Cruising Fisherman's Wharf For New Passports' Serial Numbers

schwit1 writes "Fox News has an AP story on a hacker in San Francisco driving around and needing as little as 20 minutes to be successful in acquiring a passport number: 'Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians' electronic US passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he'd "skimmed" the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet. ... Meanwhile, Homeland Security has been promoting broad use of RFID even though its own advisory committee on data integrity and privacy warned that radio-tagged IDs have the potential to allow "widespread surveillance of individuals" without their knowledge or consent.'"

Re:Fighting the wrong battle

[petes_PoV]

A lot of times, you have a photo of the "suspect" who's movement you want to track (either from other surveillance, or a mugshot - or even from their passport phot. The reason you're told not to smile is because the P.R. software has a harder time dealing with it - same with glasses wearers.). All that's needed is to feed the photo into the recognition system and give it all your CCTV footage to crunch. This is how surveillance societies like Britain tend to do it now.

You're right though, that you can't just type in "tell me where Joe Soap went on thursday afternoon" into the system and get an list of his/her whereabouts, but for targeted individuals, tracking without their permission has been available for some time.

Re:Nothing to worry about...

[theeddie55]

Except that the RFID shield you reference is entirely different to the passport shielding that video demonstrates to be ineffective.

Re:Nothing to worry about...

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried that with a cancelled RFID credit card.

In 3 seconds it had already let out smoke.

One second later (literally) I stopped the microwave. The card had a VERY visible "melt" ring where the RFID antenna was and was damaged enough it would not read in my CC reader anymore.

Don't do this with anything you care about. A rubber mallet is more effective and leaves fewer traces.

Easy fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrap your passport in aluminium foil.
Just do not walk thru the metal detector with that. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjXkOplqrWo)

Re:Nothing to worry about...

[TheGavster]

In at least some states (Massachusetts for one) out-of-state ID isn't accepted for alcohol purchases, but federal ID like a passport is. Not sure if California is like that though.

These aren't passports

[Electros]

Just to clarify, these are passport cards which are a hard plastic card that can only be used to travel between Canada the US and Mexico. The "Real" passports also have an rfid in them but they have a faraday cage built into the cover so they can only be picked up when opened.

Re:Security

[maxume]

If you shove your passport in a simple metal lined sleeve, this tech isn't trackable.

It is stupid that it is necessary to do so (the convenience gained is minimal), but if it a symptom of a government conspiracy, it is good to know that they are wildly incompetent. Or at least, they want us to think they are wildly incompetent. Oh no!

Re:These aren't passports

[jpallas]

Not only are PASS cards not passports, but they use a completely different technology. This story is pretty much debunked at http://www.rfidjournal.com/blog/entry/4615 [rfidjournal.com].

Re:Security

[Poingggg]

Who the Hell carries their passport around all day in their home country? Most of the time I imagine it would be sitting in a safe place at home.

Here in the Netherlands we have to be able to prove our identity any time the police asks for it. The only way accepted by them is to show your passport, so we officialy HAVE TO carry our passports with us any time we are outside.
Thank you America and your 'War on Terror' to give our political creeps an excuse to put that one through our throats!

Re:Security

[idji]

I flew to Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow 2 weeks ago. There was a separate queue for "e-Passports" so I lined up. They still put my passport through the scanner - which left me wondering why they bothered to have the special queue at all. PS. When I flew out the next day the lady at passport control was very friendly and smiling - made me almost forget where I was!

Re:Security

[Grismar]

Sadly, Poingggg is voicing an ever more common popular Dutch adage: "most of the world's current problems are America's" fault. And an American making a quip about it will probably garner little more than a "Typical" from the likes of Poingggg.

Being Dutch myself, I would like to add that Poingggg is wrong, or at least woefully incomplete. We -are- required by law to be able to show our ID, however we are not by law required to carry it. This may seem silly, since you need to carry it to be able to show it, but what it means is that police are not allowed to ask for ID unless you are under suspicion of some other offense (that is, other than not carrying your ID).

Also, the ID produced does not have to be a passport. Dutch driver's license or Dutch identity cards are also accepted valid IDs. Additionally, the law only applies to people over the age of 14.

So, the only people at serious risk from getting their ID's copied as described (when not using a tinfoil wallet) are people in the age range 15-18 (impossible to get a valid driver's license), foreigners (only a passport, or some specific documents pertaining to asylum and long-term stay will do) and people unable or unwilling to get a driver's license.

And sofar, the only people fined for not being able to produce the ID have been - to my knowledge - people who refused to produce it (even when allowed to retrieve it from elsewhere) or people who committed some other punishable offense in addition to not carrying the ID.