The IT Nerd

RFID (click here for a page from Wikipedia explaining what it is) is everywhere. It’s in credit cards, passports, inventory systems, and even is used to track athletes in sporting events like the Ironman. It’s also really hackable, almost frighteningly so actually. Not to mention that there are privacy issues with the technology. But that hasn’t stopped it from being rolled out in a big way. My new MasterCard for example comes with a RFID tag that allows me to “tap” the card against a reader to pay for something. Tim Horton’s among others has these readers installed. So I can pay for my large “double double” easily and without a signature. That’s great for Canadian coffee addicts. But I digress.

The issues with RFID (hacking, privacy, etc) are not well known in the public domain and the Mythbusters show planned to change that by having a show on the topic. That was until the credit card companies lawyered up and forced Discovery Channel to not broadcast the episode.

Here’s a suggestion to the credit card companies: Your customers would be far better off if you spent the money that it cost you to lawyer up on actually improving security so that this isn’t an issue. Maybe then I along with others on the Interwebs wouldn’t have created postings on this topic making you all look like scumbags a bunch of people who have something to hide.

Just to rub some salt in the wound of credit card companies everywhere, here’s a video with Mythbuster Adam Savage explaining the situation as best as he can:

UPDATED: Here’s a video that describes how to hack an RFID credit card using $8 worth of stuff off eBay. No wonder the credit card companies are upset!

This entry was posted on September 2, 2008 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Mythbusters, RFID. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.