As Daniel Terdiman blogs, complete with video, MythBuster co-host Adam Savage alleges that a proposed story on RFID security vulnerability was quashed due to industry pressure. The relevant quotes are:
In the video, Savage says that a conference call was arranged between co-host Tory Belleci and Texas Instruments to talk about the RFID vulnerabilities. But when Bellici and a MythBusters producer got on the call at the appointed time, “Texas Instruments comes on along with chief legal counsel for American Express, Visa, Discover, and everybody else….(Bellici and the MythBusters producer) were way, way out-gunned and (the lawyers) absolutely made it really clear to Discovery that they were not going to air this episode talking about how hackable this stuff was, and Discovery backed way down, being a large corporation that depends upon the revenue of the advertisers. Now it’s on Discovery’s radar and they won’t let us go near it.”
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In a statement provided to CNET News, TI said lawyers were hardly to blame for MythBusters dropping the RFID episode.
“In June 2007, MythBusters was interested in pursuing some great myth-busting ideas for RFID. While in pursuit, they contacted Texas Instruments’ RFID Systems, who is a pioneer of RFID and contactless technology, for technical help and understanding of RFID in the contactless payments space,” TI spokesperson Cindy Huff said. “Some of the information that was needed to pursue the program required further support from the contactless payment companies as they construct their own proprietary systems for security to protect their customers. To move the process along, Texas Instruments coordinated a conversation with Smart Card Alliance (SCA) who invited MasterCard and Visa, on contactless payments to help MythBusters get the right information. Of the handful of people on the call, there were mostly product managers and only one contactless payment company’s legal counsel member. Technical questions were asked and answered and we were to wait for MythBusters to let us know when they were planning on showing the segment. A few weeks later, Texas Instruments was told by MythBusters that the storyline had changed and they were pursuing a different angle which did not require our help.”
As somebody who’s had a LOT of briefings over the years, I’d guess that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. TI’s recollection of the mix of people on the call is frankly more plausible than Savage’s. Companies that big don’t send their “chief legal counsels,” plural, to a call when there aren’t any potential lawsuits or negotations to discuss yet. On the other hand, Savage’s “way over our head” comment suggests that his team isn’t all that experienced in briefings of the sort where the technology vendor tries hard to stay on message, and I can understand how that could be a little intimidating.
I also wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if large advertisers contacted Discovery Channel management after the call to express concern, as it were, about the upcoming story, perhaps citing as evidence whatever parts of the call it appeared the show’s personnel didn’t agree with — excuse me, didn’t “understand”.
Edit: There’s a new statement from Adam Savage today (Thursday 9/4), “clarifying” the matter.
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