Mythbusters made to keep silent concerning RFID chips.

Article Link - Tom's Guide


It appears the big corporations don't want you to know the vulnerabilities of RFID chips. Which in the end may be a good thing so the vulnerabilities remain once they put them under your skin.

Adam Savage of Mythbusters, when speaking to the audience of The Last HOPE hacker conference, revealed why RFID Radio-frequency identification has become a bit of a taboo topic at Discovery Channel. In response to an audience question about revisiting RFID as an episode, Adam responds, “Dude, the RFID thing. I’m sorry. It just is not going to happen. ... Here’s what happened. I’m not sure how much of this story I’m allowed to tell, but I’ll tell you what I know.”

[edit on 3-9-2008 by Anonymous Avatar]

[edit on 3-9-2008 by Anonymous Avatar]

kinda scary when you think of it. the world is heading toward RFID. now your banks are worried about people knowing how to hack it you think they would have though ahead on that one.

reply to post by Anonymous Avatar


Can you post the link? I'd like to read the rest.....Or, am I blind and not seeing it?

reply to post by Anonymous Avatar


update on savage

reply to post by Anonymous Avatar


That's a low blow. I would have loved to see it. I would imagine it would be really easy to disrupt the rfid signal by wrapping a certain material around your arm or any other place where the chip may be.

Another thing, rfid cards have a chip that sends a signal. The government has this idea of setting up scanner spots through out the world, several locations with pole-like scanners that can scan all the information, name, social, credit cards right from your rfid card within a five mile radius.

I believe, though I am not sure, that the mythbusters may have focused the episode on getting your own scanners and being able to steal identities even quicker than you can do toay, because thats what I have been thinking about myself, for a while now.

Censorship is a shame

I don't think RFID chips are ready either as far as I'm aware all they transmit is a number which has to be looked up on a database. It would be trivial to clone them or even make reprogrammable ones to assume anyone's identity at will.

Maybe something in the future might work but as they are I say no point to them really they just aren't secure.

Not much of a surprise to me. RFID is not very well known to the public at large.

Sure they've heard of it, but don't know much else about it.

If such a largely followed show revealed just how cheezy RFID technology really is, and the ease with which it can be manipulated. There would be a firestorm of newly informed citizens with questions that the big boys don't want answered.

Ignorance is bliss after all....

there is no way i will ever get an rfid under my skin. everyone else can pick up the new "ipod rfid" in the future
It will be implanted in the forehead or the right hand!

I think it's alarming that Adam (Sessler?) basically sounded forced in his retraction statement. I don't blame him for retracting his statement. He's got a nice cushy career and he's a celebrity...

It's a shame that they are pushing this technology so hard and these same groups of corporations own all of our media and communications and basically our government, because who in their right mind is going to take on a group of multinational conglomerates? That's like one person taking on all the armies of the world. They got the Earth in their pockets, man. The Corporations ARE the New World Order... and to think, I once considered Robocop a farce. (If you remember in Robocop, the government and the police and the military are all owned by a corporation, and the criminals are all paid employees of that corporation to keep the supply and demand for Law and Order going...)

The question then becomes.... if we can't beat them traditionally, and if the media won't allow us to get a message across to people, and if people such as the brave Adam Sessler can't voice their opposing opinions and concerns without being forced to shut up... What do we do? Do we wait for all of this to get worse?

Originally posted by habu71
reply to post by Anonymous Avatar

 

Can you post the link? I'd like to read the rest.....Or, am I blind and not seeing it?

It is at the very top of my first post in this thread. =)

Or here is the link again... LINK

[edit on 3-9-2008 by Anonymous Avatar]

reply to post by dunwichwitch


Well if it is going to get worse, maybe it is just me, but I prefer that the vulnerabilities be left in place.

rfid is incredibly simple technology.

basically, it's a very small memory card, that doesn't need a battery, because he very act of reading it with the RFID reader gives it power to transmit.

within a few years though, rfid chips will be able to hold more and more information, just like usb sticks have increased in capacity while reducing in physical size over the years.

You can think of RFID the same way you think of magnetic strips on your credit cards or barcodes on product labels, only RFID doesn't need to actually touch anything, or be visible. There are also RFID threads that can be sewn into shirts and etc.

by the way: rfid isn't "cheesy." It's certainly not secure, but that doesn't make it useless. It can do wonders for keeping track of inventory. It just gets scary when "inventory" becomes people.

[edit on 3-9-2008 by scientist]

Actually yes, it is quite cheezy.

Any system put in place to track and audit that can so easily be manipulated is of little use in any terms of security. Be it merchandise inventory, cars, dogs, or people. It's a concept that has it's merits, but is sadly executed in our present form of RFID devices.

The only form of safeguard in place for this tech is "Security Through Obscurity"

Originally posted by dunwichwitch
I think it's alarming that Adam (Sessler?) basically sounded forced in his retraction statement. I don't blame him for retracting his statement. He's got a nice cushy career and he's a celebrity...

No man.. Sessler is from Xplay not Mythbusters.

Adam Savage is from Mythbusters.

I dont have much to add to this other than that.. I have bitched and moaned about this for the last 6 yrs.. so saying anything really dont do much in the swing of things.. You can tell people all you want about it, but next time a football game is on, they will forget wtf you said.

Originally posted by LockwithnoKey
Actually yes, it is quite cheezy.

Any system put in place to track and audit that can so easily be manipulated is of little use in any terms of security.

however that is not a flaw of RFID technology - the security aspect is something that's added by programmers / developers / engineers. RFID doesn't come built-in with security, any more than a hard-drive has built in security.

It's up to you to encrypt / obfuscate the information contained on it.

reply to post by Teknikal


But that's still fantastically useful. It's used all over industry at the moment, and everyone who uses it is grateful for it. Just imagine doing a stock inventory by walking down an aisle in a warehouse - no more checking each and every package.

Obviously their use for things like credit card information and passports is a bit ridiculous, but don't knock the technology - it has some incredible uses that are not a violation of people's privacy or financial safety.

I love RFID

reply to post by LockwithnoKey


It's not when you are running a warehouse, or baggage tracking system. If you have control over the warehouse/area, you scan things when they come in, and scan them on the way out. That is perfectly fine. If you are worried that people are sneaking in and messing with RFID chips in your warehouse, then you have bigger issues, as that is a problem that could effect any tracking system, be it bar-codes or simply eye-balling produce.

RFID is WAAAAAAAAY over-rated! Sure, it's great for knowing how many "men In Black" DVDs are in your warehouse. It even works when people try to walk out of a store without paying. But beyond that, it's joke! It has more vulnerabilities than could possibly be covered in a 1 hour Myth Busters show. Hell, they could have RFID week on Discovery and still only skim the surface!

The technology is amazingly vulnerable and severly limited in it's capabilities. Much of what you have heard that it is capable of is pure BUNK! RFID has a limited range AND a very limited amount of information that it can store - in short, it's about worthless with the exception of simple inventory tracking utilizing UPC or item numbers.

The part that I find scary is not the simple RFID tags discussed here, but the more advanced implant technology which shares very little similarity with RFID. Basically, as I see it, the reason they won't air anything about RFID is becuase it would collapse the entire industry. The whole thing is built on hype and once it's shortfalls were widely known, there would be little incentive for companies to adopt the technology.

From the link in the OP:

Adam Savage Said:

If I went into the detail of exactly why this story didn't get filmed, it's so bizarre and convoluted that no one would believe me, but suffice to say...the decision not to continue on with the RFID story was made by our production company, Beyond Productions, and had nothing to do with Discovery, or their ad sales department."

That to me is a very strange and interesting comment.

Originally posted by kozmo
RFID has a limited range AND a very limited amount of information that it can store - in short, it's about worthless with the exception of simple inventory tracking utilizing UPC or item numbers.

heh, you guys are being so hard on RFID. I totally agree, it should never, ever, ever be used for secure information. It's simply too easy to manipulate and really - they are not exactly bug free either. Lots of various factors can affect the rfid chip, the reader, or the actual reading between them.

However, consider why RFID is so popular for inventory... because it's cheap! It's not much more than the cost of printing a barcode onto a box. Now for people like me that have no interest in inventory, RFID is still an extremely cheap technology to make all sorts of cool gadgets without grants to fund all of their projects.

Also, as it has been mentioned - RFID is limited right now to small space. Again, this will increase with time (as all digital storage has) - but right now it's advantageous for RFID to work with such a simple interface - again, makes it extremely easy to put together smaller projects without a team of engineers.

RFID probably has a stigma attached to it around these boards, but really - it's no different than a barcode. Of course if the government puts chips in everyone, it would horrible. Just as horrible as if the government forced everyone to get a barcode tattoo. Neither of the actual methods are inherently bad, evil or "cheesy."

[edit on 4-9-2008 by scientist]