8 Ways to Sunday

Just finished watching a subtitled foreign-language film, and I’m reminded of something a South American exchange student told me in (I think) high school.

He said the way native English speakers talk reminded him of a typewriter. Each word is the snap of a key, the end of each sentence a carriage return.

He contrasted it to native Spanish speakers, who flow their words all together. There was no judgement in his passing observation.

Clackity chkt click, snap. Vrrrrrt!

Continuing the unusual string of video posts I’ve been doing, here’s something I recently found on YouTube. Animal, Beaker, and the Swedish Chef sing “Danny Boy” in their uniquely unintelligible style.

Happy belated Saint Patrick’s Day!

Yeah, yeah I’ll get back to making “real” posts soonish.

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)

As reported by BBC News:

I learned about this video from a post on Boing Boing, where Cory Doctorow raises an excellent question: why is the British news media covering this, but not the US media?

Arthur C. Clarke passed away yesterday afternoon, having suffered from breathing problems and back trouble during the last days of his life. His was some of the first “hard” science fiction I read, after graduating from the Star Trek spin-off novels in my local public library.

ZDNet’s Jason Perlow reminds me of a passage from 2010 that seems appropriate for the occasion. In this exchange, the dead/assimilated David Bowman talks with HAL about his own impending demise:

HAL: What is going to happen?

Dave: Something wonderful.

HAL: I’m afraid.

Dave: Don’t be. We’ll be together.

HAL: Where will we be?

Dave: Where I am now.

Thanks for your stories, Sir Clarke. Have fun exploring the universe.