It’s been a busy semester. Team Wombat has been working at a feverish pitch to successfully complete our senior design project: The RFID Hacker.
Our senior design project is a device that will read and write RFID tag information. What is RFID? Well, you know when you walk into FootLocker at the mall and the security alarms go off? That’s an RFID tag system.
The book you bought at Barnes & Noble still have an active RFID tag embedded in the spine of the book because the bookstore clerk forgot to disable the RFID tag. RFID tags are like an electronic barcode. However, you don’t need to wave a laser at the purchased item in order to determine it’s sale price.
Why build an RFID hacker? Well, RFID is used for security purposes and we at the University of Iowa Engineering College have an RFID security ID card so that we can access the Seamans Center during off-hours. RFID technology is great, but since it is an open-source technology, almost anyone with enough time and electronics background can defeat RFID security measures.
So far, our project is going well. We’ll be populating our 2nd printed circuit board throughout the upcoming weekend, not to mention the final project report AND a huge poster for our final presentation. For more information regarding our progress and more about RFID technology, visit our senior design project website here.
