[LINK] RFI: Contactless Credit Cards in Oz

[Tom Worthington]

Roger Clarke wrote:
> ... credit-cards in Australia that contain a *contact-based* chip ...

Yes, they seem to be working okay.

> ... *contactless* chips were being issued here; ...

Yes, The wikipedia entry is quite good on the topic: 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_Field_Communication>.

> (b) the contactless chip was being used for credit-card puroposes
>      (as distinct from eCash or ticketing). ..

Yes, my understanding was that the contactless function was limited to 
small e-Cash type payments Visa payWave cards limited to $100 from the 
National Australia Bank (NAB): 
<http://www.contactlessnews.com/2009/11/30/national-australia-bank-distributes-contactless-cards-readers>
  and Commonwealth Bank:
<http://www.smartcompany.com.au/information-technology/20091016-commonwealth-bank-introduces-contactless-payments.html>

The limit of $100 sounds a bit high to me and I seem to recall another 
bank setting the limit at $30, which sounds more reasonable.

According CeBit there are three million of these cards issued, so if 
there is a problem with them, it would be good to sort it out quickly: 
<http://www.cebit.com.au/news/technology/australia-becoming-a-cashless-society>.

ps: Professor Klerphell discussed RF shielded wallets to keep such cards 
in: <http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2004-February/055071.html>.

At the time this was a joke, but with IEDs becoming more sophisticated, 
RFID cards may be a real danger. There are shielded wallets available to 
put the RFID cards in, but I am not sure how well they work: 
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&keywords=rfid%20blocking%20wallet&tag=rugged-computers-20&index=apparel>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/people.php?StaffID=140274