The beginner's guide to near field communications

So what are those 250 "gurus" for then?

To create a following, what else?

Can you say "technology solution looking for a problem to solve"? Why then, are operators now finally sinking a bunch of dosh in hyping this, well, solution without a problem? Methinks it's the structure of the market. They've been staring at each other, and somebody moved. Now they all have to move. Even if they haven't a clue how to get wherever they're going, yet.

Is this the wrong place to mention the complete farce that's the "OV-chipkaart" (oyster type card, to be used as the exclusive payment method for all public transport over in The Netherlands) as it's been very publicly shown to be broken _again_ (previously in 2008) and is still getting pushed through by all relevant actors including up to the minister? RFID writers are suddenly becoming HUGELY popular over there.

If the plebs have any sense, they'll let this one slide like lead brick down a soaped slope. If /the hackers/ have any sense, they'll smash the security publicly to bits until nobody dares talk about the entire thing.

Like the range claims have already been shown to be stretchable to metres. Bill is still soundly in denial about that, though. The thing is, the engineering assumptions to make this wireless thing work aren't quite solid enough to rely on for your security assumptions. "We don't require it to work further out than 20cm" is not quite the same as "We require it to not work further out than 20cm". The difference leaves the system wide open for fraud and mischief. As does, oh, broken security in the cards themselves.

Yes, engineering for function and engineering for security are different, have different implications, and the differences are actively being ignored at the end user's peril. Which is to say, the end user now has no choice left but must understand this, and act accordingly.