RFID protection and its promotional use.

There is a major change in the technology of many bank cards, hotel room keys loyalty cards etc. Read here how you can make a stronghold of your wallet or purse to protect your ID. And how you can use the patented VoyagerBlue cards as innovative and useful corporate merchandise to promote your own business.
Patented VoyagerBlue featured on BBC radio2  on the Simon Mayo drivetime show http://goo.gl/EHg9N
The increase in contactless data transfer technology - on our passports, credit / payment cards, loyalty cards and other forms of direct and indirect identity - are all designed to aid efficiency and reduce waiting times. However, each of these technologies lends themselves to sniffing, eavesdropping and skimming - which can be very costly to your personal data.
RFID protection is important because It has been demonstrated that in many cases, this data can be inconspicuously skimmed by the person stood next to you, using a modern mobile phone and apps which are readily available. Copied cards can be printed in minutes using commercially available (and cheap) card printers and re-writers. CBS news reports that every 79 seconds, a thief steals someone's identity.
In London we have first hand accounts of transport system readers accidentally scanning bank cards rather than correctly reading travel cards.  http://goo.gl/fWJvQ and http://goo.gl/RR4R2 are recent articles about this issue.
Prevention is better than cure, and the only effective way to shield your contactless data from theft is by denying access. While there are less conventional methods of achieving this (such as wrapping your cards in tin foil), the patented design of the removable VoyagerBlue shields provides optimal protection in a manner which does not conflict with the convenience of the use of your contactless devices.
With considerable experience in developing and selling technology solutions for government, aviation and the military, we wanted to develop a solution which protected electronic devices working in the 13.56MHz range, including e-Passports, credit/debit/payment cards (including Oyster and sQuid), and electronic identity cards and passes.
VoyagerBlues extensive research with partners including advanced fabric development and transmission experts at the University of Bolton, Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus, and the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council resulted in a family of patented products to protect sensitive personal data.
The solution is manufactured from very tough fabric, laminated for surface printing and has the appearance and feel of a standard card - all aspects which are protected in our patents. It is designed to be as thin as possible, ensuring easy insertion into a wallet or passport while providing the maximum protection for data held within the chip.
Further to our current product range, we continue to work with a wide range of partners in the development of the VoyagerBlue product range and other solutions. Should you have any partnering interests in the development or exploitation of technical products, don't hesitate to contact us.
How It Works
All of your contactless devices contain a chip and antenna embedded in the body of the device - this is separate to the contact chip you often see on the surface. When the card is brought into the proximity of a reading device, the reader's electromagnetic field provides power to the contactless chip and a wireless data transfer protocol is initiated with the intent of data transfer.
The majority of contactless devices operate on a frequency of 13.56MHz, consistent with the ISO/IEC 14443 standard. Although this provides an activation distance of approximately 10cm (4ins), this depends on factors including the power within the receiver and size of antenna. Read distances in excess on 1m have been achieved.

Other shielding options effectively "wrap" the chip in a protective material, completely preventing access to the antenna; solutions include wallets and the use of foil which is effective, but often impractical.
VoyagerBlue  take a more innovative approach - our fabric provides an extremely high attenuation rate decreasing the strength of the reader's electromagnetic field and hence preventing communication between the reader and contactless devices.
This has proven to work when placed in front of (and covering) contactless devices, and is less intrusive than individual wallets for each card / passport. The contactless device can be made active by separating the card and shield - effectively taking the chip and antenna out of the protective proximity of the energy-absorbing fabric.
So how can Gizmo and VoyagerBlue help you promote your business?

The cards are available in credit card size and passport size. They can be fully printed on both sides giving you an excellent print area compared to many popular promotional; items such as pens or USB sticks. You can choose to print on one or both sides and we have an optional standard instruction design if you prefer.
Credit card shields give you the opportunity to get your brand in your customers wallet, and unlike other promotional gifts that have a fairly limited life the card will last at least as long as a regular credit card.
The passport shields which are the same size as a standard passport offer even more printing space for your corporate message. Ideal for promoting your brand, and an innovative new product that  will get your clients talking. These remarkable available from minimums of just 50 to any amount.  Promotional merchandise enquiries visit here. http://goo.gl/17ipi
Or if you just want to protect yourself and your family visit our retail site where you can even personalise your  VoyagerBlue shield with family pictures or your favourite holiday snap, you choose.  You can buy VoyagerBlue here. http://goo.gl/lJ6Vn

I thought I would keep you up to date with our progress following our successful first trade show at the Trade Only National Show at the Ricoh arena and also chat a little about our efforts and learning curve in the area of social media.

 

Firstly the show, we had a small booth in one of the outer halls, I think there were five in all, I say think because we were busy pretty much from start to finish, I never got chance to look around, That’s a result in my book in fact we had people look us up after hearing about our innovative products. We even had people coming to visit because they had personal instances of contactless bank card scanning and wanted to discuss VoyagerBlue.

 

We have been following up every lead and in fact we had e-mailed every visitor by the Tuesday following the show. We would like to thank all those who took time out to speak with us. Next year a bigger stand and more staff hopefully.

 

On to the social media side and everyone knows how important this has become. We now have quite a list of sites and links and feeds that strengthen our online presence and would say we have covered the most important ones. Having researched and taken advice we would agree that the following are vital. Facebook page it takes some time to get going but we consider it vital, Twitter more immediate than Facebook and it becomes quite a snowball effect but you can find great advice, contacts and resources if you search and use it well. We also have a BLOG here and on a separate site and also use Quora to post and interact with other likeminded individuals and businesses.

 

Google+ is possibly underestimated, given the power of Google and the threat of a new Facebook search engine it’s likely that Google+ will receive a lot of attention from its parent, ignore at your peril.

 

Pintrest and pearltrees are a little more of a catalogue and unknown quantity yet for us but we are there and we will review later in the year to see what benefit we derive. Pintrest certainly has rave reviews.

 

In addition we have YouTube which we launched our first “silent” movies on recently. It’s a start and soon we will be adding more video. Again this has been touted as a must have for business.

 

Of all the above Twitter and our own website are having the most effect so far and we are encouraged by the efforts of U-do an ethics based website and marketplace, if you are a small company or organisation maybe give them a try. They seem to be quite energetic in promoting their members.

 

Of course all the above only really cost time that means it can be expensive even if not in cash. However the rewards are there if you go after them and if you don’t someone else will. The last piece of advice is to get some social media software that allows you to post on all your sites and schedule the timings of your posts. We are trialling Virulheat at present. That does take away some of the hours you may spend posting to individual sites one after another.

 

Have a great February see you all soon, Gizmo.