At first I was confused as I only ever saw Formula 1 races, where tires are replaced at every pit-stop, so info gained would be minimal, but it seems Formula E stipulates you can only use 1 set of tires for the entire race making the info strategic.
Even in f1, if the tyre changes, you could figure out the info based on ids and make a guess to which team you were reading the info from. Stuff like temps and pressures would be handy to know about from your competitors...
Think it'd be even more useful in F1, where timing of pit stops is all important, and the state of the tires is a strong indication of whether the other teams will be coming in very soon or holding on for a bit.
How they’re driving will break down the tires at different rates. A driver may hold back to protect their tires to keep them in better shape in order to have more traction later when other people’s tires are shot.
If you know the state of everyone else’s you could game this to be in a better position.
other cars should start using countermeasures. then maybe we can finally enter the electronic warfare era of formula racing which would be pretty interesting
This is a good point--my understanding is that it also takes a little longer to run than simple value-store RFID tags do (second(s) instead of milliseconds). Pressure sensors in tires might be far enough removed from the corresponding reader that encryption is not feasible for the RFID chip.
I thought contactless payment was less secure than chip. With a chip reader, the POS terminal powers the chip on the card to do encryption on the card. The POS terminal cannot access the private key on the card. Contactless is much lower power, and basically reads a one-time code for the transaction, and the card does not perform any encryption. Is that incorrect?
It is my understanding this is incorrect. Whether chip or NFC is used, the private key is still used to perform a challenge-response signature for the transaction (ARQC/ARPC and SDAD)
It’s the exact same protocol (EMV), just using a different transport layer (ISO 7816 for contact vs ISO 14443 for contactless).
It’s basically the same thing as IP traffic that can be transported over an Ethernet cable or over Wi-Fi.
A surprising amount of encryption is optional in EMV (the underlying protocol for contactless and chip cards), because when it was originally developed (way before contactless was a thing), vanks were worried about the price of a chip capable of doing all the encryption. It's a source of all kinds of attacks on the protocol (though I don't know how bad it is now). For example, it's not at all uncommon for the reader to send your PIN to the chip in the clear, whoch makes skimming with a modified reader pretty easy (in general the readers have a lot of anti-tamper mechanisms, but they're designed to protect the operator's cryptographic keys, not the security of the card holder)
Even if it doesn’t, the values are finite. Tire pressures and temperatures have expected operating ranges and precision limitations.
You could very easily pre-hash the values. It’s not cryptographically secure, but secure enough to prevent your opponent from figuring it out during the race.
Modern encryption schemes include random nonce values in their algorithm. If I encrypt "Hello World" twice with say ECDSA I will get 2 different values to prevent exactly this issue.
> “These RFID chips will be embedded in the tyres’ sidewalls to ensure their traceability, from their production right through to their return to the factory after use at the racetrack,” explains Serge Grisin, manager of Michelin Motorsport’s four-wheel programmes. “Traditionally, this information is collected using an optical bar code reader. These new electronic tags open up all sorts of possibilities in addition to simply identifying individual tyres. They will be able to collect data relating to running conditions including temperature and pressure sensors. It will be possible to record and access information covering the tyre’s entire lifecycle.”
Identifying - sure. But how do they get temperature and pressure information? Is there a microcontroller embedded that writes stuff to the tag?
This seems like (clearly?) bad journalism. RFID tags on their own are for sure not taking active sensor readings, that'd be left for something closer to TPMS style systems.
It seems there are RFID tags that provide sensing functions. I didn't do a deep dive, here's the first thing I found. [1] They sense temperature, pressure, and other parameters. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this is used by tire makers.
There's a small battery-powered device mounted inside the tire, attached to the valve stem.
In regular passenger vehicles, it's usually woken up regularly by a signal from the car. It takes sensor readings, and transmits them back to the car (using that region's unlicensed UHF bands).
I imagine Formula teams may have need for greater frequency of sensor data, so there could be some variations here, but that's broadly how it works. In a passenger car, the battery outlives the tire.
So this system gets abused in sports. I wonder if there are applications in the real world (like tracking of movement of (individual) cars).
It's already done. When you drive into a parking lot, or go through a restaurant drive-through, your tires may already be scanned and your information sold.
It doesn't take much to corollate a person using the same credit card more than once at a store with the transmitted IDs of their tires in the parking lot, and then follow that person, via their tires, from place to place as they shop, do errands, visit an abortion clinic, etc.
Active RFID tags with integrated sensors are becoming more common.
Electronic sensors of various sorts have become low enough power to enable embedding a very small battery with sensors and RFID transmitter. These can log readings every second or few for a few _years_.
Temperature seems like it could be easy, I think you could do that analogue style with a passive tag connected to a bimetalic wire through a transistor.
But in reality they probably intend to use a UHF WISP e.g. embedded micro-controller.
> the competitor had installed RFID scanning equipment in the pit lane entry this morning that was able to collect live data from all cars. Firstly, it is forbidden in general for competitors to install or place any equipment in the pit lane. Secondly, the collection of data by this method gives the competitor a lot of information, which is a huge and unfair advantage.
I'm with you. To me, the second point is irrelevant. Something is either explicitly forbidden by the rules, or allowed by them. If doing this provides an unfair advantage then maybe there needs to be a new rule. To be honest, I think not making it a rule and letting everyone do it (as long as they can do it without breaking the rule on the first point) would make the game more interesting.
Well it was strictly forbidden. it is forbidden to install or place any equipment in the pit lane. Had they been reading this info from a device placed within their garage, it might have been a grayer area.
I expect a full clarification and likely more explicit ban or such devices will be forthcoming.
To those who wonder why this would even matter, it's worth considering how narrow the margins are in any racing sport.
You're talking about a 80-100km race where winner is ahead by typically only a few seconds. If you can squeeze a 0.1% gain out of some key info, you'll do far better for it.
Your driver is about to try to pass the driver ahead if him. How hard should he try? Pushing hard uses up your tires and energy. If you know the guy ahead has tires that are getting a bit worn, you know he won't fight very hard. That's a big advantage.
Poker wouldn't be too interesting if all players saw each others' cards. Same with racing. Keeping your opponent(s) constantly guessing is increasing the challenge and the fun of the sport.
> Your driver is about to try to pass the driver ahead if him. How hard should he try? Pushing hard uses up your tires and energy. If you know the guy ahead has tires that are getting a bit worn, you know he won't fight very hard. That's a big advantage.
It's not totally clear, but it seems like this would only gather data when the opponent car entered the pit lane. In that case, the knowledge gained would just be knowledge about competitors' tires during practice, since during the race the tires aren't changed. That could be extrapolated to what the competitors' tire setup for the race, and performance of tires during the race are.
They should just mark the tires so you can tell at a glance. It's great fodder for the commentators to go on about the different tire choices each team made.
FE uses only one type of tire and it’s the same tire for everyone. They are probably closest to, but distinct from, the Inter tires used in damp conditions in F1.
59 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 57.5 ms ] threadIf you know the state of everyone else’s you could game this to be in a better position.
You could very easily pre-hash the values. It’s not cryptographically secure, but secure enough to prevent your opponent from figuring it out during the race.
From https://www.tyrepress.com/2014/01/formula-e-tyres-to-feature...
> “These RFID chips will be embedded in the tyres’ sidewalls to ensure their traceability, from their production right through to their return to the factory after use at the racetrack,” explains Serge Grisin, manager of Michelin Motorsport’s four-wheel programmes. “Traditionally, this information is collected using an optical bar code reader. These new electronic tags open up all sorts of possibilities in addition to simply identifying individual tyres. They will be able to collect data relating to running conditions including temperature and pressure sensors. It will be possible to record and access information covering the tyre’s entire lifecycle.”
Identifying - sure. But how do they get temperature and pressure information? Is there a microcontroller embedded that writes stuff to the tag?
[1] https://www.atlasrfidstore.com/sensor-rfid-tags/
Perhaps the car is using Wi-Fi for TPMS.
There's a small battery-powered device mounted inside the tire, attached to the valve stem.
In regular passenger vehicles, it's usually woken up regularly by a signal from the car. It takes sensor readings, and transmits them back to the car (using that region's unlicensed UHF bands).
I imagine Formula teams may have need for greater frequency of sensor data, so there could be some variations here, but that's broadly how it works. In a passenger car, the battery outlives the tire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_TPMS
> In regular passenger vehicles
So this system gets abused in sports. I wonder if there are applications in the real world (like tracking of movement of (individual) cars).
It's already done. When you drive into a parking lot, or go through a restaurant drive-through, your tires may already be scanned and your information sold.
It doesn't take much to corollate a person using the same credit card more than once at a store with the transmitted IDs of their tires in the parking lot, and then follow that person, via their tires, from place to place as they shop, do errands, visit an abortion clinic, etc.
Electronic sensors of various sorts have become low enough power to enable embedding a very small battery with sensors and RFID transmitter. These can log readings every second or few for a few _years_.
But in reality they probably intend to use a UHF WISP e.g. embedded micro-controller.
Most TPMS can be read with an $29 SDR @ 433mhz.
Not RFID, there's a little coin cell somewhere in the wheel.
I'm with you. To me, the second point is irrelevant. Something is either explicitly forbidden by the rules, or allowed by them. If doing this provides an unfair advantage then maybe there needs to be a new rule. To be honest, I think not making it a rule and letting everyone do it (as long as they can do it without breaking the rule on the first point) would make the game more interesting.
I expect a full clarification and likely more explicit ban or such devices will be forthcoming.
"it is forbidden in general for competitors to install or place any equipment in the pit lane"
You're talking about a 80-100km race where winner is ahead by typically only a few seconds. If you can squeeze a 0.1% gain out of some key info, you'll do far better for it.
Your driver is about to try to pass the driver ahead if him. How hard should he try? Pushing hard uses up your tires and energy. If you know the guy ahead has tires that are getting a bit worn, you know he won't fight very hard. That's a big advantage.
It's not totally clear, but it seems like this would only gather data when the opponent car entered the pit lane. In that case, the knowledge gained would just be knowledge about competitors' tires during practice, since during the race the tires aren't changed. That could be extrapolated to what the competitors' tire setup for the race, and performance of tires during the race are.
They do. Pirelli F1 tires are color coded so anyone can tell at a glance what compound it is. Not sure why FE is different.
https://boingboing.net/2006/01/27/howto-turn-a-disposa.html