Make an RFID-proof wallet

99luftballon writes "If, like me, you're more than a little concerned about the privacy aspects of RFID there's a useful enthusiast's web page on making your own RFID-blocking wallet. OK, it's never going to win any prizes for beauty or garner fashion awards but should be effective and seems perfectly practical. "

Comments

Effective, but hardly practical.

[TripMaster Monkey]

Article summary is a trifle misleading...I was hoping to see a modification to a real wallet, not a wallet made out of duct tape with foil added.

It seems to me that I could simply line the pockets of my actual wallet with foil...this would have several benefits over the duct-tape wallet:

• Less foil used means less likelihood of your wallet settting off metal detectors at the airport.
  
• Ability to remove foil when asked by TSA means I don't lose my wallet the first time I try to board an airplane with it.
  
• Conventional wallet appearance means I can take out my wallet in public without looking like a gigantic nerd.
  
• Avoiding duct tape design means my wallet won't ooze adhesive, get stuck in my pocket, randomly glue money and cards to itself, etc.
  
• Avoiding duct tape design insures my wallet can actually survive the occasional trip through the washer and dryer.

I'll admit that the duct tape wallet has a certain Red Green-esque appeal, but I'd rather have a more practical solution.

Re:Effective, but hardly practical.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

It seems to me that I could simply line the pockets of my actual wallet with foil...this would have several benefits over the duct-tape wallet:

it would also last about five hours before wearing and needing replacement. I'd wager a properly constructed duct tape wallet with the foil embedded would last an order of magnitude longer than a quick fix foil solution.

It's all a moot point anyway as RFID technology will quickly pass the point where simply tin foil will prevent remote snooping.

Re:Effective, but hardly practical.

[demachina]

"It's all a moot point anyway as RFID technology will quickly pass the point where simply tin foil will prevent remote snooping."

I think we are rapidly heading towards the sad day that if you are out in public WITHOUT a bunch of RFID tags broadcasting your ID at every portal you walk through that will flag you as a "person of interest" and lead to you being taken aside by security for questioning and possible detention. There will no doubt be other biometric measures to spot check and validate you are wearing the correct dog tags. Of course sometime soon we will begin to implanted the RFID tags at birth soon so at least minor surgery will be required to forge them. This will be done, of course, "to protect the children" from foul play.

It would seem to me that with the current post 9/11, government and media hyped, paranoia that we are rapidly heading to a point where every government/business (and the two have so fused they are nearly one) is going to want to instantly know and validate the ID of everyone and instantaneously judge your threat level based on your credit history, criminal record, ethnic background and religious affiliation(Arab Muslim in particular). The day is coming soon where you will need clean RFID tags to enter any business, government office, subway station, or wait at a bus stop.

What a wonderful safe world we would live in if it we could instantly spot a potential terrorist waiting for a bus and a send a team to rendition them to a prison in Eastern Europe for disposal. Minority report without the problematic R&D needed to develop the psychics. The psychics will be database miners who will spot and flag anyone whose daily routine of movement and financial transactions doesn't conform to social norms. The DOD and Poindexter in particular have already started this program several times. When its exposed and the outrage builds against it they just move it, rename it and continue developing it. This program really needs pervasive RFID tags to extend the database though.

I often wonder how America and Britain survived before we had technology and started down the actual road to big brother police states. In the early 20th century you had "anarchists" filling the role of "terrorist" seeking to tear down civilization yet we mostly survived without a pervasive police state. Ironically civilization nearly destroyed itself in the overreaction when "anarchists", (though they were more nationalists than anarchists) killed an Arch Duke and the so called civilized world proceeded to nearly destroy itself with World War I.

In the 30's we had bank robbers like Dillinger roving the country side and crossing state boundaries with impunity. If we had a pervasive police state, RFID tags and a national database, they wouldn't have lasted a week. Ironically at the time many people sided with, and idolized, the bank robbers for retaliating against the government and financial system that had wiped out their jobs and their life savings in the depression (a depression which rose out of a frenzied stockmart bubble of the roaring 20's where the stock brokers and stock market players were a million times more destructive and criminal than Dillinger ever was).

I had a foil wallet on /. a year ago

[saskboy]

My old site (scroll to the bottom):
http://www.angelfire.com/mt/woodmtn/insight.html [warning Lycos ads]
Was in my signature nearly a year ago [April 7 2005]
"...a new item the FOIL'ID AGAIN(TM) which is a foil wallet for passports and other RFID infested documents. RFID is cool in food packages, and books, but in ID it's just a bad idea. Someone could pick your pocket without your documents ever leaving your wallet, unless of course you invest in my FOIL'ID AGAIN(TM) product ;-)."

Re:uhhhh...self defeating it seams

[Red Flayer]

"Why not just avoid getting the objects if you don't want to use them?"

Because eventually, you won't have that choice. Passports, Driver's licenses, etc, will all require RFID tags.

Hardly effective

[dnoyeb]

Hardly effective. RFID is close range low frequency technology. Its not going to be stopped by some spotty foil wrap thats not even grounded to anything, ROFL...

German?

[Anonymous Coward]

Being German myself, I'm not surprised that the obviously slightly paranoid person submitting this seems to be German (or did he/she just take a German username?). I'm not surprised because if you go to a German forum and there is anything about RFID, people go into a panic mode I have never seen before. People actuall WRITE STORIES on the forums, about a future with RFID's where everything goes wrong and nobody is free anymore. Then everyone else applauds. Here on slashdot, most people (like me) just seem to think that it's not a big deal. Could it be a regional paranoia spreading into the internet?

A more practical approach: Normal Wallet and Foil

[twitter]

A more practical approach, if you are only looking at stopping cusual walk-by snooping, would be to carry a conventionnal wallet into a pocket lined with aluminium foil.

Why not just line a nice wallet with foil? The quick and dirty way is to put a large piece of foil in the billfold section. If you want to get fancy, unstitch the liner and shove the foil between the leather and the liner, then stitch it back. This might take a little longer than making a wallet from duct tape, but it will look much nicer and much less kooky.

It's going to be worth my effort to take my pass card out of my wallet if the door opener at work can also read my credit cards. The people at work use M$ for all sorts of stuff, so I imagine it's easy to own the card reader.

Security industry.

[InnereNacht]

I work for a small security outfit and we put in access control systems with RFID tag badges, fobs, etc. The chances of someone carrying around a reader and the equipment needed to decode whatever cards they find is pretty minimal, and with the minimal read range of the ID tags you need to have a pretty serious setup to get a valid read. Even the standard size proximity card reader can only read at a range of about 2-4" max. HID makes a reader called the Pro Prox that is about 15" x 15" and has a read range of around a foot. I wouldn't worry so much. Nobody is going to be snagging your credit card numbers from space. If you see someone walking around with a backpack and a car battery tied to his leg and your hair stands on end when you get within a couple feet, then maybe be concerned. These readers really aren't what people make them out to be. Hell, most of the smaller RFID devices require contact with the reader to work.