I want to use pet chips in objects to give them a unique ID no.
How easy would it be for someone to create an identical clone? i.e. One that did not present any difference from the original chip under careful scrutiny.
PLEASE NOTE: I am not asking for techniques or explanations that would help anyone to clone pet tags (given that recently there have been suspicious posts from someone sniffing about on a similar theme), in fact quite the opposite: I am hoping that the answer is “There would always be some telltale sign, under close scrutiny, that would show that the clone had been written to a new support”.
If you think that your answer could be used for nefarious purposes please do not submit it. I’m just looking for confirmation or denial.
you can make em4305/t5577 clones that are identical and then do some fuckery to remove the proof it’s a t5577/em4305
For what it’s worth, cheap EM stickers would do the same unless you need the glass vial form factor. Also, NTAG stickers would be significantly harder to clone.
Ah, that’s bad news. I thought there would always be some clue.
I prefer the glassie form factor for this use.
So if I lock down an xNT it would be harder to copy without a telltale sign?
High frequency is significantly harder to copy to begin with.
The mifare classic is the only one that’s easily available as a magic chip. There are more options when it comes to HF magic chips, but they are hard to find and tend to lack some of the features of the real chip.
Now if you want more security, there are options in the HF side of things that can’t be copied.
What do you want to do exactly and how many would you want / need? Sounds like you’re looking for a secure transponder like the Spark which you can do an authenticity check on.
An example of the type of thing I am looking to chip would be a collection of autographed baseballs.
I like the pet chips because they:
- are easily hidden
- are easily read even when buried deep in the object
- are relatively cheap
- are durable
- have an unchangeable ID no.
However I got to thinking that they are also forgeable. If you can clone them in such a way that the chip is indistinguishable from the original you could add them to provide added authenticity to a ball with a forged autograph.
As to number, I’m thinking anywhere up to about 200 units so you can see that cost is extremely pertinent.
Especially with a Halo reader, a baseball MIGHT even pass through the “halo”, but not likely if the ball was in a display case.
Either way, they do appear to have a good read range.
What were you planning to use as a reader?
With the example of a baseball…
Would “implanting” an x-series into a baseball not be considered damaging the (presumably valuable and irreplaceable) item?
Just curious.
I don’t know but as It’s not going to be used as a baseball anymore, I imagine that if it could be done without changing the ball aesthetically there shouldn’t be a problem.
I have a pet chip reader.
Edit: which naturally would not distinguish between the original chip and a clone because it only returns the ID number. What I was hoping was that with Proxmark I would be able to tell the difference.
Wouldn’t the pet tag be distinguishable from an EM clone by the fact that it is tuned to a slightly different frequency? (134.2 kHz pet chip - 125 kHz EM)
I realise that the frequencies are close enough to be read by the same readers but isn’t the difference measurable in some way?
Generally no… at low frequencies the tuning difference is negligible. A reader tuned for 134lhz will easily energize and communicate with a 125khz tag. It won’t be able to tell the difference… it’s magnetic coupling here not EM field transmissions like wifi etc.
So readers (Proxmark, Halo, Flipper etc) are designed with the chip’s content in mind and so are permissive with regards to frequency. I was thinking more of a tool that could accurately display radio frequencies irrespective of the contents.
Would any of the tools that @Hamspiced uses when working on antennas work to accurately report antenna tuning frequency?
If so, I could then run two checks: Using a reader to determine the ID, and a radio frequency analyser to check that the data was still on a pet chip transmitting at 134.2 kHz. That would be fairly secure because cloning to a pet frequency chip would presumably require a far greater level of expertise than simply cloning to a standard EM chip.
Yeah a nano vna with a loop would work
Pilgrim made a loop with great instructions not long ago. I think I remember doing one also.
There’s a but of setup and config needed on the vna as well as calibration that will be needed but you’ll have the loads that are needed. When you get it in, if you have struggles lmk. It’s one of my favorite tools that I use daily now.
great instructions
Hammys far better one