Smartcard Testing
This entry from "Boing Boing" about how to turn a disposable camera into an RFID killer reminded me of when I worked for London Transport.
I was part of the team that tested "contactless smartcards" using EPoS machines and special smartcard readers in the Harrow area.
One day the engineer on the project and I decided to test what it would take to corrupt the data on the cards - after all we had cards, the readers, the EPOS machines and the backend computers to play with - the world was our oyster.
We did a lot of testing in those days - so it seemed sensible at the time.
After trying various magnetic devices and other abusive techniques we hit upon the idea of using a
microwave oven.
Surely, we reasoned, prolonged repeated pulses from a magnetron would be enough to corrupt the RAM on the card??
We started in small bursts at defrost - and nothing seemed to happen - no corruption - nothing. The card seemed to get a little warm though - you'd think that we would have been warned by that- but no.
So we upped the power and time and the inevitable happened. The induction effect in the contactless smart card overheated the card and it exploded with a flash and an immense bang.
Luckily the microwave oven was unharmed - it was the canteen oven for the night shift - but I can safely say that the card was well and truly "corrupted" after our experiment.
Tags: rfid microwave oven oyster street tech