Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

developer.ibm.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 119 posts

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#101

Post by CiaranMcNulty »

threeseed wrote: post #16
givinguflac wrote: post #13

Neat, but I've yet to see a single NFC use case that gets me anywhere near as excited as this author. Amiibo is a cool concept but obviously limited. I've used some writable tags for android settings changes and such years ago, but it just doesn't seem useful to me. Anyone know a killer use case I'm missing here?

The biggest use case is probably for public transport. That's something where you are tapping on/off multiple times a day.

It's simpler to have the public transport accept contactless cards (and therefore Apple/Android pay) - see London

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#102

Post by xorcist »

xor1 wrote: post #100

Started looking at the author's patents out of curiosity. http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=... A computer receives user preferences. The computer receives a document, wherein the document includes an image. The computer determines that the image contains embedded text. The computer determines that the embedded text does not satisfy the received user preferences. The computer modifies the em…

Welcome to Marshall, Texas!

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#103

Post by xorcist »

hdhzy wrote: post #86
brians wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's okay. RSA-4096 is suitable for long term secrets, but we're talking about authentication: typically signing short challenges, or DH key shares, for immediate verification. The requirements for that application are much lighter.

How do you authenticate through NFC PGP on Android? Is that something specific to your company or is there a public app that you're using?

You can use something called Openkeychain on Android. It uses NFC Yubikeys for both PGP and SSH.

Regarding your 4096 bit requirements, normally when you have those security requirements you would keep that key offline and use shorter lived 2048 bit keys for actual authentication.

There is 4096 bit support with Yubikey 4 which unfortunately isn't offered with NFC.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#104

Post by xor1 »

xorcist wrote: post #102
xor1 wrote: post #100

Started looking at the author's patents out of curiosity. http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=... A computer receives user preferences. The computer receives a document, wherein the document includes an image. The computer determines that the image contains embedded text. The computer determines that the embedded text does not satisfy the received user preferences. The computer modifies the em…

Welcome to Marshall, Texas!

Ugh. Is the author basically a professional patent troll?

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#105

Post by FroshKiller »

givinguflac wrote: post #13

Neat, but I've yet to see a single NFC use case that gets me anywhere near as excited as this author. Amiibo is a cool concept but obviously limited. I've used some writable tags for android settings changes and such years ago, but it just doesn't seem useful to me. Anyone know a killer use case I'm missing here?

I have an NFC tag on my keychain. When I'm out and want to remember my location--where exactly we parked, where I saw a neat building--I use Tasker to write my GPS location to my keychain.

I could just as easily save a note with my location, I guess, but I like that the NFC tag stores the data without power, without putting it on someone else's computer, and without making it casually discoverable.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#106

Post by hdhzy »

xorcist wrote: post #103
hdhzy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you authenticate through NFC PGP on Android? Is that something specific to your company or is there a public app that you're using?

You can use something called Openkeychain on Android. It uses NFC Yubikeys for both PGP and SSH. Regarding your 4096 bit requirements, normally when you have those security requirements you would keep that key offline and use shorter lived 2048 bit keys for actual authentication. There is 4096 bit support with Yubikey 4 which unfortunately isn't offered with NFC.

> You can use something called Openkeychain on Android. It uses NFC Yubikeys for both PGP and SSH.

Okay, but open-keychain does not provide GUI to just sign or authenticate a user (you can sign as part of encryption process) so I was wondering if the parent was mentioning some application that interfaces with open Keychain (like k9mail or conversations.im) that gives just that: user authentication.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#107

Post by hdhzy »

xorcist wrote: post #103
hdhzy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you authenticate through NFC PGP on Android? Is that something specific to your company or is there a public app that you're using?

You can use something called Openkeychain on Android. It uses NFC Yubikeys for both PGP and SSH. Regarding your 4096 bit requirements, normally when you have those security requirements you would keep that key offline and use shorter lived 2048 bit keys for actual authentication. There is 4096 bit support with Yubikey 4 which unfortunately isn't offered with NFC.

> There is 4096 bit support with Yubikey 4 which unfortunately isn't offered with NFC.

Yes, but OTG adapters work pretty well here or one can use Yubikey 4C if the phone has USB-C input.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#108

Post by xorcist »

xor1 wrote: post #104
xorcist wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to Marshall, Texas!

Ugh. Is the author basically a professional patent troll?

Sorry about that. I wouldn't want anyone to think that. It was just my idea of a joke.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#109

Post by parmesan »

xor1 wrote: post #100

Started looking at the author's patents out of curiosity. http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=... A computer receives user preferences. The computer receives a document, wherein the document includes an image. The computer determines that the image contains embedded text. The computer determines that the embedded text does not satisfy the received user preferences. The computer modifies the em…

I like this one: http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=...

"[...] approaches for preventing an accidental termination of a phone call session.". The patent actually covers the event of when a user:

1) is in a call

2) taps dismiss

3) phone decide to dismiss or continue because [wildcard] reason.

So the functionality in my Samsung that "decide" whether to ignore or continue when I tap dismiss with my chin is patented, cool.

Re: Apple joins the NFC party, providing iOS developers the ability to read NFC tags

#110

Post by MBCook »

jimmcslim wrote: post #88
janekm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, interestingly, QR codes can be better for some payment scenarios than NFC. I live in China and I can go to my local corner shop, pick up a bottle from the fridge, and even if there's a queue at the register I can scan the code from a distance, pay and leave with a nod from the shop keeper. QR codes are also used for exchanging contact information... when I give a talk in China, I put my Wechat QR code at th…

Perhaps not coincidentally then, Apple is providing native support for QR codes in the Camera app in IOS 11.

They specifically mentioned it on the slide of things that they were adding for China as well.
Post reply on HN