ID Blocker keeps those evil skimmer scammers away!

Forums › Off topic › ID Blocker keeps those evil skimmer scammers away!

Rikkitic

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#318630 5-Feb-2025 12:45

I just happened to catch a brief segment on 7 Oz Breakfast News where some over-enthusiastic lady was shilling for a magic anti-skim card called ID Blocker. Apparently just having this somewhere in your wallet or bag is sufficient to prevent any attempts to read any data from your bank cards or passports.

Naturally I am sceptical about claims like this but I am also intrigued. Can anyone who knows more about this than I do (i.e., anyone) elucidate? Is there anything to it or is it just snake oil?

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#3339574 5-Feb-2025 13:01

If you're worried about it, wrap your wallet in aluminium foil. It will be just as effective. And yes, it's potentially a real thing - with enough radio power, RFID chips can be activated over decent distances. Certainly enough for someone to blip one as they brush past you. However, the ones you'd worry about - bank cards, passports - are generally fairly well protected. They can't suck your identity off one by skimming it with RFID in the same way they could be reading the magnetic stripe, for example.

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Rikkitic

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#3339579 5-Feb-2025 13:27

Not worried about it, just wondering about the claims.

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Behodar

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#3339582 5-Feb-2025 13:31

I wonder whether it's a device that just emits random RFID data, so as to "talk over" the real cards and prevent them from being "heard".

In other words, there's probably a little more logic to it than some of the other snake oil that's been available over the years (this thread conjured up memories of a fad ~15 years ago about wearing a bracelet with a hologram on it to improve your oxygen flow or some such nonsense).

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#3339583 5-Feb-2025 13:33

Rikkitic:

I just happened to catch a brief segment on 7 Oz Breakfast News where some over-enthusiastic lady was shilling for a magic anti-skim card called ID Blocker. Apparently just having this somewhere in your wallet or bag is sufficient to prevent any attempts to read any data from your bank cards or passports.

Naturally I am sceptical about claims like this but I am also intrigued. Can anyone who knows more about this than I do (i.e., anyone) elucidate? Is there anything to it or is it just snake oil?

Its here

https://idblocker.com.au/products/id-blocker/#

From what I can gather from the marketing blurb its simply another RFID card with presumably junk data...

I'm assuming that it causes "card clash" if someone with a very high powered RFID reader attempted to remotely read your cards,....

Yes, it would probably work, but so would simply having two regular RFID cards sitting next to each other in your wallet...

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#3339586 5-Feb-2025 13:41

Add then you curse wondering why your cards don't work by just waving your wallet at the reader anymore......

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#3339592 5-Feb-2025 13:49

I just got one of these T-shirts and now hackers won't dare come near me.

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neb

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#3339618 5-Feb-2025 14:53

Rikkitic: Naturally I am sceptical about claims like this but I am also intrigued. Can anyone who knows more about this than I do (i.e., anyone) elucidate? Is there anything to it or is it just snake oil?

There are devices that work this way by messing up the anticollision mechanisms used in RFID cards, so they make every card in range unreadable by forcing collisions on each attempted read. Not sure if this is one or just something with a bit of eletronic woo-woo in it to make it look good.

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neb

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#3339619 5-Feb-2025 14:55

SaltyNZ:

I just got one of these T-shirts and now hackers won't dare come near me.

Minor aside, those two stock models they use everywhere... they sometimes end up with t-shirt designs photoshopped on that really don't fit with the person wearing them.

Tinkerisk

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#3339917 6-Feb-2025 16:20

I have a compact size leather wallet (without coins) in which the inner compartments for cards are RFID-protected with metal foils in the lining and the outer compartments are not. The 9 cards and IDs worth protecting are on the inside and, for example, the flat airtag compatible and battery rechargeable card to locate the wallet if I can't find it or have lost it is in the outer, unprotected compartment and can send and receive BT signals there unhindered. If I want my self-programmed, electronic RFID business card to be read, I put it in one of the outer pockets and only need to hold the wallet up to a smartphone. If I don't want that, I put it in one of the inner compartments. Works perfectly.

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#3340089 7-Feb-2025 10:19

I've only got one card that uses RFID and I just keep it in one of these little foil holders: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000410094523.html

Does it fully protect my card? I dunno. But I do know that an NFC reader app on my phone can read my card when it's out of the foil holder but not when it's in the holder, so it does seem to block it from being read. Maybe if the power was cranked up on the reader then it could read it through the foil.

Tinkerisk

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#3340185 7-Feb-2025 15:13

MurrayM:

Does it fully protect my card? I dunno. But I do know that an NFC reader app on my phone can read my card when it's out of the foil holder but not when it's in the holder, so it does seem to block it from being read. Maybe if the power was cranked up on the reader then it could read it through the foil.

Just put a second card with NFC215 (something cheap or blank is sufficient) to or near the first one. If two or more cards receive energy at the same time, they all respond at the same time, which leads to confusion at the NFC reader.

Tinkerisk

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#3340197 7-Feb-2025 16:15

This is what it looks like inside an NFC215 card.

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#3340199 7-Feb-2025 16:20

My old leather bi-fold wallet has a zipped outer compartment that I could put a piece of tinfoil in to act as a shield when the wallet is folded in my pocket. Don't use the compartment so wouldn't get in the way and should stop RFID readers.

Off on holiday soon so might do it to see if the airport scanners notice anything unusual about the wallet.

Have there been any confirmed reports of cards getting scanned or is it just a theoretical possibility?

UPDATE. Just tried it and my iPhone can't detect any of the cards when folded over but can detect one when open flat.

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#3340203 7-Feb-2025 16:42

In Germany, we have electronically readable ID cards and other official cards. NFC technology has been used in credit cards worldwide since 2007. Contactless payment usually only takes seconds.

However, the fact that readers can read existing data such as card number and expiry date has been shown by the (state-run) Bundpol test and development laboratory in various tests that it is indeed possible.

This requires a reader to be held very close to the credit card. In his tests in a shopping centre, the expert from the Bundpol test and development laboratory follows passers-by with a special wireless scanner and a tablet. He holds the scanner to trouser and jacket pockets, rucksacks and handbags. Special software is used on the tablet to record the data read.

As the expert reports, modified antennas can increase the transmission power from just under five to 20 centimetres. In general, however, many normal readers would fail due to the smallest sources of interference. Even a small layer of fabric can greatly reduce the radio strength of the chip. It is therefore theoretically possible for criminals to rush through the crowd with a normal reader and read out masses of credit card data.

neb

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#3340254 7-Feb-2025 19:10

Tinkerisk: Just put a second card with NFC215 (something cheap or blank is sufficient) to or near the first one. If two or more cards receive energy at the same time, they all respond at the same time, which leads to confusion at the NFC reader.

No they don't, that's what anticollision is for. In theory a reader should be able to talk to each card in turn. The fact that there are some readers which are badly programmed and can't get it right is a bug, not by design.

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