Hacking RFID credit cards for $8

BoingBoing TV has posted up a little demo of how easy cracking the RFID encryption on an American Express card can be. All it takes is an $8 dollar reader easily available on eBay, some software, and the courage to walk around with a laptop waving plastic boxes

via Engadget

To this day, I don’t understand why credit cards and other magnetic strips need to store so much personal information on the card. Why isn’t storing the credit card number only enough these days? We know it works, because I can type in my credit card number into my Amazon order form and they can figure out how to charge me.