RFID Card - What Are Some Smaller Alternatives? (Wristwatch; Wedding Ring)

November 10, 2010 12:08 PM

I have an " HID iCLASS Px G6H " RFID card. Can I "clone" this RFID card data onto a chip (I've seen some the size of a grain of rice) that I can affix to a wristwatch, or even a ring?

I'm not sure if this model HID RFID card can be copied/cloned, and if it can, what new physical shapes can I copy/clone it to. Here's a good example the "grain of rice" sized RFID chips.

Another question -- are there wristwatches, or even rings for my fingers, that have a blank RFID chip in them that I can copy my existing RFID card's data to?

My goal is to get rid of my reliance on my existing RFID security badge's zip cord (affixed to my belt), so I can keep my badge in my wallet and simply wave my hand in front of the RFID reader! I constantly lose my badge as the zip cord breaks/gets caught and I'd love a smaller alternative such as a watch/ring :-)

posted by WhereAmI to computers & internet (4 answers total)

I have no helpful suggestions, but I have always wanted to do this too. I have 3 different security badges for work, and I keep losing/forgetting my zip cord with all of them on it. Honestly, if I could get them onto grain of rice sized chips I would even consider having one implanted into the back of my hand (Conspiracy theorists freak out here).
posted by Joh at 12:15 PM on November 10, 2010

Isn't retaining the antenna the problem? Even the great "bunnie" huang had to save the antenna when he gutted his rapid trasit pass recently in a very similar way: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=1379
posted by wenestvedt at 1:05 PM on November 10, 2010

"It depends!"

That iClass card is probably a dual-frequency card, using 125Khz for the legacy "Prox" technology, and 13.56Mhz for the ISO standard technology underlying the iClass portion.

You can check this by shining a strong flashlight through the card to see if you have two antennas. The 13.56Mhz antenna will be a 1mm or so wire around the edge of the card, the 125Khz antenna will be 5mm or more in width nearer the center.

If your badge system is using the "Prox" technology, you may be in luck (and your site is easy to break into). Adam Laurie (see http://rfidiot.org) has had luck cloning similar technologies on Q5 and hitag2 "smart tags" that may come in the form factor you want. I'll leave out the gritty details, visit that site for some of them. Read up on FSK and Manchester encoding.

If your site is using the actual smartcard part of the iClass card, you have a much more interesting challenge. In a nutshell, iClass cards work in a similar fashion to Mifare cards, except the cryptographic protections have not been broken (in public). So, to clone one, you have a large amount of crypto work to do, as well as a lot of reverse engineering, NDA-violating, and patent-breaking. You'll be trying to fabricate your own HID-proprietary iClass smartcard in the form factor you prefer.
posted by graftole at 1:27 PM on November 10, 2010

Heck, HID makes iClass products in keyfob form factors, try asking if you can front the money for one to use as a door pass.
posted by graftole at 1:35 PM on November 10, 2010