Slashdot Mirror
Adam Savage Revises Claim of Lawyer-Bullying On RFID Show
Nick writes "A few weeks ago a video of a talk given by Adam Savage of the television show MythBusters spread across the internet (including a mention on Slashdot.) On the video, Savage stated that the show was unable to produce an episode about previously known RFID vulnerabilities due to a conference call to Texas Instruments that unexpectedly included several credit card companies' legal counsel. TI (via a spokesperson talking with cnet.com) stated that only one lawyer was on the call and that the majority of the people on the call were product managers from the Smart Card Alliance (SCA) invited by TI to speak. Then Savage (via a Discovery Communications statement) reaffirmed that he was not on the call himself and that the decision was not made by Discovery or their advertising sales department but rather MythBuster's production company, Beyond Productions."
Ok, so they told him to revise his story to make them seem nicer or get the boot?
Methinks this is likely.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I reject your reality and substitute my own!
"I really, really like my job."
SmartCard Bullying myth...
BUSTED!
That said, I'm amused that all it took was one lawyer and a bunch of product managers (no bias here, right?) to cow a production company into submission.
This sounds like the kind of statement someone was forced to read to avoid a PR problem, usually this occurs because a lawyer told him "you can't say that we will get in trouble!" to be honest I'm more likely to believe his first statement.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
It sounds like the blame has shifted, but the point is still the same: they would like to do a show on RFID, but they were politically motivated not to.
become a cartoon. Maybe like Rocky & Bullwinkle. "Hey Jamie! Watch me pull our show's credibility out of a hat!"
"the decision was not made by Discovery or their advertising sales department but rather MythBuster's production company, Beyond Productions."
Riiiiiiiight..... **rolling eyes**
I think it's safe to say that if he didn't have an intimidating phone call with a bunch of lawyers before, he HAS now. :)
And that's all I have to say about that!
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
TI is obviously hoping that by quibbling over details, people will manage not to notice that the core of the story hasn't changed.
#DeleteChrome
No, no, that's probably true! Discovery didn't make the decision, they just presented the choice to the production company to either not produce the show, or take a long walk off a short pier.
Beyond Productions made the decision of which option to take entirely on their own.
The enemies of Democracy are
...the story was accurate.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Why was there even a single lawyer in on such an innocent call?
That's not Picasso, that's Kandinsky!
... the lawyers put the thumbscrews on the production company and not on Discovery then? Wow, what a difference that makes. Boy, I feel the sudden urge to get an RFID implant.
Dude, have you worked with the legal department for a fortune 500 company? Our company policy is that if something is to be recorded, it must be scripted and the script approved by the legal department first.
Think Deeply.
Perhaps slashdotters should write to the production company and tell them to give the finger to TI and to the other companies involved in the conference do the show and just fuzzy out the names in the show when it airs.
Here's the deal, they've already got a case (to help back them up in case of a lawsuit) that has been proven that such information is legal to release. (MBTA smack down) They don't even have to do it step by step. I remember an episode where they skipped some steps when making "laughing" gas.
Seems to me people should know about this and possible false advertising or instilling a false sense of security that can come out of using these cards. Although I could see the Feds stepping in seeing as the National ID is supposed to have RFID (I think).
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
I try to guess what the explosives / secret chemicals are and then search on Google at the end of the show to see if I was right. I'm pretty good at it. It adds some more fun to the show :)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Its not the first time that Mythbuster's has had obviously politically motivated skews on their production and/or results.
Like the time they were testing all the various myths involved in beating alcohol tests (Breathalyzer, etc) and were very careful to word their statements to say that no one method managed to beat all the different tests, and never specifying which methods beat which tests. Or the time they tested the fuel efficiency of drafting behind a big rig truck and spent most of the episode hamming up the potential dangers of tailgating.
To be fair though, in those cases it was more about Safety (translate Liability) as they could heavily damage road safety and Law Enforcement's ability to police it. Its like how in most fiction Ive seen, they always misquote the proportions of charcoal, sulfur, and salt peter that go into gunpowder, so the young and/or stupid won't go out and blow off fingers.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
I'm guessing this was scrapped mainly because it's not an easy story to make it interesting for the mainstream audience. It's one thing to show engines on fire, chemicals blowing up, and people getting zapped by high voltage; quite another to show Grant fiddling with a hex editor.
Their previous security exploits (for example, hijacking the fingerprint reader) were still very tangible hacks (wax impressions, photocopied prints, etc.). I'm guessing 99.9% of /. readers thinks this is worthwhile and 99.9% watch Mythbusters; however, this does not comprise 99.9% of Mythbuster's audience (or even a majority, I'd bet).
The decision was made by the Mythbuster staff in much the same way a man with a gun directed at him volunteers.
Anyone see "Wrong Trousers?" Gromit puts down the bat when feathers points the gun.
(Instant karma for using Wallace & Gromit!)
I know I'll be labeled pedantic, but that summary was just incomprehensible. Several grammar errors, unclear phrasing...I had to go watch the video to understand what the hell this item is all about.
Counsel, absolutely. Chief counsel? Of all those companies? Unlikely.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
This is disgusting. The Bush administration and other corrupt politicans keep pushing for RFID chips in IDs that can be easily read by a home-made device. Even stores can build hidden RFID receivers to detect who and when is entering their stores. Corporations and criminals can easily develop profiles for targeted advertisment and ID theft. Not only that but if enough buildings have these receivers, anyone with enough access can track your every step and profile your life. What's scary is that the supporting politicians refuse to admit their wrong doing and continue to rally behind this insecure mode of identification and not to mention, an invasion of privacy.
To be fair though, in those cases it was more about Safety (translate Liability) as they could heavily damage road safety and Law Enforcement's ability to police it. Its like how in most fiction Ive seen, they always misquote the proportions of charcoal, sulfur, and salt peter that go into gunpowder, so the young and/or stupid won't go out and blow off fingers.
I've seen variations on that a number of times, like when they've made carefully obscured the key ingredients for making nitrocellulose. Sometimes they make a joke of it: "Mythbusters brand Blur!", other times they just don't talk about it.
The one I've always wondered about was when they cracked the thumbprint lock. They carefully mentioned that they had omitted one crucial step. I wonder who was responsible for that?
...laura
"Again? That trick never works."
You can mod it off-topic if you like, but I prefer discussion here than YouTube. So, HOLY CRAP what the heck was up with that crazy ranting New York pizza lady they cut off at the end of that clip? Man, ask a question and sit down.
How the fuck did you arrive at the conclusion that debit cards are somehow more evil than credit cards?
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
the SCA beat him up with rattan swords.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The net result of all this furor over this subject: Solidly reinforces my initial aversion towards so-called "smart" credit cards/payment devices, to the point where I will never consider using one. If they were smart about it, they'd not only let them do the show, but learn from what they discovered in the process and fix the damned technology!
It's actually the entire system of money that we have. Fractional reserve lending allows these banks to lend money they do not have.
Ever wonder how it is possible that everyone, you, your folks, your friends, small business, the government, corporations, ALL can be in debt at the same time to the same people?? How can there be that much money? Well it is simple.. there isn't. The true answer is the system is rigged, the game is fixed, and it's not a question of "if this money system will eventually fail", its a matter of when.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
>Discovery didn't make the decision, they just presented the choice to the production company to either not produce the show, or take a long walk off a short pier.
Beyond Productions is an independent Australian company and sells sometimes different versions to the UK and other countries (which also don't have the 'don't try this at home' stuff and where you can say things like 'sperm' on TV), they could very well do it in this case as well.
Different network, same torrent.
How about instead of looking into the vulnerabilities they have a show on blowing RFID tags up. Or dropping them from a crane. Or perhaps strapping lots of them to a plane and taxiing around while "testing" their effects on the instruments?
No on second thoughts lets just stick with blowing them up! That's what Mythbusters do best.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
How the fuck did you arrive at the conclusion that debit cards are somehow more evil than credit cards?
I'm guessing the brain tumor had something to do with it.
Yeah, because all those pirate TV stations without advertisers are doing Sooooooo well.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
You know that's not possible? So you tried it, eh? Please, post the details of your experiment.
Why would you try it with a sim for a plane of a different model than the one that hit the Pentagon? Flight 77 (with a former co-worker of mine and his whole family on board) was a 757.
Of course, why let facts get in the way of a good batshit conspiracy theory?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I can see it happening if the Companies in question wanted underline how serious the issue is. Nothing says "we're gonna stomp you" better than saying "This is George, he's chief legal counsel for my Company. Now what were you saying?"
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Debit cards have much less protection against fraud and disputed charges than credit cards. And if your debit card gets stolen, the perp can drain your checking account; until it gets sorted out, you're broke. If he just steals my credit card, I can still pay my bills out of my intact checking account while I dispute the credit card charges.
Debit cards definitely go in the "considered harmful" pile.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Actually as a red-blooded American, I love interest -- being able to pay interest just shows I deserve the life style I'm borrowing to maintain if I got the money for free that'd make me a commy or something -- so I have problem with Jews. Also, being a red-blooded American I will conveniently ignore any traditions of my own faith that have fallen out of favor.
The enemies of Democracy are
It's harder to dispute fraudulent charges on a debit card.
>attempt to fly the same path as pentagon plane (Including being in ground effect for 1km before hitting the building),
Gotta say, when you're in ground effect, the problem isn't the flying, but the opposite: you can't get the dumb plane on the ground. It just floats merrily along. But if there's something that sticks up in your way, boy howdy there's no problem running into it (like, say, the runway edge lights.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Ack, I meant to say I have no problem with Jews!
Fsck, there goes my career in politics...
The enemies of Democracy are
I haven't heard any information about the type of phones used, but satellite phones certainly would have worked fine. The Iridium satellite phone network launched in 1998 (source), so it's certainly possible that one or more of the passengers had satphones to pass around.
Really? You've never seen a MasterCard with PayPass? My bank replaced my old debit card with one over two years ago.
Granted, the only place I've seen that accepted PayPass was at a Sheetz, and it didn't seem to work. But they're definitely out there.
I just gotta say, Beyond 2000 was an awesome show! I miss it.
I've watched Mythbusters only 5 or so times, but at least once they busted a myth that they should not have.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Right, and Fox did not cancel Futurama or Arrested Development, they just quit ordering more episodes. Semantics.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
didn't you ever notice that the bank processes the largest transaction in your account first, ensuring that when you do overdraft, it's 5 or 6 times for $2.50. The credit card will just decline.
That wasn't defcon, it was HOPE.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
How does the merchant spelling it out in tiny type and hence avoiding a charge back make the consumer worse off than if they paid cash and the merchant points to the tiny type and says "no refunds"?
What do debit cards have to do with consumer debt?
And I went the first 26 years of my life without a credit card, with no problems at all (I'm in my thirties).
Beyond 2000 did cover something controversial, though it was inadvertant.
They covered the underlying reason why the music industry is hemorrhaging cash right now..
I remember in '98 when they detailed this software which "removed the risk" from music by plotting its structure against known tunes to see if it matched a "hit cluster".
If it didn't, no contract.
Too bad I didn't tape it.. I really should tape everything I watch now because you never know when it will become relevant.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
He's one of the main faces of the show, so maybe they're putting him up to handle various PR as well. However, it's quite likely he's not involved in the everyday minutiae of the operation of the show. That's what staff is for. But he's the face everyone sees and they needed a press release, so they stick some notes in his hand and tells him to run with it. This is the only real possibility I can see. There's not much point in telling bold fabrications that can easily be debunked. Heck, debunking is his line of work. He really should have known better. :)
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
ooooh!!
I know the answer! I know the answer!
'O'
now what did I win?
Why not? They're using caricature or cartoon whenever they describe a myth now.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
Adam "retracted" his previous statement by clarifying that the production company Beyond Productions assumed responsibility for this decision (does it ever happen any other way?), and declaring the details behind this episode were even worse than the short version he provided. Wow I guess that changes everything!
It reminds me of another, somewhat similar story. In the city of Fortaleza, a local newspaper once declared that half the councilmen were disonest. However, due to the strong political reaction (and a number of threats), the same newspaper decided to "step back" the following day, by declaring that half the councilmen were honest. (I'm not making this up, this event was reported by journalist Stanislaw Ponte Preta (1923-1968) who became famous for collecting such bizarre stories in Brazil).
it's just like newsies on a conference call. whatever they hear is fair game. if a bunch of lawyers from the ivory tower, not the courtroom, want to dot Is and cross Ts on the call, they have released information without privilege.
anybody can compromise information and put it into the public arena. but once it's out, don't try and get it back. you've already used the first amendment to publish, and there is no constitutional "oops, be a good boy" clause.
air the show.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Talk about confirming and bolstering Adam's story. Don't the marketing/PR and legal teams at any major corporation actually talk to one another before someone strong-arms a popular personality?
"Flooding the room" is something I've seen done frequently when there's conflict, especially when it's a legal one. Just last week, I was in a nonsense meeting called for someone else's pissing match. One of the jackasses involved -- mind you, there were jackasses on both sides, hence the pissing match -- pulled representatives from 12, yes a dozen, different companies. Our guy pulled in four. There were literally no fewer than 30 people in the room for a technical issue so small that me and one other guy could have knocked it out in a few hours.
When ego meets bureaucracy, even minor issues can explode into mushroom cloud clusterfraks. Hell, I once walked into a meeting with my kid's school and found the principal had stacked the room with 15 people from all over the district. She still lost, of course, but bureaucrats, lawyers and other ruminants feel safety in numbers.
I believe in Adam Savage.
First, $2.50? Every bank I know of charges $25 or more per bounced transaction.
Second, the credit-card company has agreed to extend you credit and knows you can have dozens of cards competing for your interest payments. The bank has not extended you credit and knows that having more than one bank account would be a pain in the ass so they have little competition once you are cashing your paychecks with them.
The laws regarding demand accounts are different from the laws regarding credit accounts in just about every possible way, so trying to treat them as similar just because they both come on plastic is a matter of failing to read the agreements you signed when opening the accounts.
Did you vote to annex the Sudetenland before you voted against it?
Cuz if you flip-flop on some things, it's a good thing.
I'm talking about $2.50 purchases. First they empty your account with the large charges, then they run the small ones, ensuring many overdraft charges. And they'll let you keep on using it for more purchases after you ovedraft. A credit card, on the other hand will just decline. Some of them will give you a single overage fee, but that's it.
Did you vote to annex the Sudetenland before you voted against it?
Uh... I'll have my staff get back to you on that one.
The enemies of Democracy are
They are quite replaceable. Have you heard of Regis Philbin or Drew Carry?
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
the word is out, you know. we all now know about the bullying of mythbusters by visa et all.
tell me, what would visa et al would do, if we, the people, the audience, decided to start using cards that were not employing bullying lawyers ?
tell me how they would cope with that.
let me tell you, and spare you the effort - i am the consumer. i am one of 'the people'. i have the power, and they dont have no shit.
such filthy, despicable lawyer bullying moves are only possible if the public doesnt learn what you did. in this case, public did learn.
Read radical news here
explain to me, why there was NO remainder of anything a passenger plane crash leaves in a crash site, and there were NO bodies, passenger belongings, pieces of bodies, ANYTHING but fairly intact TWO bodies in the scene. tell me where the hell did the 767's huge tail has vanished. tell me where did its 2 two huge engines go. tell me why the hell that pentagon yard was SO neat and tidy despite a freaking passenger liner has crashed on it SO bad that neither its engines nor its tail is anywhere to be seen. tell me how the hell a soft passenger liner was able to punch neat holes in 3 cocentric circles of pentagon and which part did that. the electronic equipment in the nose ? the pilot cabin ? the toilet ?
please, spare the bullshit. as if the world has never seen a passenger liner crash.
Read radical news here
and knows that having more than one bank account would be a pain in the ass
I like having accounts at different banks. You can do neat tricks, like cashing a check at bank A and depositing the cash at bank B so that you have access to the funds in check or card form today, as opposed to tomorrow!
There's another neat trick you can do with two banks ... that is, if your balance at bank A goes negative, you can do all of your transactions at bank B until you get the situation straightened out!
All credit cards come from large corporations. I imagine that the number of them without bullying layers (is that a redundant adjective there?) is vanishingly small.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Peter Griffin: [after "Family Guy" returns to Fox with new episodes, after a few years off the air] Everybody, I got bad news. We've been canceled.
Lois Griffin: Oh, no! Peter, how could they do that?
Peter Griffin: Well, unfortunately, Lois, there's just no more room on the schedule. We've just got to accept the fact that Fox has to make room for terrific shows, like "Dark Angel", "Titus", "Undeclared", "Action", "That '80s Show", "Wonder Falls", "Fastlane", "Andy Richter Controls the Universe", "Skin", "Girls Club", "Cracking Up", "The Pitts", "Firefly", "Get Real", "Freaky Links", "Wanda at Large", "Costello", "The Lone Gunmen", "A Minute with Stan Hooper", "Normal, Ohio", "Pasadena", "Harsh Realm", "Keen Eddie", "The Street", "American Embassy", "Cedric the Entertainer", "The Tick", "Louie", and "Greg the Bunny".
Lois Griffin: Is there no hope?
Peter Griffin: Well, I suppose if all those shows go down the tubes, we might have a shot.
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i thought it was awesome, until i lost my keys on a bike ride and some tool promptly spent $200 at the gas station. and i mean PROMPTLY, the transactions all happened while it was still out riding. anyway, i was put off by it at that point. the concept that possession of that little stick means verification of identity is kinda scary. i mean, i have ASK FOR ID on the back of my credit/debit cards and usually give a little "you gonna read the back" if they forget. with the speedpay/RFID model, they never see the card, i just wave it like a magic money wand. RFID has lots of great uses, but i don't really want my money tied to it...
wow... modded troll for daring to even suggest that adam is telling the truth and he simply had his story wrong.. you know, like he himself said?
Ok, I get that we don't trust big companies and esp not banks, but these responses go a little overboard on the paranoia. Just because a bank is involved does not automatically make them evil.
So Adam rejected reality and substituted his own?
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
Adam: Don't do anything like piss off the credit card companies at home.
Jamie: EVER!!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Why can't you deposit the cash in Bank A and get it that day?
There's usually a one-day holding period before the funds are available, so that the bank can process the check and make sure that it's good.