The Future of Tamper Indication

Inventory control against loss, modification, and counterfeit of goods and materials in various sectors of the economy, including commerce and the military, has increased in importance due to recent events, such as terrorism and globalization. Growth in the field of inventory control to improve supplier efficiency, reduce inventory losses, and ensure product authenticity and security, has resulted in a 20-fold increase in the use of radio frequency identification devices (RFID) over the past decade. Other inventory control devices, such as tamper indicating devices (TID), are also seeing increased deployment. But a serious issue faces the TID end-user community: what is the appropriate technology for a given environment and a given application? Though TIDs, in general, are not intended to fortify or physically protect a valued item from being accessed by an adversary, they are critical elements in a system of security in which they detect, access, and alert the responsible party of possible compromise. Unfortunately, since no performance standards exist to guide end-users in identifying and properly deploying TIDs, mistakes and misapplication of technology will inevitably occur. We propose establishing a performance-based system, which takes into account security expectations, operational performance, standards and practices, and evaluation and design tools for existing and future TIDs to improve effectiveness of the TID selection process. The establishment of such an approach requires active participation of all stakeholders including vendors and end-users. We do not consider our approach a final design but rather a starting point for future discussions.