Cryptography and authentication on RFID passive tags for apparel products

Public authorities and business communities in apparel industry of Hong Kong are looking for an effective method to identify counterfeited products. RFID technology provides a tool to address these problems. This paper presents a new approach using lightweight cryptography and a simple authentication method based on hash function for RFID Class I passive tags. Tags are embedded inside apparel products, such as garments or high-value apparel accessories. To determine whether a product is counterfeit, tag authentication on that apparel product can be performed and this will advise us whether the apparel product is genuine or faked. The proposed method has been compared with other basic approaches for tag authentication. It was found that the proposed method is effective and its operation is reliable. The proposed method would be useful to the existing apparel retail applications, particularly in the point-of-sale applications (POS). (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.