As database profiling of non/citizens grows increasingly pervasive and the dubious promise of 'techno-communism 2.0' haunts the blogosphere, real material differences will continue to sort the technologically ‘liberated’ from the dataslaves, declares Leutha Blissett

I had heard this week that an RFID card being developed for trial on Rotterdam's public transport system had been hacked, producing qualms about the security of all systems using RFID. However, according to the comment to the article below, the news turns out to be even more portentious for those in London, where an extremely unpopular Oyster card has existed for some time based on exactly the same Phillips manufactured 'MiFare' chip  

Re-posted from Schneier on SecurityA blog covering security and security technology.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/dutch_rfid_tran.html
January 21, 2008

Dutch RFID Transit Card Hacked

The Dutch RFID public transit card, which has already cost the government $2B -- no, that's not a typo -- has been hacked even before it has been deployed:

This Anarchist Federation analysis of the National (UK) ID Database, parts of which are already up and running with no need for cards, needs to be read as widely as possible.  A terrifying account of how much more than abstract 'privacy' is at stake, and FOR WHOM. The surveillance complex is class-specific in that that it's administered through things like benefits, immigration control, council housing, 'social services' and zero tolerance policing, which some full homeowning citizens will never need to worry about.  Mass refusal based on existing practices of necessary illegality looks the best hope, as in the case of the poll tax.  But no-one is pretending it will be easy.  This is a call to act before it's too late.  Please distribute onwards (also available as a printed booklet from BM ANARFED, London WC1N 3XX).    

DEFENDING ANONYMITY - 2nd edition

Thoughts for struggle against identity cards

First Published, September 2005. Second edition April 2006. subject: Anarchist | Class | ID Cards | Identity | Information | Insurgency | New Enclosures | RFID | State | Surveillance read more | 1 comment | 926 reads | view pdf The Factory Without Walls Editorial content | Articles Submitted by mute on Thursday, 14 September, 2006 - 16:41 ByBrian Ashton Wireless and social networking technologies depend on and help shape the global logistics industry. This worldwide supply chain ensures just-in-time production responds to consumer demand, whether it be books from Amazon or exhaust pipes for Jaguars. If, contra to theorists of ‘immaterial labour’, the mass worker is not dead but reconfigured, will networked production and distribution see the rise of networked labour struggles? Drawing on personal experience and ongoing research, Brian Ashton gives a brief introduction to the complexities of the logistics industry   subject: AntiCapitalist | Business | Information | Labour Struggles | Marxist | Politics | Post-Autonomist | RFID read more | 2 comments | 2864 reads | view pdf Capturing the Photon Burp Editorial content | Magazine Submitted by mute on Monday, 5 July, 2004 - 23:00 ByPeter Carty The era of quantum technology is dawning. With quantum computing set to smash our existing ciphers, quantum encryption is providing a new set of uncrackable codes. But are the new codes completely secure? asks Peter Carty The age of quantum technology is beginning. MagiQ Technologies in New York and ID Quantique in Geneva are marketing quantum cryptography equipment. So far it is expensive: MagiQ (pronounced ‘magic’) says that its products cost between $50,000 and $100,000, and that clients will include banks, insurers, government agencies and pharmaceutical businesses. And both companies’ applications are restricted to ‘point to point’ – in which pairs of computers are linked with secure communication lines. But the technology is developing rapidly and another company, BBN Technologies of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is busy linking computers into the first quantum internet, or Q-NET. subject: Privacy | RFID | Wireless read more | 1 comment | 994 reads | view pdf

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