Finally, another x-series DESFire offering. This one has been has been an uphill battle the whole way–from supply chain hell to an arduous manufacturing process. But it’s here.
While the EV3 added in some great new features, the only thing the majority of you do with DESFires is throw a big ol’ VCard with a picture on it
Amal’s favorite new features:
SUN Feature
The “SUN” feature in MIFARE DESFire EV3 stands for “Secure Unique NFC” and provides a more secure way to maintain data confidentiality and integrity during NFC transactions by generating a unique authentication message based on a CMAC calculation each time a card or ticket is tapped
I am just about to finally buy a DESFire implant, but I am unsure if I should get this one, or get a flexDF2.
The extra range makes things way more practical in a flex implant from what I have heard. But getting DESFire EV3 does seem nice, just to have something more future proof, I guess.
A flex version of a DESFire EV3 implant is probably not realistic to expect anytime soon (5 years), right?
Are there any new features of the EV3 cards you need in the immediate sense? There’s nothing stopping you from having both once the flexDF3 comes out (my guess is that they probably either have some test units made, or don’t have the correct chips, though I lack inside info)
I think that the only interesting thing about the EV3 for most people here is the reduced power draw. Which is offset by the bigger flex antenna anyways.
The FlexDF2 is going to be better for most cases because of the improved read range. Although the xDF3 should be slightly better than the xDF2 in this regard.
I don’t “need” any of the new features from the standpoint that I primarily want to use my implant to open my home door.
However, I like tinkering, and if there is a cool feature, I would love to explore it. The SUN (secure unique NFC message) feature sounds interesting (but maybe ultimately useless to me). Also maybe in the future some locks might want to have EV3? Not sure how much the extra transaction timer to mitigate man-in-the-middle attacks is really relevant for me (in terms of my threat model, at that point, someone could more easily just break into my home).
So yeah, probably there is no real reason to have a DESFire EV3 over EV2 if I can get a flex version for EV2.
I am just wondering if a DESFire EV3 version of the flex implant is on the horizon or not. because if so, I would wait for that.
I wouldn’t. Releases like that are wildly unpredictable. We have a product that has been, “any day now,” for two years. Another that’s closer to three.
Because the nature of these technologies is that you need more than one implant and nothing is ever really phased out, there isn’t much reason to wait.
In the sense of a lock you buy for you, who knows. You can probably still enroll an EV2. For enterprise doors (ie work), keep in mind many places are still running HID Prox or similar, or are running MIFARE Classic 1k based systems, so I doubt it will be a problem for the foreseeable future.
I see @tac0s typing, so I’m sure he’ll give a better answer than me, or in the best case he’ll give a “Soon™”. Otherwise I would refer to this quote:
@Not Thank you for your comments as well, that helps.
Please correct me if my reasoning is wrong:
The extra range of the flexDF2 is a big pro over the xDF3, and the extra features of the DESFire EV3 chip in the xDF3 over the DESFire EV2 chip in the flexDF2 the are almost certainly not relevant to me.
Therefore I guess I have no big reason to get an xDF3 over a flexDF2, but I might just get both due to their scarcity, and just implant the flexDF2, and only implant the xDF3 once I have any use for its features. And I can probably easily sell the (completely unused) xDF3 if I feel like I have no use for it, right?
Btw I am thinking of getting a DOM ENiQ Pro V2 lock.
Great! Do you have a way to test it in person such as with a field detector? While we are fortunate enough to have lots of options to improve coupling these days, it’s nice to know what you are getting into
A friend of mine (who is in the forum here as well afaik), who has an xDF2 and the flex Java Card (which I am also going to get), and who made me aware of the newly released xDF3, has this lock already, and is using it.
Nah one of these. This will visualize how well an x-series implant will couple. But, if your friend is using an xDF2 with no issues, you should be in the clear.