This from Rockledge, Florida -
“Surveillance cameras caught a man installing a skimming device on a Rockledge ATM to steal money from innocent customers.”
What, you may ask, is a “skimming device” and how can it be used to steal money? The skimming device mentioned in the article linked above is most likely reading the magnetic strip on the ATM cards. But, ATM cards and credit cards are moving away from magnetic strips and to RFID chips. In some ways it’s easier to build devices that will read RFID chips.
California and Washington state have already passed laws against RFID skimmers. Sounds like a good idea, right? Why would anybody need a device that reads RFID information? Only people trying to steal your credit card information. Except this is wrong.
Our world is quickly becoming saturated with RFID chips. We WANT skimmers. We want them to read the chips at the grocery store so we can learn when that wine was bottled, and what vineyard it came from. We want to know what country shipped this asparagus, or what county. We want to know what Consumer Reports thinks about this refrigerator we’re considering buying. We want to know where the RFID chips are.
Instead of outlawing a tool that could have tremendous positive applications, we need to suggest to credit card companies and other RFID users that they should improve their encryption methods. Given the default position of idiocy, fear, and allegiance to corporate demands by our political class we need to start preparing now for the widespread attack on skimming devices. This is technology that should be migrating into your Blackberry, iPhone, or Android.
We don’t need more laws. It’s a bad idea to criminalize the next wave of technological innovation. There’s already a solution in place. Improve your encryption.
