RFID reader design available under Free Software / Open Source license

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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RFID READER DESIGN AVAILABLE UNDER FREE SOFTWARE / OPEN SOURCE LICENSE

Worlds first RFID reader with free hardware schematics and source code


BERLIN, Germany - Sep. 25, 2005 -- Today, the OpenPCD.org project announces
the availability of the worlds first 13.56MHz RFID reader featuring a free
hardware design and entirely Free Software for firmware and drivers.

OpenPCD supports many popular 13.56MHz based RFID standards such as ISO 14443
type A and B,  ISO 15693 and Philips(R) Mifare(TM), among others.  It interfaces
with a host PC using USB.

As opposed to existing RFID reader vendors in the market, OpenPCD.org gives
full access to all its hardware and software design to anyone, for free.   

As another major difference to available off-the-shelf RFID readers, OpenPCD
encourages RFID protocol related security research, by providing hardware and
software interfaces for various intermediate analog and digital signals.

"Coming from a communications security analyst background, we have wanted a
 flexible RFID reader for many years.  A reader that provides us with full
 hardware control, the ability to alter its firmware, to look at raw demodulated
 data and to modulate arbitrary bitpatterns on the RF interface is the ideal tool.
 Since such a product was not available on the market, we had to build it ourself."
says Harald Welte, lead software architect of OpenPCD.org

OpenPCD contains a 48MHz ARM7TDMI based microcontroller from the Atmel SAM7
series.  This controller provides enough spare processing power and memory
resources next to the RFID stack and thus enables users to run their own
additional application-specific program code in it.

Software development for the OpenPCD project is done by exclusively using Free
Software programs, such as GNU GCC for ARM, GNU binutils and sam7utils.  There
is no need to obtain license of any proprietary development tools.

The OpenPCD hardware schematics and gerber files for the PCB are available
under a Creative Commons share-alike attribution license.  The reader firmware
and Linux host software drivers are made available as Free Software under the
GNU General Public License (GPL).

Both Licenses allow anyone to build products based on the existing hardware
design and software, provided that the designs and software of any modified
versions of it will also again be released under the same license.

Vendors who are interested in building proprietary products based on OpenPCD
technology, without releasing their modifications to the public, can obtain a
separate license.

With the first units already shipped to customers, the team behind OpenPCD is
meanwhile working on their next project, called OpenPICC. OpenPICC is a
simulator for 13.56MHz based RFID transponders and even Smartcards with RF
interface.  Like OpenPCD, OpenPICC will be 100% Free Hardware and Free
Software.


About openpcd.org

openpcd.org is a joint project of hmw-consulting.de an bitmanufaktur.de, two
Berlin-based IT consulting and development businesses.


About hmw-consulting.de

hmw-consulting.de is the consulting business of long-term Free Softwre author
Harald Welte.  It specializes in consulting and development in the area of
Linux kernel development, embedded Linux and network security.  Mr. Welte is an
active Linux Kernel developer, has founded a number of Free Software projects,
and serves as core team member of the netfilter/iptables project, 


About bitmanufaktur.de

bitmanufaktur IT Solutions is a Berlin based company run by Milosch Meriac.
It offers consulting and development services with a broad range in software
engineering and hardware development.  The main focus is on deeply embedded
systems, hardware development, embedded Linux, realtime development, IT
security and reverse engineering. 
Mr. Meriac was part of the coreteam at the Xbox Linux project which did the
port of GNU/Linux to the popular Xbox game console.



For more information on the project, as well as the hardware design and software,
please see 

	http://openpcd.org/

 

Media contact:

openpcd.org
c/o bitmanufaktur.de
Milosch Meriac
Schwedter Str. 23
10119 Berlin, Germany
Phone: +49-30-41725006
Email: contact@openpcd.org
-- 
- Harald Welte <laforge@gnumonks.org>          	        http://gnumonks.org/
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