Jeans made in San Francisco could stop identity hackers

A clothes firm in San Francisco, in northern California on the U.S. west coast, has developed jeans capable of warding off identity theft targeting credit card information.

The project of Betabrand, a five-year-old crowd-funding operation, hinges on a metallic fabric used as the material for pockets that block electronic scanners in the hands of digital pickpockets trying to get credit card information.

The idea came to designer Stephen B. Wheeler after he learnt that over 10 million credit card identities are stolen each year, some of which are done by hackers using wireless Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) scanners. Wheeler approached Betabrand, which in turn crowd-funded the idea on its website, quickly amassing the estimated amount of money needed.

Aaron Magness, vice president in charge of marketing at Betabrand, told Xinhua that the firm started in October last year working with Norton, the antivirus software company, because "they also had an idea regarding how to curb the increase in identity theft worldwide."

According to Betabrand, anyone can use a small RFID scanner to point at pockets or purses and read personal information. "These devices are easily available, because they are based on the kind of technology that for example, reads your work card pass at your office doors," Magness said. "It's scary if you think about it, how easy it is, and in just a matter of seconds, someone can have all your personal data."

The idea for the stretch denim pants, therefore, is to have pockets that prevent RFID scanners from passing through the fabric, providing protection from hackers.

After dozens of various tests to verify the metallic fabric's effectiveness in blocking RFID scanners, people at Betabrand had to test the durability of the pocket's material. "We ran many, many tests to see if the fabric could stand being washed frequently, as well as everyday life friction and stretches and the fabric did not lose any capacity to continue blocking harmful scanners," Magness said.

"It turned out to be a really good idea," he said. "Because we crowd-funded the needed money in only 24 hours and now we have a long list of shipping requests, from many different countries."

Though only jeans for men are available for now, Betabrand is considering a whole line of protective gear that will include women's clothes. However, a similar crowd-funding project, the RFID protective blazer for women, did not succeed in raising enough money on the website.

Betabrand, in working through the crowd-funding process, only produces and sells items that have been funded on its website. Individuals can suggest ideas and develop a prototype, which will then be voted online. If the prototype garner enough votes, then Betabrand runs a campaign online to finance the item. Endite