Why Some People Put These Credit Cards In the Microwave

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () bsf-llc com>]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114463085998921417.html?mod=todays_us_page_o
ne
 

Why Some People Put These Credit Cards In the Microwave

Mr. Walker Took a Hammer
To His New MasterCard -- 
To Stop the Radio Waves
By SUSAN WARREN
April 10, 2006; Page A1


When Brenden Walker got his new MasterCard PayPass ATM card in the mail last
month, he headed to the gas station to try it out.

To test the card's "Tap N Go" convenience, he passed it in front of the
scanner, which activated with a beep and displayed the word "authorizing..."
on its LCD screen.

That was quite enough for Mr. Walker. Without completing the transaction, he
put the card down on the pavement and took a hammer to it.

"I gave it a couple of good whacks," he says.

The PayPass card, which contains an embedded radio chip, had worked
perfectly. Other companies have their own versions: Exxon (SpeedPass),
American Express (ExpressPay) and Visa (Contactless and Blink). In each
case, the cards use an embedded electronic chip with miniature antenna. When
activated by a scanner, the chip transmits the user's account information
via radio signals. In just the wave of a hand, the purchase amount is
automatically drawn from an account.

But Mr. Walker, a 37-year-old software engineer in Canton, Ohio, is one of a
growing number of computer and technology experts who are becoming anxious
about possible abuses of the technology. Mr. Walker fears that thieves will
be able to eavesdrop on the radio transmission and buy gas at his expense.
He also figures that he himself could walk past the pump and accidentally
pay for somebody else's gas, though the card companies say he would have to
get within two inches of the scanner to accomplish that feat.

In any event, he wants no part of it. Hammering the card destroyed the chip.
"I tried it again and...nothing," he says. "I might as well have been
holding up a salami sandwich."

As the chips become more widespread, other militants are seeking them out
and destroying them. And a little industry is springing up on the Internet
to pitch an array of devices meant to protect consumers from abuses of the
technology, called radio frequency identification, or RFID. One example:
wallets with metal shields built in that block radio signals.

...

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