Industry View

CBP and Smart Containers: What Does It Know?

Dr. Jim Giermanski, chairman of Powers Global Holdings, gives us a break down of both RFID and Satellite Communications, two container security device technologies.

By Dr. Jim Giermanski

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For instance, RFID frequencies on which the data ride in the United States will not work in another part of the world. The foreign transceiver cannot trigger the data transmission because the U.S. may use a different frequency or protocol. Therefore, RFID for container security is applicable only to those areas of the world which have agreed on the same frequency. This weakness is in addition to the corresponding need for a land-based infrastructure of antennas and readers. Unlike RFID tags used in products and pallets that are read in controlled distribution systems, active RFID devices in containers that move around the world through uncontrolled environments, require the construction of antennas at global chokepoints where containers are interrogated. Who determines the number and location of these points?

Constructing a controlled distribution path globally is really impossible. Typically, chokepoints are locations where readers could be positioned that cannot be avoided by the carrier of the container. They include the spot where a truck is loaded or unloaded, on a crane that transfers containers, a weigh station, the port of loading, or at the port of discharge. Only for these obvious chokepoints at origin and destination, is a land-based system a reasonable option. In areas along the route of the container's movement, a land-based system is virtually impossible to establish.

c) The IED Connection
Recently, concerns about RFID usage as a vulnerability at seaports and land ports have surfaced, suggesting that the use of RFID can constitute an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). In fact, it is true that RFID emissions can serve as the trigger-mechanism for detonating an explosive device within the container. Because an explosive device can be easily wired to detonate with the proper RFID frequency signal at any of our nation's seaports and land ports, all out nation's ports that employ the approved RFID frequency for shipping containers become more vulnerable to terrorist attack.

To verify this vulnerability, in November 2007 a Southern city's police department's bomb squad, and three business firms connected to RFID usage demonstrated how RFID can be employed for that purpose. The demonstration was 100% successful, and it showed empirically the vulnerability of RFID transmissions as approved for use with containers passing through our international ports-of-entry. Present at that demonstration were representatives of the Department of Defense. In DOD's own words, the U.S. Army representatives examined the device and wiring and confirm that a commercial RFID interrogator was use to 'wake up' a commercial RFID tag. When the RFID tag responded on the 433 MHz frequency, the relay closed and the blasting cap set off the explosive charge.