Reply To: What Mifare Tag should I use?

[TapLinx Support]

Hi Eric,

Unfortunately, without any effort you will not get a reasonable system and the higher the security requirements, the higher the effort in implementation. The question is, what is the effort you want to spend? Please let me make a short list of pros and cons.

MIFARE Classic:
Pros:

• No cipher implementation on reader side required.


• Encryption is handled in reader hardware.


• Simple memory architecture, only 16 bytes memory blocks combined to sectors.


• Only a couple of commands needed, ReadBinary, WriteBinary and if the memory block is prepared as “value block” Increment, Decrement and ReadValue.

Cons:

• Reader hardware must be a NXP product because of proprietary cipher (CRYPTO1).


• Used cipher CRYPTO1 cannot guarantee high security anymore.

MIFARE DESFire EV1, MIFARE DESFire EV2
Pros:

• Uses strong AES128 cipher and DES, 2K3DES, 3K3DES for compatibility.


• Uses a flexible “multi-user” architecture.


• An already “card in operation” can be used (if the card issuer does not prohibit it explicitly).


• Any reader hardware can be used (in contrast to MIFARE Classic).


• Provide a rich set of commands for several file types and card management.

Cons:

• Reader side must implement ciphers and CMAC and CRC functions for MIFARE DESFire protocol handling.


• Implementation of security functions and protocols needs knowledge of NDA material from NXP (except TapLinx SDK for Android).

The TapLinx team

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