"We actually have special shielding cloth now that's actually lined inside every wallet," Augustinowicz says. The products cost is anywhere from $10.00 to $50.00. On his website, you can find shielded badge protectors, leather purses, and every style wallet imaginable - from Western bi-folds to purple faux-crocodile mini clutches. A decade ago, recognizing that people would want to block their credit cards from being "skimmed," he started a company called Identity Stronghold. "Anyone with a reader can try and surreptitiously gather data from them," he says.Īll Tech Considered Music, Spies And Exact Change: The Strange History Of Electronic TollsĪugustinowicz is the godfather of RFID-blocking accessories. The problem, according to Walt Augustinowicz, is there's no "off" button on these cards. It makes automatic payment on toll roads and faster scanning of passports possible, and, starting around 2004, brought us contactless payment with certain credit cards. The technology helps keep track of livestock and inventory. These chips are supposed to make life easier by emitting radio signals for fast identification. That's because her card has a tiny RFID sensor chip. In videos like this YouTube demo, a man holds a black scanner the size of a large remote near a woman's back pocket and, voila, he's got her credit card number and expiration date. In the last few years, a whole RFID-blocking industry has sprung up, and it survives partly on confusion. That's the message you might see on TV or in ads warning that hackers can access your credit card data wirelessly, through something called radio frequency identification, or RFID. Pickpockets don't actually have to pick your pockets anymore. An industry has sprung up to make wallets and other products that block hackers from "skimming" the data. Passports and some credit cards have RFID chips that allow information to be read wirelessly.
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