Jonathan Schwartz @ News.com has an article that will be making the rounds quite a bit regarding unencrypted information on some of the new credit cards. I fully expect our Makers to make a text to speech version that screams out names as people walk by -
“They call it the “Johnny Carson attack,” for his comic pose as a psychic divining the contents of an envelope. Tom Heydt-Benjamin tapped an envelope against a black plastic box connected to his computer. Within moments, the screen showed a garbled string of characters that included this: fu/kevine, along with some numbers. Heydt-Benjamin then ripped open the envelope. Inside was a credit card, fresh from the issuing bank. The card bore the name of Kevin E. Fu, a computer science professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who was standing nearby. The card number and expiration date matched those numbers on the screen. “ Thanks Sdwarf! – Link.
More:
- No-Swipe Credit Card No Problem For Thieves – Link.
- Researchers See Privacy Pitfalls in No-Swipe Credit Cards” – Link.
- Vulnerabilities in First-Generation RFID-enabled Credit Cards – Link.
- RFID Payment Card Vulnerabilities Technical Report – Link.
RFID projects, readers, hacks and more:
- DEFCON RFID World record attempt… – Link.
- Interview with RFID implanter – Link.
- RFID Robot – Link.
- RFID door – Link.
- RFID enabled flame shooting trampoline – Link.
- MAKE VIDEO PODCAST – Getting “Chipped” – Link.
- HOW TO – Homemade RFID reader – Link.
- HOW TO – Make a RFID zapper – Link.
- DIY RFID-Zapper… – Link.


From the pages of MAKE:
- RFID for Makers – Build this kit to read radio frequency ID tags. MAKE 06 – Page 162. Subscribers–read this article now in your digital edition!










RE: “Build this kit” Illustration…
I’m almost positive the Parallax RFID reader sends serial data in TTL level output, so you can’t directly connect it to the computer as shown above.
I can confirm that at least the CrystalFontz displays have solderable jumpers for inverted TTL that allow direct connection to the Parallax reader and a 5vdc source.
It looks like the “RS232 Line Driver” in the schematic above is intended to be a level converter from TTL to RS232 levels, so he’s not connecting it directly above.
You are right though that it can’t connect directly to the computer without a level converter.
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