Rackspace are giving away 100$ free hosting to anyone who can get the private key from their NFC Ring at DEFCON. Look out for the guy wearing the t-shirt with the challenge details on..

This might seem like a really bad idea for us but we want hackers to own this technology, not p0wn it.. Everything is built on open standards and only with the help of a community can we make it a truly secure yet functional ring.

We have talked a lot lately about the security / usability trade off and we’re pretty sure that our design will need some improvements as we move forward and as NFC exploits become more common. There is one thing the hacker community can be sure of and that’s that we will be honest about our shortcomings and maintain an open approach to solving security issues.

It’s gonna be cool if someone can exploit the ring, hopefully when(yes when, this is DEFCON for crying out loud!) they do we can do a post on it and maybe an interview 🙂

Here are some suggestions for how to exploit the ring including some pitfalls:

• Get an NFC Reader on a door handle (tough to induct when surrounded by metal)
• Wear a glove with an NFC reader on and shake the owners hand/high 5 him (he will probably notice that weird glove though)
• Hide an NFC reader in your mouse and ask him to show you how to play his favorite game(hackers don’t have time for gaming)..

Have a great time at DEFCON everyone! We’d love to be there but we’re really busy now telling people the NFC Ring wont work on their iPhone..