

NFC will tell you when a Rolex is fake - mrsebastian
http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/104569-nfc-will-tell-you-when-a-rolex-is-fake

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yock
This sounds like a solution in search of a problem. Sure, there are a lot of
knock-off products out there, but the people who care typically know how to
spot the fakes. The people willing to spend $5k or (a lot?) more on products
they know are often faked, haven't educated themselves on how to spot those
fakes, and aren't buying from people they trust, are probably not going to put
forth the effort to benefit from this anyway.

This market doesn't work exactly like other consumer goods markets. It doesn't
make sense to apply the same kinds of protections.

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Retric
That and RFID is really easy to fake.

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salem
Only if it's implemented poorly

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Retric
Most systems are implemented poorly. However, even even with encryption as
long as you don't authenticate with an online server somewhere once you have
physical access to the device is almost impossible to prevent someone from
copying the internal key's. You might end up producing 50,000 identical
devices that are easy to track after the fact but they can be sold before
those defects are noticed at which point they can just swap to the next set of
key's.

Worse yet most 'secure' RFID systems just retransmit the same key every time
and trust repeated use to be detected by other systems.

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pmorici
Does anyone see a problem with this from a privacy stand point? If a company
said they were going to embed RFID tags in goods people would be up in arms.
NFC on the other hand; that is a great idea to protect the consumer. Isn't NFC
just RFID by a different name and if you bought one of these products wouldn't
you be accepting being tracked whenever you wore it? Seems a bit like a
physical manifestation of a Facebook 'Like' button. Innocuous on the surface
but designed for a whole different purpose from the get go.

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sjs
How does one track an RFID chip? It's not a homing beacon. One would have to
be constantly bumping up against readers to get that effect.

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pmorici
I don't mean track in the sense of continuously tracking location. I mean
track in the sense that you could put a scanner in an entrance to a store and
as you walk through the door you'd be scanned. Sort of how an Internet
tracking cookie identifies a visitor.

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slade74
Muggers - you know the score. Risking life and limb and all you end up with is
a moody rolex, Download Mugr from the android market to find out who's worth
mugging!

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Vivtek
Does anybody actually think street vendors are actually selling Prada bags?
Unless you keep the NFC tags in your purchased items and invite your friends
to scan you for authenticity, I think this is just a way for NFC vendors to
rip off Prada.

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felixmar
This is really about informing the customers of legitimate stores that
(unknowingly) sell counterfeit products at full price.

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quanticle
Great. So now if I choose to buy a Rolex, there's a good chance that anyone
with a halfway decent antenna will be able to find out that I'm wearing a
watch worth stealing.

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stfu
If you choose to buy a Rolex you would be probably already one of that kind of
people who buy their shirts with extra short sleeves...

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wizawuza
If you're going to bash someone based solely on their watch purchase, please
at least do it with a coherent sentence.

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andrenotgiant
"To prevent tampering, Inside Secure has created several options for higher-
powered antennae that will allow the chip placement deep inside objects and
still function"

If it's only in the real products, I don't see why people would want to remove
it (except maybe once, to try and copy it.)

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chrisbennet
As a data point: I used to have an RFID based business and reading any sort of
passive RFID tag took a pretty good antenna and close proximity (almost
touching) or lots of power.

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iramiller
On a somewhat unrelated note... Web developers need to lay off messing with
the scrolling of their mobile sites. I generally scroll a little bit at a time
on my phone and the mobile version of this site tries to get fancy with
simulated pages. This makes the page move back to the top of the page when you
scroll a little bit.

I had my wife try the same page to see what she would do and I noted a similar
fighting the interface problem because when she scrolled the page would move
more than expected and she would lose her place while reading.

TL;DR - mobile sites on phones have many issues but scrolling is not one of
them, don't 'fix' it.

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untog
Thing is, it's impossible to have native scrolling and a static header/footer
on most mobile browser. So we end up resorting to these horrible hacks. I
can't wait until position:fixed is implemented natively.

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arkitaip
Wouldn't it just be easier and cheaper to print a barcode on each product and
let customers use it to verify the authenticity of the product using a web
site?

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philbo
Presumably "easier and cheaper" implies "easier to fake" too. I guess the NFC
solution has enough cost attached to it to make replicating it impractical for
counterfitters?

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daliusd
I guess NFC only removes web site step. Meanwhile small producers on unique
goods can use barcode approach. Isn't that sweat idea for new startup?

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nopinsight
What if the goods with copied barcode got sold before the authentic one?

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daliusd
1 physical product (not class of products) = 1 barcode = 1 identification

E.g. in web system you can assign owner to barcode (product). Different
scenarios if owner is known before purchase or assigned later. All other
trials to validate product id as unique should fail and client might request
return of money.

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varjag
I don't know. Half the point of owning a Rolex is its fully mechanical nature
without any microelectronics.

But could work fine for other goods.

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brianbreslin
I have met companies using qr codes to validate wine and perfume for
authenticity.

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oneweekwonder
I have been playing around with this idea for the last couple of hours
now(seeing I actually need to study) and after my exams I'm thinking of
building a prototype like this using qr codes. Do you maybe have company names
I can Google for to see how the market looks and if my idea is "unique" as I
think it is?

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salem
I hope there is some way to shut down the RFID chip once you buy the item

