What’s in your wallet? 

I buy gas using a credit card and a recent email pointed out we should all be hitting the "CLEAR" button at the pump after concluding our purchase. The email pointed out there is a way for someone to come along after you've left and to charge gas on your card. True? I'm not sure, but for the sake of safety I'm willing to push the clear button. But what about those stories that say electronics have advanced enough for someone to read the information off of your CC while it's still in your wallet? Can that happen and if so how will technology protect us?

We all find the Captial One commercials funny, or least some people do. But what about those electronic strips on your credit cards and identity theft issues that we read about and with fingers crossed sort of ignore? Need we be concerned about someone surreptitiously gathering the info off of our cards? Well, to understand the answer to that question we need to go back to high school science class to learn about the faraday cage. If you learn this lesson you'll be a long way to understanding the direction technology is heading.

Will the faraday cage protect a bird on a cage and what's in your wallet?

It may, but for you to appreciate why and what you need to know let’s first learn about the faraday cage?

Four options for learning about the faraday cage; although for purposes of this article you probably don’t need this detailed an understanding. Option One, Two, Three and Four.

Now let’s get back to the bird on a wire. High Power Electrical Line Maintenance Worker or as their Instructor says, "On a magic carpet".

A Faraday cage or Faraday shield is an enclosure formed by conducting material or by a mesh of such material. Such an enclosure blocks out external static electric fields. Faraday cages are named after the English scientist Michael Faraday, who invented them in 1836.

A Faraday cage's operation depends on the fact that an external static electrical field will cause the electrical charges within the cage's conducting material to redistribute themselves so as to cancel the field's effects in the cage's interior. This phenomenon is used, for example, to protect electronic equipment from lightning strikes and other electrostatic discharges. 

Faraday cages cannot block static and slowly varying magnetic fields, such as Earth's magnetic field (a compass will still work inside). To a large degree though, they also shield the interior from external electromagnetic radiation if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the radiation's wavelength. For example, certain computer forensic test procedures of electronic components or systems that require an environment devoid of electromagnetic interference may be conducted within a screen room. These screen rooms are essentially work areas that are completely enclosed by one or more layers of fine metal mesh or perforated sheet metal. The metal layers are grounded to dissipate any electric currents generated from the external electromagnetic fields and thus block a large amount of the electromagnetic interference. See also electromagnetic shielding.

The reception of external radio signals, a form of electromagnetic radiation, through an antenna within a cage can be greatly attenuated or even completely blocked by the cage itself.

What are real life examples of a faraday cage in use? Well let’s go right back to Wikipedia to see some examples.

• The shield of a screened cable, such as the coaxial cable used for cable television, protects the internal conductors from electrical noise.
• A booster bag (shopping bag lined with aluminum foil) acts as a Faraday cage. It is often used by shoplifters to steal RFID-tagged items.[3] [Now way! Way.]
• The cooking chamber of a microwave oven is a Faraday cage, made to contain the RF signals of the cavity magnetron which cooks the food.
• Some linemen wear Faraday suits, which allows them to work on live, high voltage power lines without risk of electrocution. These suits work because they are not grounded. The suit prevents electrical current from flowing through the body, and have no theoretical voltage limits, as linemen have successfully worked even the highest voltage (Russian 1150 kV) lines safely. [For real, this is the bird on the wire so watch the video, because it's really too kewl to miss.]
• The scan room of an MRI is designed as a Faraday cage. This prevents external RF (radio frequency) signals from being added to data collected from the patient, which would affect the resulting image. Radiographers are trained to identify the characteristic artifacts created on images should the Faraday cage be damaged.

Do we need to be concerned with having a faraday cage in your pocket? Maybe we do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTa8oviCPt8

What’s in your wallet?

Oh and while we are at it let's not forget the credit card slave trade. If you're dumb enough to use a cc to live a lifestyle you haven't earned then they own you for life.