RFID Zapper

Easy, cheap, portable way to fry RFID tags: Rfiddler

Original article here.

"The gun was fabricated using a Nerf N-Strike Recon CS-6, with a 0.6 kilojoule camera flash driving a 50-turn copper spool."

It seems simple enough.

Implications:
1) Easy theft - "disappear" tagged items.
2) Easy impersonation - no interference from existing tags.

Applications:
Commercialisation on the grey market for use by crime syndicates: firstly, stealing from RFID-automated warehouses and dispatch centres; secondly, re-routing shipped items; thirdly, changing tariffs on shipped items; fourthly, clearing shipping containers illegally; fifthly, passport/ID disabling.

Moral of the story: beware taking the human out of the decision loop because you never know when they will become necessary again.

JCOP performance

Interesting and relevant to real-world implementation: JCOP performance differs between revisions.

Update on Java Card GDIs

For what it's worth, here are the most popular options currently available to Java Card developers:

• eclipse-jcde 0.1: Free plugin for Eclipse wrapping the Sun Java Card Development Kit. Use with Eclipse 3.5 (JDK1.5 or later) and JCDK 2.2.2 Classic , Java Card 2.2.2, GlobalPlatform 2.2 (including JC Export file 1.3). The GlobalPlatform API may also be useful for manually or programatically communicating with a smart card. If your target is Java Card 3.0, use Netbeans and JCDK3.0.1 instead.
  Note: a useful off-card interface for Java is Global Platform for Java SmartCardIO.
  
• Netbeans IDE 6.7: Free; use with Sun JCDK 3.0.1 Connected Edition.
• JCOP Tools 3.1.2: Free devkit from NXP (proprietary, requires an NDA). Use with Eclipse 3.3 (JDK1.4.2 or 1.5 only). Target OS is JCOP 2.2 (?). Includes libraries from GlobalPlatform 2.1.1, Java Card 2.2.1. Not all ECC functions (Java Card) are represented in the simulator.
  
• JCOP Tools 3.2.8: Latest version; free from NXP (proprietary, requires an NDA). Use with Eclipse 3.5 (JDK1.6). Target OS is JCOP 2.4.1 (supporting Java Card 2.2.2 and GlobalPlatform 2.1.1), and possibly JCOP 2.4.2 (Java Card 3.0, GlobalPlatform 2.2). Simulator includes most of the Java Card functionality.
• Giesecke&Devrient Sm@rtCafe Professional Toolkit 2.0: free demo. Supports Java Card 2.2.1 and GlobalPlatform 2.1.1; target OS is G&D Sm@rtCafe 3.x.

If there are more, please notify me.