WP: Geeks Meet at 'What the Hack' Conference

Geeks Meet at 'What the Hack' Conference
By DOUGLAS HEINGARTNER
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 28, 2005


LIEMPDE, Netherlands -- There are hundreds of tents on the hot and soggy campground, but this isn't your ordinary summertime outing, considering that it includes workshops with such titles as "Politics of Psychedelic Research" or "Fun and Mayhem with RFID."

This is the three-day "What The Hack" convention, a self-styled computer-security conference dealing such issues as digital passports, biometrics and cryptography.

Borrowing heavily from Woodstock and the more professionalized Def Con conference that begins Friday in Las Vegas, the event held every four years in the Netherlands draws an international array of experts and geeks. About 3,000 gathered Thursday for the opening.

Unlike better-known and better-funded industry meetings, "What the Hack" had to fight for its right to exist. The mayor of the southern Dutch town of Boxtel, who oversees the village of Liempde where the convention is held, initially tried to stop the event from pitching its hundreds of tents outside his town -- a reluctance stemming from the lingering public image of hackers as asocial, anarchistic and vaguely menacing....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072800774.html

Maybe DOUGLAS HEINGARTNER is vying for a job with The New Republic.

Abstract

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a popular contactless identification technology which has been hyped as the "next generation barcode". These tiny inductively-powered computer chips have already been integrated into consumer goods, passports, public transportation tickets, and even people. Because most RFID tags lack privacy enhancing technologies or cryptography, governments, corporations, and malicious individuals can use RFID technology to track and create behavioral profiles of everyday people.

Effective RFID surveillance and tracking depends upon the proper functioning of RFID systems. Just as hackers can cover their tracks against Intrusion Detection Systems, concerned individuals can fight back against RFID surveillance by introducing false positives and false negatives into RFID systems. Non-malicious “RFID abuse” is likely to appear in forms ranging from self-defense to practical jokes to activism. This presentation will discuss many of the ways to abuse RFID systems, and will then examine the resulting dilemma facing RFID system operators.

More:
http://wiki.whatthehack.org/index.php/Fun_and_Mayhem_with_Radio_Frequency_Identification

sigh .... :-)