Most of the stories about remote reading are not true and cannot be true....Bob's posting about the picture phone is true.

The mag stripe on a credit card is a very weak force. If the darned card could be read from a foot away, the merchant readers would also read from a foot away since it would be significantly more convenient. There is no commercially available reader that can read a credit card from a foot or more. However, there are RF tags that can be read from greater distance...they include the anti theft tag stuff that sounds the alarm when you try to go thru the door of the speed shop with a camshaft stuck down your pants....or the mag tag on the high dollar stuff at Home Depot....the tag has an antenna embedded in it.