Communication near field - to the masses!
Good day!
Recently, I was combing the archives of Habr in search of information about NFC technology, which has been actively discussed for several years in the number of innovative and very desirable developments. But, to my sincere surprise, I found only scattered and already outdated short articles on the topic of wireless payments ... I decided to rectify the situation, especially since the topic is truly interesting; a lot of things have been developed, integrated and still planned to be implemented in mobile (and not only) devices.
So, Near Field Communication, also known as NFC (“near field communication”), is a short-range wireless high-frequency communication technology that enables data exchange between devices located at a distance of no more than 20 centimeters. The operating frequency of the NFC is in the non-licensed band allocated to industrial, medical and other special equipment, and is 13.56 MHz. The data transfer rate by today's standards is low: a maximum of 424 Kb / s with a distance between devices up to 4 cm. As you move to the limit of 20 cm, this parameter decreases to 212 and 106 Kb / s. NFC technology is a simple extension of the contactless card standard that integrates the smart card and reader interface into a single device. Any gadgets that work on NFC technology can communicate with existing smart cards and readers, as well as with other devices that support NFC. Thus, absolute compatibility with the existing infrastructure of contactless cards, which has long been used in our buses, subways and payment systems, is achieved.
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Currently, NFC technology is mainly aimed at use in mobile phones. There are three main areas of its application: card emulation (the NFC device behaves like a real contactless card), the read mode (the NFC device on board is active and reads a passive RFID tag, for example for interactive advertising), P2P mode (two NFC devices are connected and communicate with each other.
NFC technology can give us all a lot of “goodies” and significantly simplify some everyday tasks that usually take a lot of time. There will no longer be the need to turn out pockets in search of trivia on a bus ticket or to defend long lines for a train ticket: mobile ticketing in public transport will relieve this headache. In addition, the device with the support of NFC can also replace payment cards: held a mobile phone on the reader - paid for the purchase. The concept of an “electronic bulletin board” will firmly come into use: the mobile phone will be used to read RFID tags from street billboards in order to receive information about a new sushi bar or a leased one-on-one shop on the go.
NFC will “pair” with Bluetooth: in the future, to connect Bluetooth 2.1 devices that support NFC, it will be enough to bring them closer to each other and accept the connection. That is, the process of activating Bluetooth on both sides, searching, waiting, connecting and authorizing will be replaced by a simple “touch” of mobile phones.
If you look into an even more distant future (at least in the realities of our mother Russia), NFC will give us such technological benefits as electronic purchase of tickets (air tickets, concert tickets, etc.), electronic money, traveler cards , ID cards, mobile commerce, and salvation for those who like to lose or forget their keys at home - their electronic counterparts: car keys, home / office keys, hotel room keys, etc. Among other things, NFC can will use to configure and initialize other wireless connections such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Ultra-wideband.
A patent licensing program for NFC is currently being developed by Via Licensing Corporation, an independent subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories.
NFC Forum. It is a non-profit association founded by Samsung, Sony, NXP Semiconductors, Nokia, Philips and Microsoft to promote the use of NFC in consumer electronics, mobile devices and personal computers. The NFC Forum will promote the implementation and standardization of NFC technology to ensure productive interaction between devices and services. In March 2011, Google joined the NFC Forum as lead member. This is the second oldest role in the NFC Forum. It allows you to take part in voting on the marketing, standards and technologies associated with the introduction of NFC in the future, as well as to conduct testing of equipment for compliance with NFC Forum standards in its own laboratories, without disclosing the commercial secret of the equipment produced. Thus, Google received the same rights as CSR and Intel. However, the status of Google in the NFC Forum is not as high as that of Microsoft, Nokia and Samsung, which are the full initiators of the project.
GSMA. GSM Association is a global trade association representing 700 mobile operators in 218 countries of the world. To date, they have submitted two initiatives:
Mobile NFC Initiative. Fourteen mobile network operators, which together represent 40% of the global mobile market. All of them actively support NFC technology and work together to develop NFC applications. Among them: Bouygues Télécom, China Mobile, AT & T, KPN, Mobilkom Austria, Orange, SFR, SK Telecom, Telefonica Móviles España, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), Vodafone and others. On February 13, 2007, they published a technical description of the NFC to give the viewpoint of mobile operators on the technology ecosystem.
Pay Buy Mobile Initiative. It seeks to define a common global approach to the use of NFC technology in order to connect mobile devices with payment and contactless systems. To date, 30 mobile operators have joined this initiative.
StoLPaN. Store Logistics and Payment with NFC is a European consortium supported by the European Commissions and Information Society Technologies. StoLPaN will explore yet untapped potential to harmonize new types of local wireless interfaces, NFC and mobile communications.
As a data channel, NFC is not a competitor to wireless technologies like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, but it can perfectly complement them. Ideologists of the NFC Forum call this “harmonization.” For example, if two NFC devices touch each other in a fraction of a second, it will automatically establish a connection between them, after which you can use a faster channel to transfer information. A simple touch to a printer with NFC and Wi-Fi Direct functions will allow you to send a document to print, and a light touch of a Wi-Fi router will instantly configure your smartphone to work in your home or office wireless network. In order to play a movie from a phone on a big screen, it is enough to put the device next to the TV, select the desired content and turn on viewing via Wi-Fi / UPnP.
The maximum data transfer rate of NFC is 424 kbps. This is significantly less than Bluetooth (2.1 Mbps). The radius of action of NFC is significantly less than that of the “Blue Tooth” (about 20 cm versus 10 meters). Big minus, you say? Not at all: it provides a greater degree of security and makes NFC more suitable, for example, for crowded spaces, where the correlation of the signal with the physical device that transmitted it could otherwise be simply impossible. Unlike Bluetooth, NFC is compatible with existing RFID structures. A very big plus of NFC technology: data exchange will work even when one of the devices does not have a power source (for example, a telephone that can be turned off, a contactless credit smart card, etc.).
There are other communication standards that are somehow involved in NFC. Among them:
ETSI / SCP is a smart card platform needed to establish communication between a SIM card and an NFC chipset;
Single Wire Protocol - ETSI standard for data exchange protocol between a SIM card and NFC physical layer chips;
GlobalPlatform - is designed to define a multi-application architecture of a secure chip;
EMVCo - affects EMV payment applications.
Although the radius of the NFC connection is limited to a few centimeters, it does not guarantee complete security of connections. In 2006, Ernst Haselsteiner and Klemens BreitfuĂź described various types of possible attacks.
Eavesdropping. The radio frequency RF signal can be intercepted by antennas. The distance from which an attacker is able to eavesdrop on a radio frequency signal depends on many parameters, but in any case it is only a few meters. In addition, listening mode is extremely affected by the communication mode. Obviously, a passive device that does not create its own radio frequency field will be much harder to eavesdrop on than an active device. The NFC standard alone does not offer protection against eavesdropping. In theory, the protocol stack should use cryptoalgorithms over NFC to protect data.
Data modification The destruction of data is relatively easy to implement by means of electronic warfare (EW), that is, RFID jammers. There is no way to prevent such an attack, however, the only result would be the inability to establish a connection. To get into the data inside the message with an attacking device in practice is unrealistic.
Attack using relay. For such an attack, the attacker must send the victim a reader request and send its response in real time further to the reader. This is done in order to accomplish a task that simulates possession of a victim's smart card. However, in practice such an attack is rather difficult due to severe time limits on the response of the requested device. In some cases we can talk about microsecond tolerances (for example, when performing a mandatory anticollision procedure).
In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about the implementation of NFC technology in the world and in Russia, in particular.
It should be recognized that the topic of the prospects for the development of NFC has been discussed for more than a year, and attempts to use it in practice have been made repeatedly. But, in most cases, the case of exemplary test systems did not go further. Although there are pleasant exceptions to the rule.
For example, Japan back in 2007 began to introduce NFC at local gas stations and at McDonald's fast food restaurants. In the States, discount coupons and promotions for regular customers are very popular. Despite such “high-tech oases”, it was recently seemed that the wide spread of technology was still far away.
Nevertheless, it is already clear that serious changes are coming in the world NFC market in the near future. NFC support is already included in Android 2.3, and in new phones from Google, Samsung, LG are NFC chips that are not yet unlocked. Microsoft also plans to add a near radio sensor to Windows Phone 7 phones, and RIM has announced plans to release BlackBerry phones with NFC during the year. Many expect that the NFC-enabled iPhone will appear in this or in 2012, Apple’s patent applications, in particular, are convincing. However, the apple company is still cautious, looking to the potential of the new technology and wondering how it can be integrated into its ecosystem. HTC did the same: the first device from them with NFC support will appear only in the third quarter of this year. The company believes that during this time the number of places where you can take advantage of NFC will increase, and support for this technology in the Android OS will improve.
The scope of NFC-modules is not limited to mobile phones. The technology will be appropriate in laptops, tablets and stationary home appliances. So, Lenovo has already announced its intention to embed NFC adapters in all laptops of its ThinkPad business series.
Not so long ago, Samsung and the Visa payment system announced a joint project to equip London with a sufficient number of NFC terminals by 2012, when the Olympic Games will open in the UK. In total, more than 60 thousand terminals will be commissioned in London, through which it will be possible to make various payments. Moreover, Samsung will release a special "Olympic" phone equipped with an NFC-module. Of course, any other NFC phone will also work.
In Russia, for promotion of NFC technology, among other companies, i-Free is responsible - one of the leaders of the market for additional mobile services and content in Russia and the CIS countries - also a member of the NFC forum. You probably know about the plans to introduce a universal card for residents of Russia - it will support NFC.
Already, thanks to the project of Aeroexpress, tickets for electric trains from railway stations to Moscow airports can be purchased using a mobile phone with NFC functionality. NFC service is being introduced as an add-on to the existing automated system for selling and controlling Aeroexpress tickets.
Last autumn last year, the Russian mobile operator MTS provided an opportunity for holders of 300 special SIM cards (including the company's employees and employees of the metro) to test the fare payment system in the Moscow metro using NFC technology.
In St. Petersburg, too, do not sit idle: in June, "Beeline", together with the St. Petersburg metro launched their project - payment of travel using a mobile phone using NFC technology.
According to IMS Research analysts, in 2015, 1.8 billion cell phones will be released. Every fourth of them will support NFC.
Video demonstration of NFC technology in action:
Recently, I was combing the archives of Habr in search of information about NFC technology, which has been actively discussed for several years in the number of innovative and very desirable developments. But, to my sincere surprise, I found only scattered and already outdated short articles on the topic of wireless payments ... I decided to rectify the situation, especially since the topic is truly interesting; a lot of things have been developed, integrated and still planned to be implemented in mobile (and not only) devices.
So, Near Field Communication, also known as NFC (“near field communication”), is a short-range wireless high-frequency communication technology that enables data exchange between devices located at a distance of no more than 20 centimeters. The operating frequency of the NFC is in the non-licensed band allocated to industrial, medical and other special equipment, and is 13.56 MHz. The data transfer rate by today's standards is low: a maximum of 424 Kb / s with a distance between devices up to 4 cm. As you move to the limit of 20 cm, this parameter decreases to 212 and 106 Kb / s. NFC technology is a simple extension of the contactless card standard that integrates the smart card and reader interface into a single device. Any gadgets that work on NFC technology can communicate with existing smart cards and readers, as well as with other devices that support NFC. Thus, absolute compatibility with the existing infrastructure of contactless cards, which has long been used in our buses, subways and payment systems, is achieved.
')
What does the coming day prepare for us?
Currently, NFC technology is mainly aimed at use in mobile phones. There are three main areas of its application: card emulation (the NFC device behaves like a real contactless card), the read mode (the NFC device on board is active and reads a passive RFID tag, for example for interactive advertising), P2P mode (two NFC devices are connected and communicate with each other.
NFC technology can give us all a lot of “goodies” and significantly simplify some everyday tasks that usually take a lot of time. There will no longer be the need to turn out pockets in search of trivia on a bus ticket or to defend long lines for a train ticket: mobile ticketing in public transport will relieve this headache. In addition, the device with the support of NFC can also replace payment cards: held a mobile phone on the reader - paid for the purchase. The concept of an “electronic bulletin board” will firmly come into use: the mobile phone will be used to read RFID tags from street billboards in order to receive information about a new sushi bar or a leased one-on-one shop on the go.
NFC will “pair” with Bluetooth: in the future, to connect Bluetooth 2.1 devices that support NFC, it will be enough to bring them closer to each other and accept the connection. That is, the process of activating Bluetooth on both sides, searching, waiting, connecting and authorizing will be replaced by a simple “touch” of mobile phones.
If you look into an even more distant future (at least in the realities of our mother Russia), NFC will give us such technological benefits as electronic purchase of tickets (air tickets, concert tickets, etc.), electronic money, traveler cards , ID cards, mobile commerce, and salvation for those who like to lose or forget their keys at home - their electronic counterparts: car keys, home / office keys, hotel room keys, etc. Among other things, NFC can will use to configure and initialize other wireless connections such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Ultra-wideband.
A patent licensing program for NFC is currently being developed by Via Licensing Corporation, an independent subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories.
Founding fathers
NFC Forum. It is a non-profit association founded by Samsung, Sony, NXP Semiconductors, Nokia, Philips and Microsoft to promote the use of NFC in consumer electronics, mobile devices and personal computers. The NFC Forum will promote the implementation and standardization of NFC technology to ensure productive interaction between devices and services. In March 2011, Google joined the NFC Forum as lead member. This is the second oldest role in the NFC Forum. It allows you to take part in voting on the marketing, standards and technologies associated with the introduction of NFC in the future, as well as to conduct testing of equipment for compliance with NFC Forum standards in its own laboratories, without disclosing the commercial secret of the equipment produced. Thus, Google received the same rights as CSR and Intel. However, the status of Google in the NFC Forum is not as high as that of Microsoft, Nokia and Samsung, which are the full initiators of the project.
GSMA. GSM Association is a global trade association representing 700 mobile operators in 218 countries of the world. To date, they have submitted two initiatives:
Mobile NFC Initiative. Fourteen mobile network operators, which together represent 40% of the global mobile market. All of them actively support NFC technology and work together to develop NFC applications. Among them: Bouygues Télécom, China Mobile, AT & T, KPN, Mobilkom Austria, Orange, SFR, SK Telecom, Telefonica Móviles España, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), Vodafone and others. On February 13, 2007, they published a technical description of the NFC to give the viewpoint of mobile operators on the technology ecosystem.
Pay Buy Mobile Initiative. It seeks to define a common global approach to the use of NFC technology in order to connect mobile devices with payment and contactless systems. To date, 30 mobile operators have joined this initiative.
StoLPaN. Store Logistics and Payment with NFC is a European consortium supported by the European Commissions and Information Society Technologies. StoLPaN will explore yet untapped potential to harmonize new types of local wireless interfaces, NFC and mobile communications.
NFC vs. Bluetooth & Wi-Fi
As a data channel, NFC is not a competitor to wireless technologies like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, but it can perfectly complement them. Ideologists of the NFC Forum call this “harmonization.” For example, if two NFC devices touch each other in a fraction of a second, it will automatically establish a connection between them, after which you can use a faster channel to transfer information. A simple touch to a printer with NFC and Wi-Fi Direct functions will allow you to send a document to print, and a light touch of a Wi-Fi router will instantly configure your smartphone to work in your home or office wireless network. In order to play a movie from a phone on a big screen, it is enough to put the device next to the TV, select the desired content and turn on viewing via Wi-Fi / UPnP.
The maximum data transfer rate of NFC is 424 kbps. This is significantly less than Bluetooth (2.1 Mbps). The radius of action of NFC is significantly less than that of the “Blue Tooth” (about 20 cm versus 10 meters). Big minus, you say? Not at all: it provides a greater degree of security and makes NFC more suitable, for example, for crowded spaces, where the correlation of the signal with the physical device that transmitted it could otherwise be simply impossible. Unlike Bluetooth, NFC is compatible with existing RFID structures. A very big plus of NFC technology: data exchange will work even when one of the devices does not have a power source (for example, a telephone that can be turned off, a contactless credit smart card, etc.).
There are other communication standards that are somehow involved in NFC. Among them:
ETSI / SCP is a smart card platform needed to establish communication between a SIM card and an NFC chipset;
Single Wire Protocol - ETSI standard for data exchange protocol between a SIM card and NFC physical layer chips;
GlobalPlatform - is designed to define a multi-application architecture of a secure chip;
EMVCo - affects EMV payment applications.
NFC hazard
Although the radius of the NFC connection is limited to a few centimeters, it does not guarantee complete security of connections. In 2006, Ernst Haselsteiner and Klemens BreitfuĂź described various types of possible attacks.
Eavesdropping. The radio frequency RF signal can be intercepted by antennas. The distance from which an attacker is able to eavesdrop on a radio frequency signal depends on many parameters, but in any case it is only a few meters. In addition, listening mode is extremely affected by the communication mode. Obviously, a passive device that does not create its own radio frequency field will be much harder to eavesdrop on than an active device. The NFC standard alone does not offer protection against eavesdropping. In theory, the protocol stack should use cryptoalgorithms over NFC to protect data.
Data modification The destruction of data is relatively easy to implement by means of electronic warfare (EW), that is, RFID jammers. There is no way to prevent such an attack, however, the only result would be the inability to establish a connection. To get into the data inside the message with an attacking device in practice is unrealistic.
Attack using relay. For such an attack, the attacker must send the victim a reader request and send its response in real time further to the reader. This is done in order to accomplish a task that simulates possession of a victim's smart card. However, in practice such an attack is rather difficult due to severe time limits on the response of the requested device. In some cases we can talk about microsecond tolerances (for example, when performing a mandatory anticollision procedure).
The ice has broken!
In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about the implementation of NFC technology in the world and in Russia, in particular.
It should be recognized that the topic of the prospects for the development of NFC has been discussed for more than a year, and attempts to use it in practice have been made repeatedly. But, in most cases, the case of exemplary test systems did not go further. Although there are pleasant exceptions to the rule.
For example, Japan back in 2007 began to introduce NFC at local gas stations and at McDonald's fast food restaurants. In the States, discount coupons and promotions for regular customers are very popular. Despite such “high-tech oases”, it was recently seemed that the wide spread of technology was still far away.
Nevertheless, it is already clear that serious changes are coming in the world NFC market in the near future. NFC support is already included in Android 2.3, and in new phones from Google, Samsung, LG are NFC chips that are not yet unlocked. Microsoft also plans to add a near radio sensor to Windows Phone 7 phones, and RIM has announced plans to release BlackBerry phones with NFC during the year. Many expect that the NFC-enabled iPhone will appear in this or in 2012, Apple’s patent applications, in particular, are convincing. However, the apple company is still cautious, looking to the potential of the new technology and wondering how it can be integrated into its ecosystem. HTC did the same: the first device from them with NFC support will appear only in the third quarter of this year. The company believes that during this time the number of places where you can take advantage of NFC will increase, and support for this technology in the Android OS will improve.
The scope of NFC-modules is not limited to mobile phones. The technology will be appropriate in laptops, tablets and stationary home appliances. So, Lenovo has already announced its intention to embed NFC adapters in all laptops of its ThinkPad business series.
Not so long ago, Samsung and the Visa payment system announced a joint project to equip London with a sufficient number of NFC terminals by 2012, when the Olympic Games will open in the UK. In total, more than 60 thousand terminals will be commissioned in London, through which it will be possible to make various payments. Moreover, Samsung will release a special "Olympic" phone equipped with an NFC-module. Of course, any other NFC phone will also work.
In Russia, for promotion of NFC technology, among other companies, i-Free is responsible - one of the leaders of the market for additional mobile services and content in Russia and the CIS countries - also a member of the NFC forum. You probably know about the plans to introduce a universal card for residents of Russia - it will support NFC.
Already, thanks to the project of Aeroexpress, tickets for electric trains from railway stations to Moscow airports can be purchased using a mobile phone with NFC functionality. NFC service is being introduced as an add-on to the existing automated system for selling and controlling Aeroexpress tickets.
Last autumn last year, the Russian mobile operator MTS provided an opportunity for holders of 300 special SIM cards (including the company's employees and employees of the metro) to test the fare payment system in the Moscow metro using NFC technology.
In St. Petersburg, too, do not sit idle: in June, "Beeline", together with the St. Petersburg metro launched their project - payment of travel using a mobile phone using NFC technology.
According to IMS Research analysts, in 2015, 1.8 billion cell phones will be released. Every fourth of them will support NFC.
Video demonstration of NFC technology in action:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/120828/
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