Wallets!

[justsimon]

^ Nice.

Here's mine:

 

[swerve]

Here's mine:

Very COOL!!!

It kind of makes me think that your wallet would be the kind wore by the indians back in the olden days -- IF indians had worn wallets...

Now -- Simon -- PLEASE tell me that you didn't KILL the cow and tan the skin to make the leather you used...

 

[Kulindahr]

Several of you have mentioned RFID chips.

There's a wallet that you can make at home, that will eliminate any possibility of those RFID chips becoming a security issue:

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_a_Faraday_Cage_Wallet

Then you just have to take care of your shoes, belt, pants, car keys.....

 

[Kulindahr]

^Presumably, if credit/debit cards with RFID chips are placed into that Faraday Cage Wallet, they can't be read.

One study I'd read, however, states that, at least in the States, the risk is overblown, since only about 5% of the cards have that chip, anyway. (None of mine do.)

It might be possible that the risk might be greater in Europe, which is more advanced in this technology than we are.

(Did you know that their credit cards don't even have a magnetic strip anymore?)

That means all the data is in the chip. Which means if you neutralize the chip, your card is useless.

Big Brother no longer has to watch you -- computers can do it for him.

 

[Kulindahr]

^I don't completely understand your point, Kulindahr.

If it's about European credit cards, instead of a magnetic strip, they have a non-RFID computer chip on the card. When you eat out, they bring a hand-held device to your table that reads the computer chip, assesses the PIN, and prints the receipt right there and then at the table.

At the ATM, the tellers read the computer chip, not the magnetic strip. (Many ATMs can read both, but they're beginning to be phased out, to the chagrin of visiting Americans.)

I don't know how widespread RFID chips are in Europe, but keep in mind they're not the same thing as the computer chip in the cards over there. Apples and oranges.

Ah.

The chips in the cards have to be similar; it's the only way to read data from a chip without a hard connection, as far as I know.

It could be a matter of encryption and recognition codes -- the chip wouldn't answer to anything not giving it the proper code, and to read it would require the proper key.

 

[justsimon]

Very COOL!!!

It kind of makes me think that your wallet would be the kind wore by the indians back in the olden days -- IF indians had worn wallets...

Now -- Simon -- PLEASE tell me that you didn't KILL the cow and tan the skin to make the leather you used...

Next time you're in town you should check out Oregon Leather Company. They have a scrap section.

 

[swerve]

^Next time I'm in town -- I'll ask YOU to SHOW me!!!