{"id":224,"date":"2005-02-14T08:31:08","date_gmt":"2005-02-14T08:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=224"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T04:00:00","slug":"active-versus-passive-rfid-tags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/?p=224","title":{"rendered":"Active versus Passive RFID Tags"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Wahl has written to clarify the difference between the ScanPak RFIDs mentioned in my earlier piece and typical passive tags. He says the ScanPak press release mentions they have a read<\/strong> range of up to 200 meters and that the RF tag is “powered by two parallel lithium coin cells.” <\/p>\n

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These are active tags: they contain their own power source. In contrast, a passive tag does not contain batteries, it obtains power from from the reader, and generally could not be reliably accessed over such a distance. A tag that is intended to be read only from a few, well-defined locations such as a passing through a doorway, or a tag that is intended to be attached to a low-value consumer item, would likely be a passive tag.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Thanks for the heads up, Mark. It looks like hackers will have to get up out of the Food Court and head right on in to the stores.<\/p>\n

Still, experts are routinely quoted as saying the range of passive RFID devices is being significantly extended by new reader and antenna technology. For example<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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But what about a more powerful RFID reader, created by criminals or police who don't mind violating FCC regulations? Eric Blossom, a veteran radio engineer, said it would not be difficult to build a beefier transmitter and a more sensitive receiver that would make the range far greater. “I don't see any problem building a sensitive receiver,” Blossom said. “It's well-known technology, particularly if it's a specialty item where you're willing to spend five times as much.” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You can build quite a transciever for the price of a Comme des Garcons outfit.<\/p>\n

And strangely, the RFID components used by the Britton School District were the size of a “roll of dimes” – meaning they could easily be Active tags.<\/p>\n

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Mark Wahl has written to clarify the difference between the ScanPak RFIDs mentioned in my earlier piece and typical passive tags. He says the ScanPak press release mentions they have a read range of up to 200 meters and that the RF tag is “powered by two parallel lithium coin cells.” These are active tags: … Continue reading Active versus Passive RFID Tags<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identityblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}