>>Hi Tc,
>>
>>What I am saying is that RFID combined with Credit Cards requires such a mechanism, and so do Passports as well so you have control over when it will accept a scan.
>>
>>I brought this up with one of our banks a couple of years ago when they were looking at introducing this, their reply was "That would never happen", just goes to show you, banks don't understand security.
>
>Look, we're programmers, and we get all sorts of bells ringing in our heads whenever we hear "that would never happen", because we know how many times we wrote code under an assumption that certain things would never happen, only to have to urgently rewrite it when they did. I actually had a comment in code saying "21-sep-1990 xxxx said this type of invoice will never have a rebate on it", so just two years later I pulled it up, pointed the finger at the line and he said "I know, I know".
>
>So the RFID chip is supposed to be incommunicado with the standard POS sensor at distances of more than a couple of inches? And nobody thought of other types of sensors which may reach further? That's sloppy, and a recipe for disaster. I may start carrying my card between two metal sheets, just in case, because here all the cards that I've seen have a chip in them, and all the card readers have a chip reader. I don't know whether these are RFIDs or work on contact (some copper is exposed on the card), though.

I have a BC Enhanced Driver's License with an embedded RFID chip ( http://www.icbc.com/driver-licensing/edl-eic/rfid-chip.pdf ). This is supposed to be used for border crossing but ICBC at least is up-front that it's not secure - they provide you with a tinfoil-lined Tyvek sleeve to act as a Faraday cage for it.