[funsec] Vulnerabilities in First-Generation RFID-Enabled Credit Cards

[Richard M. Smith]

I guess the credit card companies figured it was too hard for people to put
a card into a slot.

OTOH, RFID credit cards are more flexible because they can be embedded
inside of other devices like a cellphone.

Richard 

-----Original Message-----
From: Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu [mailto:Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu] 
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 10:29 AM
To: rms at bsf-llc.com
Cc: funsec at linuxbox.org
Subject: Re: [funsec] Vulnerabilities in First-Generation RFID-Enabled
Credit Cards

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:29:45 EDT, rms at bsf-llc.com said:

> Here are all of the technical details.  I'm still scratching my head why a
> RFID credit card doesn't have a little momentary contact switch which must
> be pushed in order to activate the RFID chip.  With this simple addition,
> cards can't be read on the sly.

At that point, do something sensible like use the already existing
smart-card
technology that requires physical contact - at that point, the reader can
power
the chipset so you can have a lot more on-board storage and computation.

Kinda like some credit card vendors have done for *years*. ;)