How to Steal Credit Card Numbers with RFID
Yesterday’s episode of Boing Boing TV shows how to steal credit card information with a laptop and an $8 peripheral. Just walk up next to someone with an RFID-enabled card, and you’ve got it. As the hacker being interviewed points out, with a larger antenna you could set up in Starbucks and walk out with a dozen or more credit card numbers.
I first expressed my concern about this exact thing in a post four years ago:
It poses a grave privacy concern, exposing your [information] to anyone who can pick up a radio signal. I imagine high-tech identity thieves prowling the club with RFID receivers disguised as cell phones or pagers, culling ID info…
It’s amazing to me just how much I called it. An anonymous commenter on the BBTV post says that RFID-reading cell phones are already on the market:
You do not need to hack anything. Nokia and others are currently putting RFID readers in cell phones — you can already buy models with this feature in the open market (google for “6131nfc” for example).
So what can you do to protect yourself? There are a lot of recommendations out there, from drilling a hole through the chip to breaking it by striking your credit card with a hammer. On the less destructive side, this video from Popular Science magazine shows how to make an aluminum foil barrier in your wallet that blocks the radio signals from getting out.
Yes, aluminum foil. When the alien overlords come, you can turn it into a stylish hat to block their mind control rays. 
I don’t have any RFID-enabled cards right now, but if I get one I’ll probably give it the tinfoil hat treatment. What about you?
(Props: Boing Boing TV)
Update: How to Destroy an RFID Chip
Added 5/6/2008 — How-to website Instructables has a run down of the various ways to destroy or completely disable RFID chips in passports, credit cards, and elsewhere. (via The Big Noob and Boing Boing)
