A wireless service for product authentication in mobile RFID environment

EPC Class-1 Generation-2 UHF tags, one of radio frequency identification or RFID tag types, is expected that most companies are planning to use it in the supply chain in the short term and in consumer packaging in the long term due to its inexpensive cost. Because of the very cost, however, its resources are extremely scarce and it is hard to have any valuable security algorithms in it. It causes security vulnerabilities, in particular cloning the tags for counterfeits. In this paper, we propose design of a wireless service for product authentication which is anti-counterfeiting at application level and which can be applied to both the supply chain and forthcoming mobile RFID environment. It aims to become aware of distribution of spurious products with fake RFID tags and to provide a product authentication service to general consumers with mobile RFID devices like mobile phone or PDA which has a mobile RFID reader. We will discuss anti-counterfeiting mechanisms which are required to our proposed service and address requirements that the mechanisms should have.