Mythbuster’s Adam Savage explaining how major credit companies blocked the airing of an episode that would potential reveal significant flaws in RFID/Credit Card technology
View Reddit by the_colonelclink – View Source
View Reddit by the_colonelclink – View Source
Would have loved to see where the flaws are with RFID. I personally always make sure I carry two RFID cards together. That way the outgoing RFID signal is distorted.
Savage is funny (for many reasons) but one of the best is how he went from this flabby, nerdy guy into a goddamn straight up, handsome nerd-man *while still aging 25 years*.
And all he did was lose some weight and buy slightly different clothing.
This is a 13 year old video.
Semi-related cuz RFID but recently I was shopping to replace my wallet and kept seeing reviews for RFID blocking wallets saying it wasn’t blocking the tag at all.
Did some digging and it seems the RFID in your credit cards/etc and the ones used in entry/access cards use different frequencies/power levels/etc, implying that the complaints were due to said entry/access cards not being blocked, which may or may not be intentional
Absolute titan of a human, the impact Adam and the mythbusters team had on my capacity and implementation of critical thinking cannot be understated. Just seeing him makes me feel more analytical lol
As popular as Mythbusters was in its heyday, it was pretty clear some of the tests had to make it through a bunch of lawyers before we saw them on TV. I realized this watching the “can you beat a breathalyzer test?” episode. They weren’t going to show us any test in which the answer was “yes, you can!” for a whole pile of reasons.
I bet that lady is still adding on to her question about unglazed ceramic tile and their effect on New York style neopolitan pizza.
Savage issued a retraction to this story over a decade ago and admits he was wrong because he wasn’t there and was not on the call.
>”There’s been a lot of talk about this RFID thing, and I have to admit that I got some of my facts wrong, as I wasn’t on that story, and as I said on the video, I wasn’t actually in on the call,”
https://www.cnet.com/culture/mythbusters-co-host-backpedals-on-rfid-kerfuffle/
They’re not all the same, but it is amazing how many RFID enabled points of entry use no encryption. In a lot of cases, the “key” is a simple number reused over and over.
I have an RFID implant and easily cloned the keycard from a door I need access to on a regular basis.
A lot of security out there is (was?) like a house key; it is there just to stop the laziest and lowest tier of “bad guys”, which is most of the bad guys. The rest are handled either in special cases, or you just estimate and pay for the losses you incur through their actions.
Grant Imahara gave a talk at my engineering school about 3 months before he died and almost every person that I talked to said that Mythbusters inspired them to become an engineer. The effect that Adam Savage had on the coming generation of professionals and intellectuals in engineering especially really can’t be understated.
“I’d be happy to watch us lose to another show that did it better.”
These are the words of someone who truly loves science.
P-pizza NEW YORK, Unglazed vs. Glazed. Whatdidyouthi- PIZZA Newyork betterorwors- oven Pizza newyork.
I get such an absolute kick out of the immediate “BOOO” that smash lab’s mention gets… what an absolute garbage show, with TERRIBLE ideas.
For anyone curious:
Early RFID ( around the time this was uploaded, 13 years ago!!), all RFID did back then was send complete card details, including your CVV number in a JSON file. So anyone scanning it can get all the details needed to make any transaction.
That is what they didn’t want you to know….
It has been updated since.
I leaned this from a TED talk… i’ll try and find it
Edit:
Not CVV number, but it did send the other details, i watched it one time nearly 10 years ago, so apologies for any misinformation.
At 9:10
https://youtu.be/hqKafI7Amd8
Thank you u/earlofhoundstooth for finding it, that is the exact one.
When i was little, the urban myths dominated the school yard. Even among adults. These were questions we pondered constantly and yearned to see tested, but never had the means.
I don’t think people truly understand how impactful and revolutionary it was to see a show called “Mythbusters” show up and shine a light on many of these decades long questions.
So it sounds like Texas Instruments tattled on Mythbusters to the credit companies? Like those banks were not in the loop about this episode being made, but TI looped them in for some reason?