RFID Chips

Hey Everyone,

Its been a while since my last post but I am back now. I recently got a new debit card so I destroyed my old one but I thought it would be interesting to show everyone what credit/debit card companies are hiding in their cards usually without customer knowledge. Below are pictures of an RFID chip from between the layers of my old debit card. Surprising how small it actually is (please note the actual chip is just the inner rectangle). The paper clip beside it is a standard small paper clip.

In my case I knew about this chip since my card had the PayPass feature. A lot of companies though are putting this in their cards for no reason (contains card number and other information about you) which means SECURITY ISSUE. Criminals are able to build a device for under $100 that can scan these cards from your pocket. So imagine someone hiding this device in say an airport, pretty scary huh? Think this doesn't happen? Then your an idiot! At the last DEFCON ("DEF CON is one of the oldest continuous running hacker conventions around, and also one of the largest.", Frequently attended by several FBI and other government agents.) a group set up a scanner as a project to make people aware of this problem. They were able to get information from several people using this scanner. See the following link for the whole Wired write up: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/fed-rfid/

Now there is something you can do to help protect your self. You can get rid of all your credit cards, right? If you are like me and NEVER carry cash then this is not an option. I was able to find another solution though over at ThinkGeek.com. They have Faraday protected wallets and passport (also contains RFID chips now) protectors. I have had the wallet for a few months now and have tested it and can say it actually does work! If you are interested here are the links: Wallet and Passport Protector. I will keep looking for other options and if I find anything I will add them here.

If anyone has questions let me know.

UPDATE: Found another option that allows you to be secure but not have to get a whole new wallet: RFID-blocking sleeves.

Timn

Idiots

Hi Everyone,

Let's see what all of you think of the following scenerio:

For the past few months I have had a leak in my roof. So like any responsible home owner I decided to hire someone (a roofer) to fix my problem. Well I finally decided on someone and he came out and worked on the roof for the last two days. Upon completion today this is what I went up and saw:

What are all of your thoughts? As soon as I saw this I immedently went and put a stop payment on the check and called the guy. He proceeded to tell me that with an "old" roof this was the best I could expect and the only way to get a "nice looking" job would be to get a whole new roof. So would any of you pay nearly $400 for the above job?

Ok I have been ranting about this since 4PM this afternoon, it is time I move on to something else.

Timn

New Phone

Hey everyone. Just got the new HTC Hero so I have been playing around and decided to post (from my phone). It's pretty amazing, the Android OS is one of the best phone OS's I have used. If you want to know anything about the phone or OS just let me know.

Timn

Ubuntu

For those of you that care:




Hopefully we will have working ATI drivers with this release! That's right AMD get your shit in order!

Welcome

Hi Everyone.

Welcome to my new Blog. I will post about anything I find interesting. If you find something that might be cool to share send me an email or leave a comment about what you would like to see.

Timn