California governor
Arnold
Schwarzenegger has signed a bill making it illegal to
wirelessly hack a person's radio frequency identification
technology smartcard without their consent.
The Californian law comes after
the state of Washington passed a similar law covering radio
frequency identification (RFID) technology earlier this year.
US citizens increasingly use RFID to gain access to offices,
properties, children's nurseries, parking lots and others
areas.
The possibility of hackers wirelessly "skimming" people's RFID
smartcards has also been given wide publicity in the UK. New
passports are already equipped with RFID chips and similar devices
are integrated into London Transport's Oyster travel cards.
Dutch researchers have already been to London
to hack into the Oyster system. They managed to launch a
"denial of service attack" on a ticket gate.