Smart cards in public transport: the Mifare Classic Case - February 18, 2010

It is our pleasure to host this distinguished lecture by  Prof. Dr. Bart Jacobs, Professor at the Technical University Eindhoven. The lecture will be followed by a reception. Please feel free to forward this invitation.

Abstract:The Mifare Classic chipcard has been dismantled. Between 1 and 2 billion copies have been sold worldwide. The card is mainly used for access to buildings and for public transport. The talk will give an overview of these developments and of the role of the Digital Security Group of the Radboud University Nijmegen, in the Netherlands.

Prof. Dr. Bart Jacobs studied mathematics and philosophy at Nijmegen. He got his PhD in 1991, also at Nijmegen, in the area of theoretical computer science. He worked at universities of Cambridge (UK) and Utrecht, and at the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam. In 1996 Jacobs returned to Nijmegen on a research position of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW). Since 2002 he is full professor in the area of security and correctness of software. His work was supported by a prestigious Pionier grant of the Netherlands science foundation NWO. With his research group he has worked over the last decade on a number of societally relevant topics such as chipcards (eg. in passports and transport), electronic voting and privacy. Since 2005 Jacobs is also part-time professor at the Technical University Eindhoven. In 2007 he was a member of the "Korthals Altes" committee that advised on the future of the voting process in the Netherlands. In 2008 his research group attracted worldwide attention by showing severe security vulnerabilities in the Mifare Classic, the most widely used smart card.

See also his personal webpage www.cs.ru.nl/B.Jacobs