Towards Quasi-Realtime Theft-Evident Mechanism For Portable Artifacts Using Near-Field Rfid

1. Towards Quasi-Realtime Theft-Evident Mechanism For Portable Artifacts Using Near-Field Rfid Kirti Chawla@ , Sunil K. Vuppala$, Puneet Gupta$ UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, CHARLOTTESVILLE@ SET LABS, INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES$ @ Weblink: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~kc5dm $ Weblink: http://www.infosys.com/technology/setlabs-briefings.asp

2. 2 Significant Developments Quick Biased Inference 10 % Source: Gartner Research (http://www.gartner.com)

3. Problem Statement To mitigate/minimize/deter the effect of theft with respect to portable devices using low-cost technology. • Opportunity/Target Devices • Portable Audio Player • Portable Video Player • Smartphone • Personal Digital Assistant • and many more … • Challenges/Requirements • Space Constraints • Power Constraints • Mobility Constraints • Realtime Evidence of Theft • Cost/Effort • Candidates • Wired Technology • × Cannot be applied in general due to • mobility constraints • Wireless Technology • Wi-Fi • RFID (meets the requirements) • ZigBee • … 15 %

4. Brief Introduction To Rfid Definition: RFID or Radio Frequency Identification is a technology for wireless recognition with the help of radio waves. A Tag or Transponder consists of a microchip that stores data and a coupling element, such as coiled antenna, which is used to communicate via radio frequency. 3 tag-type : Active, Passive & Hybrid A Reader or Transceiver consists of radio frequency module, a control unit and a coupling element to interrogate electronic tags via RF communication 2 operating-fields : Near-Field & Far-Field A Data Processing System takes data read by RFID reader and stores it in a database. Various operations on the data can be performed (manipulate, view etc.) Applications: Object identification & tracking etc. 20 % Active RFID Tag Passive RFID Tag RFID Reader • Has a battery • Long operating range • No battery • Short operating range • Operates in Near-Field or Far-Field • Uses load modulation or backscatter for communication with Tag Suggestion: Viewers are advised to lookup terms for detailed definitions.

5. Proposed SolutionDesign: Basics • Requirements on underlying RFID carrier • Operation Field: Near-Field (Frequency ≤ 13.56 MHz), i.e. LF or HF • Operating Distance: Up to 1 meter(s) Signal strength vis-à-vis distance relationship How can this underlying property of Near-Field RFID signal be used for solving Problem Statement ?? 25 % Design Intuition 1: Shorter operating distance  low antenna power Suggestion: Design decision intuition clears up as the presentation goes forward

6. Proposed SolutionDesign: System Model 30 % Design Intuition 2: ICGTA  Shorter operating distance Artifact: Fancy name for device/object ICGTA: Increased Chance of Guessing the Thief Around

7. Proposed SolutionDesign: Packet Format • Descriptions of Packet Field • ACN: Artifact Class Number • AN: Artifact Number • ER: Error Resilience • WCN: Wearable-band Class Number • WN: Wearable-band Number • PAWN: Portable Artifact Wearable-band Number • R-PAWN: Reader-PAWN • T-PAWN: Tag-PAWN RFID Reader Tag T-PAWN R-PAWN T-PAWN How frequently T-PAWN should be fetched from Tag given that we have power constraints ?? 35 % Design Intuition 3: Protocol is needed between RFID reader and Tag Suggestion: PAWN is not same as pawn in CHESS game

8. Proposed SolutionDesign: Error Correction Mechanism To minimize the effect of intentional/un-intentional corruption on data-in-transit. • Claim • RFID reader provides error correction mechanisms, like CRC • Suggestion • Error correction mechanism presented • here, (uses Hamming Code) adds • multi-bit per byte error-correction with • relatively low computation cost on • reader side to augment CRC 40 % Design Intuition 4: Resilience against intentional/un-intentional corruption required

9. Proposed SolutionDesign: Theft-Evident Algorithm • T-PAWN Fetch Strategy • Partition time into 2 slots, viz. Sleep and Sweep Interval • Reader sleeps in Sleep Interval • Reader looks for Tag in Sweep Interval • Sleep Interval ≥ Sweep Interval to meet power constraints • Frequent Entry-Exit of Wearable-band in Reader field, to • be monitored using thresholds of time instead of distance. 45 % Design Intuition 5: Realtime or Quasi-Realtime evidence of theft is pertinent PA: Portable Artifact with RFID Reader WB: Wearable-band with Tag ROI: Region of Interest {bounded by S’}

10. Proposed SolutionDesign: Operations Your Un-intelligent portable artifact PA1 PAN PA2 50 % WB Design Intuition 6: Class numbers facilitates grouping of artifacts, viz. <PAI, WBI> In above example, pairs are: <PA1, WB>, <PA2, WB> … <PAN, WB>

11. Proposed Solutionimplementation: ERT • ERT - Experimental RFID Tool: • Written in C++ • ~2K source lines • Lightweight/WIN32 programming model • Simulates Quasi-Realtime theft scenario • Supports 1-on-1 operation mode • Supports selective error-correction mechanism • User-configurable parameters for Sleep, sweep interval and more • Support for audible alerts on THEFT_CONDITION • Support for custom action on THEFT_CONDITION • Supports multiple error correction modes • Extensible to Client/Server architecture using WINSOCK 55 % Implementation Intuition 1: Construct a tool to embody design concepts

12. Proposed Solutionimplementation: test bed 60 % Standard USB Cable ST Microelectronics SR176B-A3T/PRY series RFID Tags ST Microelectronics CRX14 RFID Reader Implementation Intuition 2: First iteration, second iteration, ... Sincere Gratitude: Towards Dr. Rajat Moona, Professor, CSE, IIT Kanpur for providing STM NFC Kit

13. Results: error correction Multi-bit per byte error-correction to augment CRC on RFID Reader 65 %

14. Results: Snapshot of ERT 70 % Quasi-Realtime Theft Evidence Initialization of ERT

15. Merits/Demerits 1. Low cost prototype embodying design concepts 2. Experimental test-bed for problem statement 3. Version 1.0 contains significant features 4. Minimal effort portable to other platforms 5. Pragmatic solution 75 % 1. Extensive field testing required 2. Tag data is not encrypted 3. Tag-cloning possible (But cost of attack increases) Wisdom: Create, Err, Refine, Create again, …

16. Interesting Merit Immune against operation in Faraday Cage Lack of proximity of wearable-band to portable artifact in these cages will still result in THEFT_CONDITION 80 % • Daily life examples of Faraday Cages(s) • Elevators • Conference rooms equipped with noise-cancellation technology • …

17. Interesting Demerit 85 % Frequent theft alarms may be nuisance to people-at-large Quick solution: User can configure theft alarms (enable/disable) through a user-interface

18. Applications 90 % 1. Portable Audio Player 2. Portable Video Player 3. Smartphone 4. Blackberry and more … 1. Documents 2. Wallet 3. Bag 4. ID-Card and more … IAM: Intelligent Artifact Model UAM: Un-intelligent Artifact Model

19. Subsequent Work 95 % • Further work includes: • Enabling Sharing operation mode (Intelligent Artifact Model) • Enabling Multi-tag operation mode (Un-intelligent Artifact Model) • Enabling Uni-tag operation mode (Un-intelligent Artifact Model) • Adding support for different types of RFID reader(s)/tag(s) • Integration with a given portable artifact

20. Questions & Answers