CC Companies Scotch Mythbusters Show On RFID Security

mathfeel passes along a video in which Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage recounts how credit card companies lawyered up to make sure the Discovery channel never, ever airs a segment on the flaws in RFID security. "Texas Instruments comes on [a scheduled conference call] along with chief legal counsel for American Express, Visa, Discover, and everybody else... They [Mythbusters producers] were way, way outgunned and they [lawyers] absolutely made it really clear to Discovery that they were not going to air this episode talking about how hackable this stuff was, and Discovery backed way down being a large corporation that depends upon the revenue of the advertisers. Now it's on Discovery's radar and they won't let us go near it."

Comments

Sometimes it neccesary

[nickswitzer]

There are things that sometimes just don't need to be divulged so that every blow joe doesn't decide to run around trying it. An example is that I have figured out a few ways talking with some other IT professionals on how to successfully use someone's credit card without their consent or without triggering the companies themselves and I have decided to keep those revelations to myself so that it is not exploited by every script kiddie and wannabe hackers to try.