RFID and store security

A German technology consultant warns that item-level use of RFID tags could create some significant security problems: Privacy advocates may not be the only people taking issue with the current crop of radio-frequency identification tags--merchants will likely have problems with a lack of security as well.... Low-cost RFID tags--many which are smaller than a nickel and cost less too--are already being added to packaging by retailers to keep track of inventory but could be abused by hackers and tech-savvy shoplifters, said Lukas Grunwald, a senior consultant with DN-Systems Enterprise Solutions GmbH. While the technology mostly threatens consumer privacy, the new technology could allow thieves to fool merchants by changing the identity of goods, he said. I recently spent a morning with Peter Neumann, a computer scientist and security expert at SRI. One of the things I carried away from that interview was a much deeper sense of how little attention we tend to pay to security (even though we know how to do it right), and just how much trouble that inattention causes. This piece suggests that it might be wise to pay more attention to those issues before enter the penny-tag world, and start thinking seriously about putting RFID on everything....