people seeing NB as a backup shelter)

Jeffrey Carl Faden jeffreyatw at gmail.com
Sat May 10 06:33:57 UTC 2014


Thank you so much for going ahead and making these donations! I would like
to help out with installation, programming, whatever I can do - although
I'm not too familiar with this sort of hardware, and while I can program in
whatever language is necessary, I've never set up anything having to do
with this sort of automation.

On the topic of automation, the *unofficial* consensus is that these
readers could only be activated at a certain time, but inactive at times of
high traffic.

Do you have ideas about who can be granted these NFC cards? I believe they
should only be granted to associate or full members, as the benefit of
being an associate member is the ability to be in the space without a
sponsor. (That means if you're not one, you might want to start fishing for
sponsorships on a wiki user page.)

The problem, of course, is that you're going to get major pushback and this
entire project is going to be branded as "unexcellent" if you don't get the
support you need. People will certainly go so far as to dismantle the
system if they don't agree with it. I think you should involve the Security
Working Group, pending a future meeting, whenever that is.

In the meantime, I'm willing to meet up to discuss this. I'm available
midday tomorrow, around 11 to 3. I'd be happy to show up at the space to
discuss a plan of action.

Jeffrey

(P.S.: in response to your email in the other thread... regardless of who's
at the space or how safe it is, I still wouldn't leave my stuff there... or
anywhere like NB, for that matter.)

On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Henner Zeller <h.zeller at acm.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> Alright, as discussed in the other thread, lets install RFID readers for
> physical access control to Noisebridge to address one of the problems we
> have right now: simple access for members/associate members (or whatever
> these are called nowadays). Initially at the top door, later as well at the
> front door (in parallel to physical key and keypad).
>
> I have researched the space a bit. For one, we have a 950Mhz reader and a
> couple of tags. The experiments with these (
> https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/RFID ) had some trouble getting the
> actual device ID, only the re-writeable part (which made them hard to use a
> non-forgeable entry keys). These tags might actually be really useful to
> make sure that tools and stuff don't 'vanish'.
>
> So what else is there, in particular used for entry systems:
>
> 125kHz tags exist, are very simple and allow to give out an ID. They are
> pretty cheap (~30cent for a credit-card size). Their use is limited and
> cannot be re-written.
>
> Most promising I think is the NFC range of 13.57Mhz. These cards are as
> well pretty cheap (~30cent each at first look on ebay; other form-factors
> such as stickers exist). They come in ranges of capabilities: they all have
> a unique ID and allow to write data to it (from 64 byte up to a couple of
> kB). More higher end cards have encryption on-board. One of the great
> advantages (IMHO) is, that most common smart-phones now come with an NFC
> reader which would allow for some simple hacking. We can start with a
> simple scheme by just reading the ID (which is more level security than we
> need at NB), but playing with the memory for more things (changing random
> number on each entry, or a section with your PGP public key..).
>
> Anyway, unless there are good technical objections to using these kind of
> NFC cards, I am doocratically ordering a bunch of these 13.57Mhz cards and
> get readers and start playing; I'll donate them to NB.
> (Anyone has 13.57Mhz cards lying around already?)
>
> Henner
>
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.noisebridge.net/pipermail/rack/attachments/20140509/b687c5ad/attachment-0001.html>


More information about the Rack mailing list