Passport Chip Could Attract High-Tech Muggers 348
Orangez writes "Wired.com reports that 'business travel groups, security experts and privacy advocates are looking to derail a government plan to insert remotely readable chips in American passports, calling the chips homing devices for high-tech muggers, identity thieves and even terrorists.' and that 'The 64-KB chips will include the information from the photo page of the passport, including name, date of birth and a digitized form of the passport picture.'"
When will people realise that remotely readable... (Score:5, Insightful)
If they government can read it for legitimate purposes, other people can read it for illegitimate purposes.
Re:When will people realise that remotely readable (Score:2, Insightful)
They can just sit at the door of the airport and scan everybody comming in and out ! Without you even knowing so you won't report it !
Aus Passe (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get it. I mean, they State Dept. could easily have a reader connected to a network which passes along some hash which is stored on the card, to a server which would verify what passport they should be looking at. Slow? Wtf kind of technology are they using where 64K of stuff would take any time?
"Only contractors who sign up to our foreign policy will be allowed to bid -- We welcome your bid, Halliburton Vacuum Tube Company!"
When will the learn (Score:3, Insightful)
Years from know they will probably say "We made the best decision with the information we had at the time".
Another problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why are travellers worried? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:why are travellers worried? (Score:1, Insightful)
P.S. I don't think this was ment to be lojack for your passport
Blame the terrorists. (Score:4, Insightful)
That word (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why are travellers worried? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why are travellers worried? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because terrorists/kidnappers can set up a remote reader to look specifically for people carrying this type or passport. Kidnapers can use it to find people from specific other contries that they think are richer than they are and ransom them off for big bucks. Terrorists can use it to find people from specific nationalities. Bin Laden said to kill all americans everywhere, not just americans in the US. This gives them a leg up in finding people carrying around their passports when overseas.
That said, if they go through with this, they definitely need to build in a faraday cage into the passport case.
The Gov should slow down... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When will people realise that remotely readable (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:why are travellers worried? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That word (Score:2, Insightful)
RFID for passports - succumbing to a fad! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, all of the legitimate uses of the passport involve a human being handling the passport anyway - and using a non-RFID smart chip will suffice.
Tinfoil hats aside, the primary response of the RFID proponents to the question of why RFID tags are needed is "Why not?". This is a preposterous approach to implementing a system that handles sensitive personal data that could cause severe distress to the owners of that data, if compromised. Sensitive data belonging to thousands or even millions of people! Assuming the government still considers an individual as the rightful owner of their own personal data.
Some of the conspiracy theories regarding RFID in passports are a little over the top. But there is no denying the fact that the potential for abuse is definitely enhanced by using this technology in this way. Today the scope is for Americans to be targeted using this - either by their own government, or by criminals, or by other governments, or by terrorists. Tomorrow, when more countries follow suit, that scope expands, giving birth to a rich and varied mix of uses - all of which with the legitimate exception of border control are extra-legal or downright criminal. I hate to sound like a troll but the RFID chip in your little blue book could well become the new star of david sewn into your shirt.
Re:When will people realise that remotely readable (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather pushing it... (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, you're pushing your cred here. What kind of burglar is going to be hanging out in airports looking for departing victims? An intelligent burglar would spend more time casing a target and keeping track of comings and goings of people. The newspaper, with funerals and such, has been a wealth of information for those vile enough to rob a house when someone's at a funeral or such.
Most burglaries are probably committed without much prior planning anyway, by someone looking for an easy target. Ambitious burglars or pros would probably be slower to adopt something like finding a prospective victim at an airport, as the still have no idea who's at home or what's worth taking, as they usually already have somthing in mind, like expsensive car or piece of artwork.
Re:Another problem (Score:4, Insightful)
They could run their scanners in the ticketing area but they couldn't do it for long periods without looking suspicious. Guys standing around in bulky coats to hide the equipment will probably draw some notice.
Since these passport chips are claimed to have a very short range (inches) to be read, guys in bulky coats dry humping tourists trying to get a scan would draw even more notice.
that word that cannot be named (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When will people realise that remotely readable (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to not want people to be able to identify you. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to circumvent the system as well.
At what point did the unwilling martyrs at the twin towers win the balance against the millions of lives willing sacrificed so that we could taste freedom? It wouldn't matter if planes were crashed into building every day, it is no reason to take away freedom.
Re:Blame the terrorists. (Score:3, Insightful)
While I'm not a big Michael Moore fan, one thing Bowling for Columbine drove home was the "media of fear" idea. He certainly beat it to death, but there's no denying the prevalence of vague fear in todays (U.S.) media and government.
Re:When will people realise that remotely readable (Score:5, Insightful)
If the government can read it for legitimate purposes, then the government and other people can read it for illegitimate purposes.
Re:the system is secure, stop the FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
We can see the remains of the big bang and could detect the light of a firefly beyond pluto.
Range means nothing to directional high-gain antennas. Sure no one is going to retarget Jordell Bank or the deep space network to snoop for pasport id's but that does not mean someone could not get 10m or more gain from an antenna hidden on the back of truck driven through the airport arrivals zone.
Re:Actually that might be part of the plan (Score:3, Insightful)
RFID is and will be considerably cheaper than an equivalent optical solution or any other present technology.
Re:Another problem - don't be simple (Score:5, Insightful)
In 60 minutes of sniffing they could easily collect a dozen or more candidate "known gone" families, then use that as a short list of houses to check.
Maybe the regular readers will have a range in inches, and 802.11 has a range of 100ft. With the right antenna 802.11 can be extended by a factor of 50. I would not count on tags being unreadable from 24", a nice polite personal space distance.
I'm not saying this will ever happen, but it certainly is a lot easier than your deliberately ridiculous example.
What it really comes down to is...
If the passport issuing officials want a system that keeps a secondary reference copy of your information in a difficult to forge format, that is only readable with a special reader and is encrypted to prevent unauthorized use, then there is no reason to use a remotely readable device. A high resolution two dimensional barcode of encrypted data will do a nice job of it without exposing people's data to risk additional risk.
Re:Actually that might be part of the plan (Score:5, Insightful)
My question at that point is: why not use another technology?
Because they want to be able to read them from more then 8cm. They know perfectly well that, with the right equipment, these 8cm devices can be read up to 10m away and they intend to use that feature themselves - they even talk about the ease of tracking people in airports and such as part of the justification for this implementation.
So, you have what basically amounts to spin control. Enough of the general public has latched onto the meme that RFID is a danger to their privacy. So instead of working to eliminate the entirely valid risks that RFID brings to this particular application, they are just trying to cover them up - literally and figuratively.
Your tax dollar at work...
Re:Actually that might be part of the plan (Score:5, Insightful)
I know, a mag stripe can have its data changed. But wait! So can an RFID tag! So you're going to end up doing public key crypto signing of the data anyway. Why not use technology that is proven to be cheap, safe, and reliable instead of something that is potentially expensive, dangerous, and has no real history of reliability that requires additional expensive hacks to prevent abuse?
Re:why are travellers worried? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would a terrorist want your passport information? They have perfectly reliable ways to get entirely legitimate papers of their own. If they want to kill you, they will, and pick up your passport from your body later as a souvenir, whether it has RFID or not. On the other hand, thieves, swindlers, identity thieves could very well take an interest in your vital statistics. Why do TERRORISTS!!!! have to be part of every security discussion?
Secure? (Score:3, Insightful)
Either you've missed out something vital, or the system is wide open to a replay attack.
Re:security (Score:3, Insightful)
That sounds like an excellent idea. The Bali bombers thought they were blowing up a bunch of Yankee infidel in Kuta, actally most were Asustralians. Us non-American white people would really prefer not to be collateral damage in your War on Terror (though sadly our dickweed prime minister has dragged us into it and made us targets).
Re:Aus Passe (Score:3, Insightful)
They'd have to be supplied ot passport readers in every country in the world. So two days after this comes into effect, bootleg readers are on sale next to cable TV decoders, but unlike cable TV, passports stay valid for at least 5 years, so changing the encryption isn't an option, so why bother at all.
Why include the info on the chip at all? (Score:4, Insightful)
Authorized custom agents could then pass a reader over that chip, which would take the number, connect to a US government's computer, input the number which would return photo, fingerprints, etc. etc.
There seems NO need to put all the sensitive information on a chip, when all you need is a number. Keep the sensitive information on more secure computers, accesible only by valid custom agents.
Re:that word that cannot be named (Score:3, Insightful)
"Get over it"?
How about not letting them use their magic argument, instead of getting over it?
You got mugged? Get over it! Your government is using boogeymen to slowly turn your country in a police state? Get over it!
No thanks.
Re:why are travellers worried? (Score:3, Insightful)
They only want to kill you if you are american.
Your RFID passport is a dead giveaway (at a distance).
With a remote readable passport, someone could design a smart motar shell which specifically homes in on american passports. The motar shell only needs to broadcast that it is a passport scanner and detect the replies from american passports.
Sensing the existence of an RFID can be done at a greater range than the range necessary to actually make sense of the data.
Or a roadside bomb can wait for an American to pass by.
Terrorists are not all morons. They don't actually try to target random victims. They try to target their "enemy". If you give them tools to increase the accuracy of their attacks they will take advantage of them.
The nazi's tried the same thing with the jews (Score:4, Insightful)
This system worked very well. It insured that second class citizens could properly receive the proper treatment as such. i.e.: forced to walk in the gutter, rather than a side walk etc. Attend at labour and death camps etc.
Now the american government wants americans to only travel abroad on the condition that they effectively wear electronic armbands identifying them as "AMERICAN" to anyone with a simple detector.
America is at war, and the American government wants its citizens to be required to advertize their status to all possible enemies.
At least the NAZI's were fairly transparent about their desire to oppress and harm jews.
How is electronically broadcasting american citizenship for all to see, going to help americans be safer.
Why not just make a law requiring all american citizens to wear armbands with the Star of David.
Would that be obvious enough for the morons in the whitehouse to wake the fuck up!
Re:Actually that might be part of the plan (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why include the info on the chip at all? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's an easy fix for that risk -- embed a smartchip in the passport with public key crypto support, so when I go to a foreign border, their reader can query my passport, and get back a crytographic key (challenge, etc). They then sign this with their public key and forward to US Customs. When decrypted the passport datablock says "I am Nonesuch's passport, tell the nice people at the Canadian Border what you are willing to share about Mr. Nonesuch".
Re:Actually that might be part of the plan (Score:3, Insightful)
The genesis of RFID had to do with automation. Instead of making a *really* smart robot that can identify & figure out the physical objects it has to interact with - make the objects just a little smart so they can TELL the robot about themselves. Having to get really close and open a book is back to making having to make the system smart again (in this case you need a human to do this for the system - just the thing RFID is supposed to eliminate).