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Today is Comment Deadline for RFID-Chip Passports 29

Posted by timothy from the secure-in-papers-and-effects dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Today is the deadline for submitting comments to the State Department concerning the use of RFID chips in passports. These devices would store in digital form all the information currently on a passport as well as a digital copy of the passport picture. This information could then be read by an RFID reader presumably being operated by port of entry personnel. However, these devices could feasibly be read by anyone, including those with malicious intent. The use of RFID chips in passports is a bad idea for many more reasons than can be listed here. If you haven't yet, send your comments to the State Department. You can email them directly at PassportRules@state.gov with the subject 'RIN 1400-AB93' or go to rfidkills.com for more information and an online submittal form. ... It's also being covered on Wired." Here's the proposed rule itself (PDF).
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Today is Comment Deadline for RFID-Chip Passports More

Today is Comment Deadline for RFID-Chip Passports

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  • Tinfoil passport holders.

  • Why must they emit? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 04, 2005 @02:20PM (#12135878)
    This is something I don't get. Why use something that emits a signal? Digitize it ... fine. Barcode it for easy reading ... fine. But why make it so somebody sitting next to me in an airport can pickup the signal?
    • Exactly. We have something like that in Hong Kong already: Smart Identity Card [immd.gov.hk]

      It is an identity card, on a MULTOS 4.06 operating system that supports the ISO7816 standard.

      An RFID-based system is not much more useful than a Smart card.

      • Exactly. We have something like that in Hong Kong already: Smart Identity Card It is an identity card, on a MULTOS 4.06 operating system that supports the ISO7816 standard.

        (Disclaimer: I like the HK card -- I actually did some work on the project)

        The difference is the form factor. Where do you place the contacts in a passport booklet? If you went to a purely electronic passport, you could use a card form factor, but that's not possible, and it's also too unreliable (you need the paper as a fallback

    • Re:Why must they emit? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jcuffe ( 873322 )
      Not to mention the fact that if they make everyone's ID emit some value, who can say what happens when you get a cluster of people standing together? Even if the broadcasting range of the RFID device is quite short, wouldn't you still have to basically whip out your card and swipe it to ensure that it's reading *your* card and not somebody else's? And if you have to do that, isn't the RFID chip 100% liability and 0% benefit?
    • Because they have lack of common sense and someone probably thought that it would be a good idea to speed up customs on people and make in even harder to fake passports (as encryption is hard to fake).

      But wait, they forgot that people can break encryption given enough time, its not ID theifs that are the real problem, its organized attack by foreign governments (maybe Iran or othe nations with state sponsored terrorism or government agents sympathetic to it) because they have the computing resources to cra

  • How to kill your passport & other questions... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by justanyone ( 308934 ) on Monday April 04, 2005 @03:06PM (#12136362) Homepage Journal
    Supposedly, putting an RFID tag in a microwave will kill it (make it no longer workable). This is an easy fix for those who don't want people nearby to read their passport info.

    Questions:
    * What do I gain, as a passport user, by having mine working?
    * What prevents someone from putting a fake RFID tag in/on my passport, thus making it seem like I'm engaging in high-tech forgery?
    * What benefits come from an RFID-based reading of the thing, vs. some kind of contact-based smart card that clearly shows when it's being read (you have to make physical contact with the device)?
    * What's to stop the authorities from putting RFID readers throughout the airport and tracking where specific people walk?
    * Why not put rfid tags on boarding passes instead, so that to go from the counter to the plane you have to walk past numerous RFID readers and it keeps track that you didn't miss a checkpoint, etc.
    * Won't my address and phone number be on this? What if I'm a single female concerned with personal security? Some schmo could stalk an airport, find me, strike up a conversation, and then get home before me since they know I'm not home?
    * What about ex-husbands / abusers / stalkers / restraining-order-prevented people from scanning the new address of someone to find / kill / abuse them again?

    Seems to me there's something very Orwellian / Soviet / THX-1138-ish about this whole thing.

    -- Kevin

    • Re:How to kill your passport & other questions (Score:5, Informative)

      by j-turkey ( 187775 ) on Monday April 04, 2005 @03:20PM (#12136497) Homepage
      Supposedly, putting an RFID tag in a microwave will kill it (make it no longer workable). This is an easy fix for those who don't want people nearby to read their passport info.

      According to the proposal [regulations.gov]:

      Damaged, Defective or Otherwise Nonfunctioning Electronic Chip

      Section 51.6 of Title 22, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), governs the validity of damaged United States passports. This rule would amend 51.6 by adding new language providing that a damaged, defective, or otherwise nonfunctioning electronic chip may be grounds for invalidating a United States passport. A passport with an intact data page but a nonfunctioning electronic chip would still be used as a travel document. However, detected attempts to alter chip data or to substitute a different electronic chip would result in invalidation.

      That sort of answers a few of your questions (although it's sort of an ambigous answer -- disabling the RFID is grounds for invalidation, but you can travel without the RFID? I don't get it). Have you submitted your comments yet?

      • disabling the RFID is grounds for invalidation, but you can travel without the RFID?

        It seems that the RFID is used just for the purpose of simplifying the process of reading it. The primary identification would be electronic and the paper would be used as a "backup" device. Conterfeiting the chip would be a felony. Sounds reasonable.

        I don't get this conspiracy-theory fear about RFID. I have an RFID work badge, it works only at a few centimeters distance, I have tried opening a gate from a distance and it

        • The thing is, there's a fair difference between something that simply lets you in doors at work (I have a Sonitrol badge in my wallet that I use at work) and something that personally identifies you as "so and so residing at x address born on... Etc." Also, if we're looking to make passports simply swipeable instead of requiring them to be read, aren't there other technologies that do the same thing?

        • I don't get this conspiracy-theory fear about RFID.

          I'm with you that the technology isn't all bad. Where it becomes a concern is where RFID tags can be scanned from long distances without our knowledge. For example, my EZ-Pass can be scanned from about 20-30 meters away. Some people have issues with being monitored from a distance electronically, and without their knowledge, so they won't use an EZ-Pass. For those people, this is a concious choice, so it's easy. International travelers don't have

      • ...should this come into effect - it's nice to know that it won't invalidate the passport! Updating passports is not a bad thing, but when it's done as half assed as this seems to have been done, it does nothing but make them less secure. Non-encrypted data readable from a distance, what genious thought that one up? (as a CIA agent quietly sneaks up behind me... ;)

        Best of all, I'll have to nuke my Aussi and US passports (and exactly when did US law become international law? DCMA comming to [in] Europe, th

    • Note that these are just my guesses, but I work with smart cards (contact and contactless) for a living, so they're fairly educated guesses.

      What do I gain, as a passport user, by having mine working?

      In the abstract, you gain higher assurance that no one is using a forged passport in your name, and that no one who finds your passport can pretend to be you (by grafting their own photo onto it, for example). In theory the higher assurance that passports are not forgeable and are more tightly bound to the

  • The government agencies or legislative bodies that host these periods of public comment never seem to listen to what anyone with an educated opposing view or well-founded criticism has to say anyway, so why even host such "public comment"? Is it just an effort to make the general public feel pacified or what?

  • Read distance enhancement (Score:4, Interesting)

    by justanyone ( 308934 ) on Monday April 04, 2005 @03:37PM (#12136670) Homepage Journal
    The change specifies a read distance of approximately 4 inches.

    I wonder if the technical experts have bothered to mention that this signal is being broadcast in all directions, and that simple dish antennae can enable exchanging signals over tens of yards/meters if not longer?

    Has anyone thought about Embassy security personnel being given a task to eliminate all radio-frequency broadcasting devices in the building to prevent espionage, yet everyone will now be carrying a small broadcasting station that can be converted to send data out of the building? Detecting small bugs is a big deal to these guys. I wonder if they have an opinion about their jobs getting harder...

    • I wonder if the technical experts have bothered to mention that this signal is being broadcast in all directions, and that simple dish antennae can enable exchanging signals over tens of yards/meters if not longer?

      Umm, there are a couple of points you're not considering.

      The antennas in the normal (~4in range... hah! more like 1/2in!) are not omnidirectional. Orientation of chip antenna and reader antenna is pretty important to being able to achieve the nominal range. They're not specifically focused

  • Here's the letter that I just sent.

    Feel free to copy and modify it as you see fit.


    Hi,

    I'm writing to voice my objections to the placement of RFID chips in future US passports.

    RFID technology is not a secure technology. Chipping the passports allows anyone with an inexpensive chip reader to easily identify who is an American and make them a target for terrorist activities.

    Chipping also allows opens the door to identity theft. Someone could discreetly obtain the information broadcast by the chip and f
  • I have read that these chips would transmit an ID number, and then that number would be read in and looked up in a database. People need to keep in mind that it would not store everything about you so that an passerby could simply access the data. They would also need access to the database.

    Now cloning the ID on the chip, thats a different story...

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The use of RFID chips in passports is a bad idea
      I'm glad I have Slashdot so I know what opinions to have! Linux good! RFID baaaaaad!
      Is this better language for the post?
      In my opinion, which is in no way endorsed by syrinx, and which I would never inflict on another user, the use of RFID chips is ... well, forget it, I'm just imposing now.
  • Under The Radar Katherine Albrecht's Sweat of labor, the battle heats up by James Mata The Book we have all been waiting for is just around the corner. It's the inside scoop of Caspian founder Katherine Albrecht. There are so many facts and falicies whirling about in the so-called RFID News arena that to finally read the truth with out the spins from the RFID investors of how we will enjoy the new life of RFID tracking and get the scoop from someone we all admire and trust would be most ref

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