I explained in an earlier post that many of the new credit cards contained an RFID chip which could potentially let credit card hackers still your information.

To summarize the previous article, credit card companies want to use RFID chips in their credit cards instead of magnetic stripes. The problem is that anyone with a high-gain antenna and a Palm/WindowsMobile device can read the information off the RFID chip from about 25 feet away. The only way to prevent someone from stealing your card-data if you have an RFID equipped credit card is to keep it in a protective cover (lead sheet or copper mesh).

Apparently, Mythbusters was going to do a segment on this technology which was killed. Here’s the You Tube Video in which Adam Savage from Mythbusters explains how the Discovery Channel was threatened via a phone conference. Ultimately, they decided not to produce the show for Mythbusters.

Here is a great article by Scientific American on the RFID technology used in ID cards in the U.S.

RFID is NOT a secure technology by any measure of the word. RFID has its places in inventory control, pet tracking chips, etc. But it was never designed or intended to be used for secure transactions like credit cards or passports. The fact that the credit card companies snuffed Mythbusters story about RFID shows they don’t want it to be widely known that the technology has more security holes in it than a cheese grater.

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