Was MythBuster's RFID tale only a myth?

It all started when Adam Savage of MythBusters fame told a convention audience that legal bullies from the credit card industry had cowed Discovery Channel into scotching an episode of the show that was to have taken on RFID.

In the video, Savage says: "Here's what happened -- I'm not sure how much of this story I'm allowed to tell -- but I'll tell you what I know. We were going to do RFID -- on several levels: how reliable, how hackable, how trackable, etc. -- and one of our researchers called up Texas Instruments and they arranged a conference call."

He wasn't on the call himself, but continues: "Texas Instruments comes on along with chief legal counsel for American Express, VISA, Discover [Card], and everybody else. They absolutely made it really clear to Discovery [Channel] that they were not going to air this episode talking about how hackable this stuff was. Discovery backed way down, being a large corporation that depends upon the revenue of the advertisers. Now that [topic is] on Discovery's radar and they won't let us go near it. I'm sorry, it's just one of those things."

Savage's incendiary accusation went relatively unnoticed at the time, but caught fire on the Internet over the Labor Day weekend fanned by prominent placement on forums such as Slashdot and Digg. Days later it became clear Savage was considerably less knowledgeable about what transpired than he let on, although how much of his backtracking is backside-covering will be left open to speculation.

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