“In a microphone, sound waves (differences in the pressure of air) cause a diaphragm to vibrate back and forth, altering its resistance to an electric current. When an electric current passes through said diaphragm, the output forms a complex signal which can then be reinterpeted by speakers or a recording device as sound. The device shown here works in a very similar way. Sound bounces off of a window, causing minuscule vibrations (acting like the microphone’s diaphragm). When a laser is trained on the window, its reflection will vibrate with the sound. The laser’s reflection, if converted to an electrical signal can now be recorded as sound. I will outline how I made my own (cost me $3, hope yours is the same or less) – the technically savy among you will spot the countless variations possible on this basic idea.”

My thoughs on this: a red laser pointer is probably no good – if you’re messing with some bad guys out there, you will lose your life in minutes after the red dot is on the wall of their room… But – if you use an IR beamer or IR laser… think about it.

Check it out http://www.rfdump.org/, there you can find the softare and hardware (in the limits of 500$ for the hardware – reader and writer, software is free) you could use to experiment and audit RFID security. If you’re a python fan, check out http://rfidiot.org/

This thing works with most RFID tags widely used in ID cards, physical security systems, e-passports, etc.  The buzz is everywhere, if you don’t know RFID is as insecure as walking with a bag of money in a bad neighbourhood, then… you don’t need to read further, just live your happy uninformed life

For the rest of us, http://cq.cx/proxmark3.pl might prove useful too – schematics on building your own RFID equipment, and the necessary software.

One more project for Extended range RFID skimmer