"I have a mind like a steel... uh... thingy." Patrick Logan's weblog.

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Friday, July 18, 2008

From the What's That Smell Dept.

From The Register...

"Researchers from Radboud University in Nijmegen revealed two weeks
ago they had cracked and cloned London's Oyster travelcard and the
Dutch public transportation travelcard, which is based on the same
RFID chip. Attackers can scan a card reading unit, collect the
cryptographic key that protects security and upload it to a laptop.
Details are then transferred to a blank card, which can be used for
free travel.

Around one billion of these cards have been sold worldwide. The card
is also widely used to gain access to government departments, schools
and hospitals around Britain."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/university_can_publish_oyster_research/

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There was an incident recently (early on a Saturday morning, mind you) when up to 100,000 Oyster cards were 'damaged' by the card reading process. I wonder if there is any connection with this story.

Bernard

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Portland, Oregon, United States
I'm usually writing from my favorite location on the planet, the pacific northwest of the u.s. I write for myself only and unless otherwise specified my posts here should not be taken as representing an official position of my employer. Contact me at my gee mail account, username patrickdlogan.