Mythbusters RFID episode axed after 'pressure' from credit card firms | Hacker News Reader

Mythbusters RFID episode axed after 'pressure' from credit card firms

theregister.co.uk

35 pointsastrec20 comments

Wouldn't it be cheaper to design reliable technology than to pay lawyers to strong-arm people into not talking about how unreliable it is?

I seriously doubt it. Lawyers can issue scary legal threats in their sleep. It's like yawning to them.

Threatening Mythbusters is probably a matter of 15 billable minutes of legal time. Whereas building a secure RFID is hundreds or thousands of engineering hours.

Here's something that just occurred to me: One reason why actual security is more expensive than lawyers is that your security team is up against black-hat hackers who are willing to spend hundreds of hours working -- anonymously, in secret, and without pay -- to defeat you. Whereas your legal team is generally not opposed by a black-hat legal team that is willing to spend hundreds of pro bono legal hours to try to defeat you in court. Particularly because you can't challenge a legal threat while simultaneously remaining anonymous and working in secret.

Whereas building a secure RFID is hundreds or thousands of engineering hours.

Building the insecure RFID is also hundreds or thousands of engineering hours. There is a lot of grunt work that was done regardless; designing the radios, designing the manufacturing process for the ID chips to be as cheap as possible, etc. Getting the crypto right isn't much on top of that.

Interesting and unfortunate. I wish the Mythbusters didn't face this sort of pressure. Maybe they can still do the segment and then put it on their website. That is less predominate than their TV show.

With information like the defcon slides already readily available I'm surprised to see such pressure. I guess a segment on a cable TV show is more public than MIT student newspaper.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=271920

Interesting that there's already a company making wallets to block RFID signals: http://www.rfidblockr.com/

There's also http://difrwear.com

I have one of these, and after a mystifying experience at airport security, I discovered that the RFID shielding is made of metal. No clue whether it actually works, though.

"REAL ID Act and RFID: Privacy and Legal Implications," a talk at The Last HOPE, tested one such wallet, and determined that while it's closed, it works--but the one they tried sprung open about an inch when placed on a table, and the rfid card inside was still readable that way.

http://www.thelasthope.org/talks.html http://www.thelasthope.org/media/audio/16kbps/REAL_ID_Act_an...

I have a passport case and a wallet from DIFRWear. I don't carry my passport everyday, but my public transportation card works with RFID and it's definitely not working when kept inside the wallet. Surely it could be read when I'm actually using it to get in the station, but once in my pocket there's no way to copy or read it. I haven't had the occasion to try the shielding of the passport case either.

Also http://lessemf.com, which also sells silver mesh boxers.

Does anyone know an easy/inexpensive way to "clone" an RFID card? (My work only lets me have one card, but I want to keep one in my car and one in a my wallet since I need it both in the garage and in the building.)

I figure it shouldn't be too hard, it's just sending out a radio frequency, right?

This particular "myth" has already been busted. Looks like El Reg is a running a bit behind the new of the day: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/32254

So first Adam claims they were pressured into dropping the segment.

Then bad publicity ensues and what do you know: Adam now claims he had a brain fart and all the big corporations say there just giddy over the Mythbusters segment. They were bending over backwards to help!

Shucks, what a silly misunderstanding!

"Adam Savage's widely circulated YouTube video account of a pack of credit card industry giants pummeling Discovery Channel into deep-sixing a Mythbusters investigation aimed at RFID is now taking more of a beating than Buster the dummy absorbs on a typical episode of the show."

I had to re-read that first sentence a few times.

Sounds like he got in a little trouble with Discovery for blaming them.

Why can't they just do the episode and keeping-in-line with past 'sensitive' topics like bomb making, skip over the part where they actually tell you how to do it?

Or would it even be possible given how easy it is?

Incredible! Hope they show it online soon. Would become an instant hit...

Does this mean hackers will be RFID-Driving for my credit card info?

well, when its this easy it gets concerning... http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/03/19/how-to-hack-an-rfide.htm...

yeah, you can already do that.

i can't find a link to the experiment, but i saw something on rfid wardriving and hacking that involved setting up a node near gas station rfid payment nodules (similar to how ATM hackers set up fake fronts on the card insertions), intercepting the information that can get cracked or copied for use.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com