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Hong Kong Smart Identity Cards In 2003 113

Posted by timothy from the at-least-china's-not-an-autocratic-dictatorship dept.
griffinn writes: "The Hong Kong Government has announced its plan to replace the identity cards of all Hong Kong citizens with smart cards, starting 2003. I don't know anything about smart card technology, but I suppose some sort of asymmetric cryptographic scheme is employed to fortify any data stored in it, so smart ID cards should be immune from DeCSS fiascos. But is it possible for someone to just make an identical copy of my smart ID card, and 'become me'?"

For information that comes straight from the "HK Special Administrative Region Government," there's more information in here than I expected. Two paragraphs in particular caught my attention:

Besides, immigration officers would be able to update a temporary resident's conditions of stay readily. In anti-illegal immigration operations, law enforcement officers in the field can use a special reader to confirm instantly whether a person's permission to stay was valid without holding him up for further checks.

"More importantly, a smart card with biometric data stored on it will lay the foundation for the Immigration Department to introduce automated passenger clearance system in future which will bring benefits to the travelling public as more immigration counters can be opened without increase of manpower," Mrs Ip said.

Your papers, please?
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Hong Kong Smart Identity Cards In 2003 More

Hong Kong Smart Identity Cards In 2003

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  • Arg, I left formatting out.... Man that looks ugly!
  • Please understand that Hong Kong is a Special Admin Region and HK is not under the DIRECT rule of Chinese government.
  • First, I have to remind all of you that HongKong is under the control of China. And they are one of the worst violators of the human rights. So having ID cards with biometrics could lead to even more policing by the state.

    First, I have to remind ignorant Americans that Hong Kong (two words, not one) is under the control of China, but it is governed as a Special Administrative Region. That means we have our own government, we vote for our own politicians, we don't have a large controlling communistic party, and we have a freedom to travel as much as when Hong Kong was still a British colony.

    Finally, for someone spreading FUD like you, your last sentence

    "This is not america and they do not give a shit about human rights, rights to privacy..."

    should be

    "This is not america and i do not know what i am talking about, i will regurgitate human rights, privacy concerns from the media...

    Sorry, that was too tempting.

  • Re:Could Someone "Become You"? (Score:4)

    by Mike1024 ( 184871 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @11:17AM (#686685)
    Hey,

    Your facial geometry

    Interestingly, according to This review [zdnet.com] on zdnet, you can often get past commercial face recognition software by taking a photo of the person's face, printing it out as a mask, cutting a nose hole (for someone with a similar nose), and putting on:

    The face recognition systems proved easier to crack than the fingerprint or voice recognition systems. We tried to gain entry using a mask we created by printing a digital image from a color printer. This didn't work. But then we cut a nose hole in the mask and placed the mask on someone with a somewhat similar nose. At the default thresholds, we were able to fool Miros's TrueFace Network several times and Visionics' FaceIt NT once.

    Retina, hand and fingerprint scanners would be as secure as could be expected but facial geometry systems tend to be less secure. Multi-camera set-ups would doubtless be more secure, but the price would start getting very high.

    Personally, my favourite technology is te retina (or iris) scanner, because they can distunguish living from dead, so there's no risk of someone taking a chainsaw to your hand to get access to your bank account. They'll just have to do it at gunpoint...

    Michael

    ...another comment from Michael Tandy.

  • Anonymous smartcards? (Score:3)

    by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @11:23AM (#686686) Homepage Journal
    Does anyone know if there is sucha thing as a fully anonymous smart card that identifies a person uniquely. So I could say scan the card into a computer terminal and buy/sell with the money I have on the card and build something similar to a trust rating (karma points) based on the id I had on the card but there'd be no way to track my identity back to who I was irl from that card even if I had done business with you in person? (ie you'd of course know my id for this transaction which would let you look up information about me as of that transaction but you could not check out any other transactions I'd made or learn anything about me you didn't learn in person).

    Dunno. It just seems to me there are benefits of being known and anonymous both so I'd like to be able to do both at the same time. This sounds unlikely but if you think about it you do this when you go to a costume party to some extent. You can become known within the limited confines of the costume but unless you offer your real identity you will again be unknown when you switch costumes (unless you have a lame costume of course). Would this be something like American Expresses's one use credit cards?
  • Most smart cards are protected from "physical" tampering. If you try to short the card, glitch the circuit, etc. the card can set itself as "dead".

    Maybe Siemens web site have information about this, as they are one of the more important producers of the chips that are on these cards. I think smart cards are pretty secure now.
  • The first electronic ID card (in the world): "The aim of the project is to develop an
    electronic ID card for university staff and students. The project is scheduled for
    completion by the end of 2001. The target is to be able to implement the university
    ID card in fall 2002."

    The rest is here [www.csc.fi].
  • funny you talk about retinal scans... Flipping through the movie channels last night, I noticed 'never Say Never Again' was on. one of the Bad Guys in the movie used a glass eye to fool a retinal scan device into thinking he was the President. Ok, so maybe getting a fake eye implanted would be out of the question if you wanted to steal most people's identity, but it could still be done if it was worth it.
  • First, I have to remind ignorant Americans that Hong Kong (two words, not one) is under the control of China, but it is governed as a Special Administrative Region. That means we have our own government, we vote for our own politicians, we don't have a large controlling communistic party, and we have a freedom to travel as much as when Hong Kong was still a British colony.

    From what I saw when I was over there, on the day-to-day level HK is still mostly free. The police keep a low profile (except on a Friday night in the red-light district, when they're everywhere, which is very nice), the courts are independent, Internet access is unfiltered, and HK citizens are free to travel overseas if they want. Human rights groups can and do operate from HK,, and keep a close eye on mainland China from there, as I understand it.

    However, the local legislature is not really democratically elected - some of the seats are, but most are elected by special "constituencies", such as "business associations" and the like, guaranteeing that China gets a majority of the people it wants on the legislature. The "Chief Executive" is selected by the legislature, so he is the guy Beijing wants.

    The one area that is a little disconcerting is the mainstream media. They are a cheer squad for Beijing, mostly, and their coverage of domestic (HK) politics is timid in the extreme. The economy, by their own high standards, was performing very badly while I was there. In most countries, if this is the case, the incumbent government gets heavily criticized. I didn't see a peep of any of media directly criticizing the government. Instead, the major political angle they covered was the large number of stray dogs! The South China Morning Post is particularly bad - I gave up reading it after a few days. The Standard, the other English-language daily, is slightly better, but still not great. I'm told that the Chinese-language papers are mostly considerably worse. However, dissenting voices do exist, and the authorities seem to leave them alone. One of the local street newspapers (well, actually, it was a street magazine) rather brutally satirized the Chinese government as their editorial column.

    Anyway, HK still remains a largely free country. It's a heck of a lot better than what goes on in China proper.

  • ...well not adopted by the EU...but maybe.
  • Anonymous money, protected against double spending, is possible using the techniques developed by David Chaum (see Bruce Schneiers' book about cryptographic algorithms, in which it is described)

    An "anonymous" ID would be more difficult, since if you keep the id long enough, someone is bound to link it up with your name and store it in a database, after which any transaction with that id can be traced to your.

    By not using an ID, but with transferable karma points, would perhaps be possible with similar techniques as anonymous digital cash, but the problem is that the set of "karma endorsals" by other people would probably be enough of an ID by itself and could be linked to you.

    EJB
  • The problem with such smart cards is not that users can break the system, but that the issuers abuse it to store more information than they tell the user about.

    Because encryption techniques are used, smart cards can store data that only "authorized" people can access, and the user may not be authorized. You may think that your smart card only contains your personal info, but the supermarket may be using it to store your buying habits, your doctor may use to to store his personal opinion of you, the bank may store your credit history on it, and you don't know who has the keys to read the data...

    The privacy problem is IMHO just as big as the security problem.

    EJB
  • Smartcards should interest hackers. They come in two main variants: memory cards and processor cards. The first can be seen as a miniature, secure filesystem, the latter adds some kind of processing power to the former. Costs for CPU cards can be a few dollars each, even in large quantities.

    There are some interesting properties of smartcards. First, they are assumed to be *somewhat* tamper proof. This includes a degree of difficulty in using physcial, electrical, even social engineering to find out what's inside. There are many nice papers on tampering, especially Tamper Resistance - a Cautionary Note [cam.ac.uk]
    which is somewhat of a classic on the perils of believing something to be unhackable.

    Ah, some nostalgia... the Java Card, which I had the fortunate to be part of developing back in 1997, is a cool device, deploying a Java VM in a few K of ROM and some 256 bytes of RAM. Yes, that is tiny!
  • I work for a smart card company, ActivCard Inc. You can store nearly any type of biometric on a smart, given the current inductry limits of storage on the card, which is 16K. Presently being stored on smart cards are: digital certificates, PINs, passwords, PKI, SKI data. We have the ability to generate the passwords on the card, thus the alogrythm and other secrets aren't visible. Hope this helps!
  • Most card lifecycle management programs use dynamic passwords and have a password replay protection program that prevents someone from using the same dynamic password twice. Also, a commonly overlooked biometric is your face. Having a photo on the card goes a long way, as does storing thumb prints digitally on the card, which is being done by several smart card clients.
  • Given that currently (in the US) your bank, the federal government, and other entities identify you with a credit card number, your social security number, and ACK! your mother's maiden name - smart cards are a huge step in the right direction.
  • Anyone who have worked on smart cards care to commment on the lifespan of a smartcard ?

    I presume the ID cards are meant to last some time(at least a decade or so).

  • There is this sort of smart card in Germany. It is issued as standard on all banking cards for a couple of years now. It's called electronic cash and is supposed to work like cash: anonymous per transaction.

    You go to a cash or special bank machine and take money from your account onto the card. The account sheets will only show this transaction. The you can go to the grocer and pay by inserting your card in his reader and confirming by pressing a button. The reader won't read about your identity! It just gets information about how much money it gets off you and credits that to the grocer.

    There is a clearing house that clears all these transactions and they should balance out to zero. You don't need to know any personal information. The cards don't need any online verification like credit cards and they even don't need a PIN because the intention was to make it simple like cash. As a result when you loose your smartcard you loose the electronic cash on it (like loosing a wallet) and anyone can spend it! But that keeps chips simple and cost down.

    However, the system never took off in Germany. I don't know why - maybe the readers are too expensive? Maybe people want to see the cash in their wallets (although there are tiny readers that show you your credit). But it's anonymous and works on big scale - and that's what you asked for.
  • The entire point of a well designed smart card system is that the access control system is NOT trusted. Think of it like hashing; you give the system enough information to prove your identity beyond the shadow of a doubt, but not enough to assume your identity. Thus, it is impossible for your waiter to clone your card, or for that disreputable computer company to collect a bunch of numbers, charge them, and run.

    Personally, I can't wait until smart cards become more prevelant; it worries me to have passwords on 100+ sites because I can't remember 100 passwords. Any one site being compromised means you lose security on several sites, whereas with smart card authentication there is no additional vulnerability.

  • Well, maybe his specific technique could be improved on, but the idea still seems valid...
  • Maybe they could also make them so you can use it to make phone calls, use vending machines, etc... That'd be nifty.
  • IMO your example only states that system-trust is needed and for that to happen an infrastructure is needed that can handle a smart card.

    I think that's an interesting way to look at it, but I think that it is virtually impossible to assemble a good infrastructure with respect to something like national identification cards or state driver's licenses. There are too many business, governmental offices and individuals.

    I like to say that the most dangerous location in any metropolitan area is the international airport. First there is the pervasive illusion of security as discussed in my last post, I don't care if you required DNA and fingerprints instead of just driver's licenses to fly a plan, it wouldn't really matter, because of the main problem. Too many people. An airport like Port Columbus has about 10,000 people walking through it on a daily basis, with 1000 employees, maybe? But Atlanta Hartsfield has 125,000 people walking through it with well over 5000 airline and airport employees. The idea that you could somehow secure such an unwiedly environment is not only absurd, but I think it's dangerous because it's giving people a false sense of security. Now you're talking about securing a state's entire driver's license issuance system, or a nation's identification card infrastructure. The weaknesses are too big.

  • The hand geometry system that I have seen will adapt to gradual changes in your hand. It will change the signature data stored for you hand as it changes over time. However, I suspect that if you break your hand you would have to go through the enrolment process again. Another question I think you should be asking is this. What happens during the time that your hand is broken and you have a cast on it. The hand geometry system is not going to read your hand through the cast.
  • Smart card readers/writers cost only about $80 for a serial port version and $100 for a PCMCIA version. (Gemplus.com) [gemplus.com]

    Why wouldn't it be possible to just copy all of the contents from one card to another, direct copy the magnetic strip too, and change the picture (if there is one) to assume someone else's identity? I don't know much about encryption or how the smart cards work other than the basics, but this seems to be logically possible whatever the encryption scheme, as long as the hardware itself didn't limit directly copying. So would this work, or do I just not know enough?

  • The face recognition systems proved easier to crack than the fingerprint or voice recognition systems. We tried to gain entry using a mask we created by printing a digital image from a color printer. This didn't work. But then we cut a nose hole in the mask and placed the mask on someone with a somewhat similar nose. At the default thresholds, we were able to fool Miros's TrueFace Network several times and Visionics' FaceIt NT once."

    Yes, but in a real world scenario, there will be a guard standing next to the machine. Unless he/she is sleeping or dead, your funny looking mask will certainly be noticed.
  • Would be nice to have an all-in-one card, wouldn't it? But I tend to lean more to a previous post about the conserns about copied/fake cards. Unless finger print scanning or some other static security features can be implemented, I don't believe that this is the way to go. Would kinda suck to loose your wallet now, eh?

  • If Hong Kong has biometric information stored on their smart cards, then more than likely someone could not "become you" since, as most of you know, biometric data is specific to one person.

    What about a bit-by-bit copy of the card, no cryptography will protect from that. After all digital data is usually not so hard to copy bitwise.

  • It's definitely going to be harder than before, when becoming you simply required a colour photocopier or a card puncher and a magnetic strip writer. It won't be easier, and that's what really matters.

  • . But is it possible for someone to just make an identical copy of my smart ID card, and 'become me'?"

    My guess is yes. Here in the great state of California, they went to driver's licenses with holograms on them in order to combat forgery. The forgers had them available about ten seconds after the DMV started issuing them. People who want the 'real thing' have even figured out that they can go to the DMV and get a 'replacement' license, and the clerks won't even check whether the new photo they're taking matches the one on the license you're asking for. Ditto for the new thumbprint. Or, they simply bribe some DMV clerks, a bunch of which have recently been indicted. Which is my long-winded way of saying, if people are determined to get copies of these things, they'll find a way.

  • It is not any more possible(or less possible) to become you with a smartcard than it is with a copy of your regular ID--for instance the reason you need a picture ID is to verify(from the picture) that is is you--but of course they can stick a different picture in there, and pretend to be you to a bank, or anything else--the same is of course true with a smart card.

    Besides that, if the data is not stored specifically on the card, how is this different from the magnetic strip on the back of my drivers license. If it is stored on the card, it won't be a terribly long time till people will be able to modify it, but the odds are good that any system will check with a central server
  • This is going to move technology status in Hong Kong a large step forward due to the fact that everyone HAS an ID card and under the law of Hong Kong (HK is not under Chinese law), a citizen of Hong Kong will have to carry his/her ID card wherever he/she goes. (Police force in HK carry out ID card checking) Using this as a auth. method can be secure and should be available to anyone in local trading. I was told that the reason for changing ID to smartcard is not only about technology advancement but also about the fake ID that some ID cards that illegal immigrants are carrying. (The ID cards before were very low tech)

  • Cat and Mouse (Score:3)

    by nigelb0 ( 234670 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @10:41AM (#686713) Homepage
    There's always a way around these things. Naming a product 'SmartCard' only fools the population for a short period.

  • A copy (Score:3)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @10:41AM (#686714)
    Along with a copy of the smart card you'd also have to take considerable "traditional" measures to become the person. Change the way you look. Change your birth certificate. Change other official documents.

    Copying the card would have the same effect as using your older brother's ID to purchase alcohol. It may work in some cases, but if someone looks at the ID they will obviously realize it is not you.

  • You don't need to get a glass eye, it shouldn't be impossible (notice I didn't say it would be easy) to construct a device that just sits in the biometric reader where you eye normally goes and simulates any retinal pattern you wish. Of course this is assuming that there are no guards standing near the biometric reader looking for funny business, but that probably wouldn't happen at ATMs.
  • TO PROTECT NATIONAL SECURITY, they tapped every phone.
    but since i didn't talk on the phone, i said nothing.

    IN THE NAME OF AIRPORT SECURITY, they placed, at great expense, special scanners to detect the chemical residue of explosives and narcotics.
    but since i travel, i said nothing.

    IN THE NAME OF IMMIGRATION CONTROL, they issued everyone a smart card.
    but since i was a native, i took my card and said nothing.

    little by little they tightened their hold, Choking ME so slOwLy I DiDn't KNow THaT IT WAS HAPPENING UNTIL I BLACKED OUT AND DIED;

    SUFFOCATED BY THE GOVERNMENT.

    THEY SAID THEY KILLED ME TO PROTECT ME FROM MYSELF!!!!
  • Alot of comments ive read indicate that people dont quite understand what crypto can do for a smart card. It can make cards practically unforgeable without the cooperation of one or more "official" card makers like the people who work at the DMV windows. If the card stores biometric data (like retna scan / dna) and this is signed to a name (yours) by the state's public key (thier master key or some set of master keys) this cant be forged without the states cooperation. If you only assume you can mess with the cards (in your possession) and not the card readers (police hands) or the card issueres then the card is unforgeable. The signature checking mechanism in the (retna / dna) readers will detect a bad signature and presumably retna / dna scans cant be forged. If the states keys are shared between many people - like you have to have 3 DMV type people aggree before you get a smart card signed - then you have to bribe 3 people or sabotage 3 machines. RSA and 3DES are very likely not breakable EVER unless quantum computers meet their potential. Perhaps we can make public crypto which will survive quantum computers. Symmetric crypto like AES 256 bit cyphers will onlly be dropped to 128 bits in strength with quantum computers so they will survive an ideal quantum computer. In short : for the above function - biometric identity smart cards - the cards are UNFORGEABLE without bribes of card makers. Even the bribing can be made very hard if many people MUST be bribed to make it work. Digital cash on smart cards can also be UNFORGEABLE as long as every transaction includes a check with the bank. (Ive read its possible without going to the bank each time but i dont understand it so i wont assert it)
  • I guess you're right. We should just give up; the criminals have won. We'll never be able to beat them, so we should stop trying.

    And funny enough, I think you have hit the nail on the head.

    Sheese. The idea is to take forgery out of the range of possibility for your average crook. Some will beat it, yes. But at a cost and level of difficulty far beyond your average crackhead's capabilities

    But let us consider the situation in California. Here we had a state with the nation's most sophisticated driver's license issuing system. Electronically archived photographs, fingerprints and they were collecting SSN's for license issuance (a combo not found in any other state at that time.)

    Shortly after the introduction of that system, California had the worst bout of identity theft that sends chills through other states DMV's.

    The problem was esentially the illusion of security. Not that it wasn't a secure system, but that it was trumpeted by the DMV at that time as uncopyable and stuff. So the level of trust associated with the new driver's license skyrocketed. If you were carrying one around, everyone knew it was protected by all these security implementations and biometrics, whereas people would scrutinize the previous license much more vigialntly.

    The result was that the average crook had far more to gain by obtaining a good fradulent California license, even if the costs were higher. Therefore the much higher gains justified the much higher costs. In no state were DMV employees being bribed thousands of dollars for liceneses, except California.

    The situation is slightly better today because the state DMV makes no pretense that the license is a very good authenticator of identity.

    In my study of issues concerning identity fraud and stuff, I find something rather amusing. Identity fraud was unusual and very low key until about the late 1960's and the early 1970's...that's for most states. For Ohio, my home state, it was 1969. Why? In 1969 Ohio added the picture to the driver's license, which suddenly made identity theft possible, through the trust of a document that shouldnt have existed.

  • Re:The use of biometrics is dangerous (Score:4)

    by IvyMike ( 178408 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @11:57AM (#686719)

    China:

    United States of America :

    My take on it: China commits some serious violations of human rights, and I'd be worried about the smart card IDs there. But I'm a U.S. citizen, and I'd also be worried about smart card IDs here. We've got our own human rights issues to work out. I'm an optimist, so I think that the U.S. won't turn into big brother, but I also think this is possible only through the constant vigilance of people like you and me.

  • c'mon people, didn't you see Demolition Man? You don't need to piss around with technological solutions, you just need to obtain the original eyes!
  • Heh, touché :) I think that lots of Americans forget that they're submitting their opinions to an international audience.

    Would you say that you're totally unconcerned with military or political aggressiveness from China?

    Just curious.
  • How accurate is the hand geometry thing? I _have_ broken bones in my hand, and they didn't heal perfectly straight, so my hand is not shaped like it once was. Would it think I'm someone else?

  • Broken links to Amnesty International

    Dammit, I don't know what happened (Does AI use some backasswards query system that expires, or did I just screw up the links? I don't know.) but you can find the reports at Amnesty International report 2000 [amnesty.org]

    Sorry for the glitch.

  • The smart person who wants to break a secure smart card system would attack the weakest link - which, if done right, is not the smart card itself but the government system used to verify it. Once a system is put in place in any government, some level of corruption starts.
    Very soon there will be the shady characters that can insert, delete, or change records - for a price of course. Viola! Smart cards broken.

  • Re:Does anyone know... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Fingerprint.

    Check here for details.

    http://www.hk-imail.com/inews/public/article_v.c fm?articleid=10322&intcatid=1
  • This would depend on the level of encryption, but people have been hacking the smart cards that control what channels you get on DirecTV for years. You can buy the parts for a basic programmer for about $30. So yes, all in all, one could actually clone your card and become you. Comforting, isn't it? -TrAvELAr
  • Is it just me or does this remind anyone else of the movie Gattaca? I.D. theft would be extremely hard and risky, but it would be possible.
  • When I think of Smart ID Cards in Hong Kong, I see "Blade Runner" come to life. If it works in HK, why not in the US... or AROUND THE GLOBE. Not that I'm against it, as long as it doesn't do 24/7 tracking on me... *looks around* ... not that I'm paranoid or anything.;)

    This is a big step towards making sci-fi novels a reality.

  • It might be a workable solution to combat the problem of illegal immigration. What about when they want to crack down on, say, money laundering? What about if they decide to track everyone who expresses political views contrary to the "approved" ones? What if they decide to mandate the use of officially sanctioned hardware to track a user's web browsing activity using the cards?

    The opportunity to expand upon the stated goal is a horror show waiting to happen. The SAR of Hong Kong has enjoyed relative freedom thus far. But make no mistake: The mainland government will not hesitate to strip ALL freedoms from Hong Kong if it should suit its nefarious purposes to do so.
  • Well, hands aren't something that tend to get casts. I never got a cast of any sort, the bone was just set. (not that it stayed very straight) Same sort of thing with a finger. (my pinky was splinted and taped to my index(? I'm not too big on finger names) for about a month when I broke it.
  • I am from HK as well and this is the info that they passed out to the press:

    The Biometrics they mention is finger prints ONLY, which will be used for immigration, driver license, and as a library card.

    The amount of information that can store on the smart card that they mention is 32K
  • Many smart cards have read write ability that is controlled by it's internal program. Think about something as simple as the handshake with a host including a transaction number in the hash. The second card using an old transaction number would be rejected by the host as invalid. Duplicate cards would have a very short life and subject the user to instant discovery.
  • Simple, They are not readable. You can only talk to the computer on the card. If it is programmed with "LOGIN:" Where are you going with that one?

  • Could Someone "Become You"? (Score:4)

    by n3rd ( 111397 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @10:11AM (#686734)
    More importantly, a smart card with biometric data stored on it...

    If Hong Kong has biometric information stored on their smart cards, then more than likely someone could not "become you" since, as most of you know, biometric data is specific to one person.
  • Read the info on the card security.. Who can access the information

    Everybody - Some smart cards require no password. Anyone holding the card can have access (e.g. the patient's name and blood type on a MediCard can be read without the use of a password).

    Card Holder Only - The most common form of password for card holders is a PIN (Personal Identification Number), a 4 or 5 digit number which is typed in on a key pad. Therefore, if an unauthorized individual tries to use the card, it will lock-up after 3 unsuccessful attempts to present the PIN code. More advanced types of passwords are being developed.

    Third Party Only - Some smart cards can only be accessed by the party who issued it (e.g., an electronic purse can only be reloaded by the issuing bank).

  • I guess it would depend on what biometric they used, if it were a retinal scan/fingerprint/facial shape, then it would be hard, but do they have portable digital readers for such things yet?
    -
  • Uh, I got a hair cut, lost 20 pounds, and changed the color of my eyes, and got the mole on my forehead removed...
  • You can get pretty paranoid about these things, but IMHO smartcards are quite safe when you are trying to extract data from them. They can be easily destroyed, or overwritten - but that's no big deal: you just get a new one.
    Person: "Hi, I lost my smartcard that identifies me, I'd like to get a new one."

    Robot: "Of course, citizen. Please insert your card for verification purposes."

    Person: "Uh oh..."

    Seriously, with the troubles I had recently proving I am who I am with the "100 point primary and secondary ID system" that some banks, phone companies and other Big (and not so big) Business/Government organisations are using over here in Australia, I can see something this stupid happening. It's amazing the number of places that stare helplessly at when you tell them you don't have a driver's licence (which is Really Important in the aussie 100pt system).

    Some nerfherding bureaucrats forgot there are not only people in the world who don't drive, some *can't* drive. One video store refused to let me become a member without a driver's license. Sheesh, I need to be able to drive to rent a $3 video? And when I went to buy a mobile phone, one company suggested that they'd accept a valid passport in lieu of the license. Hello? I want to buy a mobile phone, not leave the country! In the end I got my video and my phone from other companies.

    I just hope ten years from now I can still do that.

  • SMART CARDS in CANADA (Score:3)

    by grovertime ( 237798 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @10:13AM (#686739) Homepage
    This is not just an Asian thang. In conjunction with Sun, there is a Vancouver based company (could be Victoria) that is quickly implementing smart card tech for the residents there, in the hopes that the health card system will be replaced with universal smart cards which apparently have tons of security encryption to prevent the copying the poster asked about (what that encryption is still seems to be a bit of a mystery with these particular cards). The first test is, oddly enough, being done on kids in sporting leagues who will use the smart cards to track, pay and interact with their leagues efficiently. Sorry, I can't remember the name off hand. I'm gonna go find the company name and then post it under this.

    1. My Vote's On This Doofus [mikegallay.com]
  • The fun thing is that this is in Hong Kong, which is well known for its extensively perfected suite of "shady businesses" and the generally acute paranoia that resides with the intellectual crowd. Someone's certainly going to invest huge capital to have this thing cracked since it would open up a wide gamut of security holes if/when the entire government switches over to these high-tech ID cards. If a 16 year old could crack the DVD encryption, I'm quite confident that a team of well-funded asian tech experts can crack this little device.
  • First, I have to remind all of you that HongKong is under the control of China. And they are one of the worst violators of the human rights. So having ID cards with biometrics could lead to even more policing by the state. This is not america and they do not give a shit about human rights, rights to privacy...
  • It depends on what biometric data is stored. If it's finger-print and and retina scan, than not. If it's how many teeth you have then so. Just because it says biometric does not mean that they are using good biometric data.

    No matter what they do, it will be hacked. The question is how easy it is to hack.

  • In anti-illegal immigration operations, law enforcement officers in the field can use a special reader to confirm instantly whether a person's permission to stay was valid without holding him up for further checks.

    How long till a backdoor gets put in, where they can hit a few keys and instantly deport someone without any sort of due process? I am more concerned by the possibilities of abuse by law enforcement, that of abuse by people stealing identities.
    -

  • Smart cards limit data access. (Score:5)

    by zCyl ( 14362 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @10:20AM (#686744)
    A coworker of mine was doing smart card security research recently. A smart card is not simply a data storage device, but instead actually contains a small processor. This processor can be programmed to perform public key encryption and hashing, and thus, the smart card is able to limit data access. Rather than pass out the private key to the computer where the person is trying to to authenticate themself, the smartcard receives a secret which can be signed with the private key, passed back out to the authenticating computer, and there compared with the public key with that user. It can be done in a manner similar to PGP signing of email, without the card even possessing the instructions necessary to export the private key from the card.

    The equipment that would be needed to get the private key off would be pretty expensive, since you would need to be able to break the card apart and read individual memory locations with some sort of electron scanning microscope or something. (Which is tougher than it sounds.) However, Hong Kong's use of biometric data makes that even more difficult, because you would then have to modify the person carrying the copied card so their biometric data matches what's stored on the card.

    Essentially, copying a smartcard like this is astronomically difficult, and at the very least, m uch more difficult than xeroxing a paper card or making a duplicate of a plastic card with a hologram.
  • But your DNA, renta and fingerprints are still the same. Even if you burn off your fingerprints and poke your eyes out, there's still DNA, something that can never be changed, and that's the beauty of biometrics. :)
  • After the my last click back, I was just thinking about the mass marketing that we all know and love. Think about the possabilites(umm.... drawbacks, rather..) for user-oriented spam. If the cards will move up from being just and ID to an all-in-one id/credit card/etc (think moores law here..) Go to a bar, swipe your card, go home, and have fresh spam waiting with advertisements for asprin. Just a thought... :)
  • Yankee, go home.
  • Especially if the private key was mathematically related to the biometric data in some way. Then (to respond to another reply) not even a bit-by-bit copy of the card would do any good.

    I know I can't spell.
  • I have been working and programming smart cards for 6 months during my end-thesis. This was a Motorola card, and all cards are different. So I'll keep to specifics.

    A smart cards API is via a file-system. You read a file like /etc/services with commands like GET FE/A9 where FE is the equivilent of etc. Most smart cards have your personal configuration written on it in a root directory, which is only accessible after you punch in your PIN. Other services are readonly for all card readers and read/write for specific card readers.

    A card reader can gain access to a slot (a part with some 1024 bytes of free space) by passing a challenge, the card sends an ID to the reader and the reader does a encryption on that and passes is back to the card. If the card has the same result the readed is OK-ed. This process is not unlike passwd does it stuff, and we all know that is pretty hard to fake.

    A card reader actually has another smart-card embedded that will do the encryption-handshake, which means that copying a reader is just as hard as copying a card itself.

    The card is a micro-processor which is burnt in the factory and is afterwards made readonly. The programming that is used in the card is in my knowledge the only thing that poses any thread (read security through obscurity) because if I have the code I could emulate the chip and pretend I have all the data the card-reader would want.

    This kind of technology has been in use in Holland (Europe) for a number of years as virual cach allready. Moderately succesfull.

  • Please understand that EVERYONE in Hong Kong needs to have an ID card and will have to bring the card out to anywhere the person wants to go. This system was implemented many years ago as a counter measure for illegal Chinese immigrant (which was/is a big problem).

    Believe me, old people carry their ID too, at least all my grandparents do and they understand the importance of bringing the ID.
  • what kind of biometric data is stored on other smart cards? Or what type of data HK might store on these cards?
  • Well, the chip on the card could require some sort of authentication ...
    so you'd have to copy the chips gate by gate too
  • Well, my HK id card used to be slightly more advanced than that. It had a sort of water mark chrysanthanm (sp?) in it, a printed photo and the whole thing laminated in very strong plastic. It was also covered in the wibbly anti-counterfeit patterns you get on (non-USA) money. In fact the whole thing was a bit like a small plastic fiver, with your face on it instead of the Queen's.

    On the strength of that I'm guessing it would be about as easy to spoof as (non-USA) money is.

    -------------------------------------------

  • Smart cards (Score:3)

    by Mike1024 ( 184871 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @10:52AM (#686754)
    Hey,

    But is it possible for someone to just make an identical copy of my smart ID card, and 'become me'?

    This depends on how well the security is done. The simplest smart cards simply store data, i.e. you input data and then if you send a standardised command, you get it back.

    The most advanced smart cards process commands like an unopenable, solid box with a computer in.

    An example way they could identify each card securely would go something like this:

    Verifying terminal sends the card some random data
    Smart card accepts data and is programmed to digitally sign it with a public/private key algorithm.
    Smart card returns data to terminal

    A more complex model might be:

    Every card has a private key, and every card has a matching public key, held in a goverment database.
    A goverment terminal sends a request for data (i.e. What is this person's SSN?) signed with an official goverment key
    The smart card checks the govt signature against the public key stored internally.
    The smart card returns the requested data, signed with the card's private key.
    The govt terminal checks the signature against the public key database.

    They can take pretty much as much programming as you care to put in, if you buy a good card. You could, for example, require a password to be sent to the card before it works. Anything you want, within reason. Including wiping the card if someone tried to probe it.

    If you wanted to make yourself a new identity, if you could get a blank card and a copy of the programming, and you could get a new public key inserted on the official database, it might be possible to make yourself a card, but it would require substantial technical knowledgability, if it was all secured properly. It would probably be easier to wrongly send for the ID card requisition forms and fill them in with fake details.

    Michael

    ...another comment from Michael Tandy.

  • why don't you go to HK, and then travel to shenzhen with a few HK ppl and see exactly what u have to do?
  • well to the user a "smart card" is just the same as a normal boring old legacy media card (i.e. paper) so i don't think grandpa will have much trouble really
  • well they got cards already so i don't see how "freedom" is eroded any

  • Trusted System, Not Trusted User (Score:4)

    by Andrew Dvorak ( 95538 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @12:45PM (#686758)

    With all of the various authentication systems emerging I sometimes tend not to think "Can this user be trusted" but "Can I trust the system?"

    Example:

    • I use my smartcard to access a facility with the understanding that I trust that facility's access control system.
    • If the access control system has been compromised, somebody could make use of the data received by the reader and spit it out to another system therefore forging my identification.

    (yes I understand that my example has to do with controlling access to a facility, but it introduces an interesting idea that more security is in fact less secure.)

    Traditional authentication systems make use of material items which cannot be duplicated easily. I have a drivers' license. It cannot easily be duplicated by just anybody such that it is an exact replica. Many consider these to be analog authentication systems, where, after a period of use, the quality of the materials degrade.

    Newer, digital authentication, is alleged to be even more secure but I must argue otherwise.

    • The quality of any material objects, such as a smart card, do not degrade with use.
    • In a digital format, a duplication can be made such that it is indistinguishable from the original.

    Possibly a solution which makes use of digital and analog identification would be even more secure.

    But hey, this is a topic that requires much more research than I have time .. so make what you will of this comment :-)


  • But I imagine they would probably implement some kind of system where by they track uses of the card... much the way that credit card companys do..

    hrmm... this guy used his card twice within an hour 100 miles apart, both times leaving the country...(or whatever)
  • Even if you burn off your fingerprints and poke your eyes out, there's still DNA, something that can never be changed, and that's the beauty of biometrics. :)

    Just talk on the cell phone a lot.

  • Can my smartcard be copied? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Every smartcard is uniquely identified at it's inception with a serial number, this is absolutely unchangeable and as such, is the perfect base for checksums and hashing algorithms.
    Any attempt to copy a smartcard can be foiled as the base seed is no longer correct.
    As for data encryption, this is up to vendor of the smartcard system, which can be aided with the help of the limited logic a smartcard is capable of.

    The data region of a smartcard has two seperate areas, write-once-read-many and re-writeable. The WORM area of a smartcard, once written to, will not allow any form of modification. The re-writeable area (commonly used for electronic purses, transaction histories, expiries, etc etc) can be re-written to, but most vendors obfusticate and encrypt the data using the unique card serial #, and various seeds/algorithms stored either on the firmware of the card reader, or a central server.

    All of this is also protected by a PSC (personal security code) which is factory defaulted at inception, but can be changed at any time. The PSC is required to be presented in order to modify any data on the card.If the PSC is presented wrong three (or is that four?) times, the smart card locks itself up, rendering itself completely useless for writing.

    (Disclaimer: Although I have had some experience with the Motorola/Mondex/Keycorp/Smarttech variety of smartcards & readers, my experience is mostly based on technology that is one layer up on the LCR200 boards and is extremely proprietary. So what I work with might not be the 100% the norm, but then again, considering the power-struggles with smartcard standardisation that are going on now, what is the norm? :))
  • But is it possible for someone to just make an identical copy of my smart ID card, and 'become me'?"

    If done properly, the short answer is "no" (the long answer is "not without a lot of work").

    There is a project [wustl.edu] underway at my old school (Washington University [wustl.edu] to do magnetic fingerprinting of credit cards. The gist of the research is that a magnetic stripe with even a direct bit-for-bit copy would have different magnetic properties than the original, although the data would be the same.

    If I recall correctly, the proof has been demonstrated and a commercial grade (i.e. not $12,000,000) device had been constructed.

    So if included on the card was some sort of encrypted checksum of the fingerprint, a suitably equipped reader would flag a discrepancy between data and card, and thus the counterfeit would be immediatly obvious.

    Now, I'm not so naïve as to suggest that the technology to defeat the fingerprinting won't come around, but it will take a while.

  • No, it will help them shoot pro-democracy activists. So go Die, loser.
  • Remembers me of a german proverb (ca. 1944)
  • Ummm, they're totalitarian.

    Even totalitarians need an illusion of justice. Have you read the Chineese constitution? It sounds very similar to our own bill of rights, with a few little changes that open the door for total government control.

    Link to China's Constitution [uni-wuerzburg.de]

    Here are some good parts:

    Article 22 [Culture]

    1) The state promotes the development of literature and art, the press, broadcasting, and television undertakings, publishing and distribution services, libraries, museums, cultural centers and other cultural undertakings, that serve the people and socialism, and sponsors mass cultural activities.

    Article 35

    Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration.

    Article 37 [Personal Freedom]

    (1) The personal freedom of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable. (2) No citizen may be arrested except with the approval or by decision of a people's procuratorate or by decision of a people's court, and arrests must be made by a public security organ. (3) Unlawful deprivation or restriction of citizens' personal freedom by detention or other means is prohibited; and unlawful search of the person of citizens is prohibited.

    Anyway, you get my point. Even the most oppressive government needs an illusion of freedom. Read the whole constution of China, and compare it to the Green Party platform. You might be surprised how similar they are.
    -

  • the current hong kong identity cards are simply card with a textured background with black print, laminated. easily forgable.

    first things first, i live in hong kong.

    the local tv news report on the new ID cards stated they were to avoid forgery. data will be well encrypted.

    at the age of 14 in hong kong, you are required by law to carry your hong kong identification card with you AT ALL TIMES. cops do regular checks on the street, i've been stopped maybe one out of every 3 times passing a cop. this is done due to hk's huge illegal immigrant problem.

    in a country where 20% of the population are triads, color copies onto PVC cards can be done at your street photocopier, and triads have cracked the PSX, DC, PSX2 and even produced game systems for the nintendo systems before they officially hit the streets, and pirated games/vcds/apps are available on every street corner, REAL IDs with fake information can be bought for $20 in the right places (including magnetic strip, hologram, et al), its a huge waste of $4B. after all, i could do with a new house, a new paint job for my porsche, and also, my diamond shoes are too tight, and my wallet is too small for my $1000s.

    but from a resident's point of view, i could do with a new flashy lookin piece of pvc to replace that stupid oversized laminated piece of shit. and if theyre promising show-card-place-thumb-on-pad-then-go-through immigration systems, just bring it on, i could do with the extra time, could be long enough to jerk it once or twice. if i heard some guy sliced up a nun and fled to germany, and he happens to be me, ima gonna be pissed.
  • Personally the smart card idea is a good one but not for the government to adopt. Lets leave this technology to the private sector it will be better used within the corperate environment. I dont want to be tagged like an animal. I'd rather not be a number.

    It would offend me if certain information were to be placed on this card, information which I could be discriminated against for. Likleyhood for diseases etc (dont think some discrimination law will protect you they already don't) I dont want my children born with a card reminding them who they are and who they cant become for whatever reason.

    In the private sector where we have choices about what we do and where we work I see this as an obvious security enhancement. Anything beyond that is plain invasion of privacy. I feel bad for the people of Hong Kong who have to watch their children tagged in a sense. Before you know it these "smart devices" which could be worn will make their eventual way into the human body I'm all for being wired but not tagged like some experiment. Horrible idea.
  • I wonder if they use the same technology that they use in the casinos? I know people who work in the Vegas Casinos as techs and they have some pretty sophisticated facial recognition software. In short, it looks for multiple unique points on the face, ignore glasses, wigs, beards, moustaches, and nosejobs, and can 'alert' security if a match is found. I don't know what the confirmed success rate is, but I would imagine it is pretty decent.

    They have a database that is shared between the casinos of known cheats, and I believe certain types of employees (cash, gaming commision, fired etc) as well. From what I understand you could get kicked out of MGM, and by the time you walked across the street to the New York, your image is in their system as well. By the time you actually reached the first gaming table security would be on it's way.

    From what I understand the Brits have used this same technology to keep an eye on parolees, sex offenders and other /such/ people. All of this is tied into the cctv system and alerts a human who then makes an id. There, Big Brother literally is watching.

    I'm not neccasarily disagreeing with your post at all. I just wonder if the system tested by zdnet were on the same scale as what the casino's have. If this isn't how long until these enterprise level solutions start to make their way into corporations. There is no reason a company couldn't use a system like this in their server room, or even a corporate campus.

  • In a digital format, a duplication can be made such that it is indistinguishable from the original.
    That means that you need to have access to that digital information, and with properly engineered smartcards there is no way to access the memory directly. You'll need some serious cleanroom stuff, while physically damaging the card beyond repair. I think you can be quite convinced your smartcard will be tamperproof.

    What is'nt tamperproof are two things:

    The terminal that is being used to read the smartcards. (Hack one of those, and you can have it display anything, no matter what's on the card) - the current meatspace equivalent would be bribery.

    If there is also data stored centrally by the government that gave you the smartcard (to make sure noone can create their own cards if they know the protocol the smartcard/terminal uses) to identify that you're using a real ID card - e.g: every smartcard has a private key, public key is stored centrally - checking a card's validity involves having the card digitally signing a challenge and subsequently checking the challenge with the public key. These servers are probably a far easier target.

    You can get pretty paranoid about these things, but IMHO smartcards are quite safe when you are trying to extract data from them. They can be easily destroyed, or overwritten - but that's no big deal: you just get a new one.


    Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.

  • If this is in conjunction with Sun then it is almost assruedly a java Card. The java Card sepc is public and either downloadable from Sun (java.sun.com) OR buyanle in book form at your lcoal bookstore.

    You can find out more about those cards in a few hours by reading than anyone posting to slashdot seems to know. (Not that knowledge has ever been a pre-requisit for a slashdot opinion ;) )
  • I have a Amex Blue, which is a JavaCard.
    Its cryptologoical capabilities keep me financially safe.

    What it has on board is a deigital signiture for me and one for Amex. In order to do a web purchase I put the card in a reader on my desk and it authenticates itself to Aemx through the net (and Amex authenticates itself to me.)

    I believe it also generates individual authenticatable tokens for each transaction.

    Using this card for a net pruchase is as safe as using a card at a store, the data transferred is of no use to anyone but Amex and myself and noone can use my account without physical possession of the card.

    Actually, its SAFER, because even with the card you have to enter my PIN in order to gete it to start talking to Amex.

    Smart cards IMO are a wonderful thing. Since Java Card is standardized, I can eventually have one single card in my wallet that replaces the 20 or so I now carry (charge cards, supermarket cards. health insurace cards, rental cards, etc)

    THATS technology that makes my life but safer and easier.
  • IANACryptographer, but...

    I don't think "symmetry" has anything to do with "crackability". Asymmetry, AFAIK, just means that a different key is used to decrypt than to encrypt. That in itself doesn't say anything about the strength of the encryption. And also AFAIK, DeCSS wasn't broken by a brute force crack, but because the geniuses left the key in plaintext on the DVD (and plus the fact that the key must be distributed in some manner, so the hardware can decrypt).

    I believe smartcards do hold a private key, but hey, what're ya going to do? You don't let people steal your *real* id card do you? Well, you don't let them steal your smartcard either (which should probably have a photo on it anyway, just to keep safe). Whether symmetric or not, the secret has to be kept somewhere physical eventually, whether it's in the gray matter in your head, on a smartcard, or in the form of a physical key.
  • This thread brings to mind a Larry Niven science fiction story about 'organleggers' kidnapping the richest man in the world and pulling out his brain and spinal column and replacing it with one of theirs. For all intents and purposes (biometrics) the organlegger was the richest man...

  • Re:Could Someone "Become You"? (Score:3)

    by MemRaven ( 39601 ) <kirk.kirkwylie@com> on Saturday October 21, 2000 @10:21AM (#686774)
    I very much doubt that you changed:
    • Your retinal pattern (feel like changing the pattern of blood vessels and nerves at the back of your eye?).
    • Your fingerprints (feel like grafting on someone else's finger-skin or burning the skin on your fingertips?).
    • Your hand geometry (feel like breaking every bone in your hand?).
    • Your facial geometry (and this doesn't count your skin hanging on it) (feel like breaking your jaw, your cheekbones, your forehead?).
    If anything, this makes such a scheme much more secure than existing plans. You can easily forge a signature, and with the right changes you can match a photograph pretty well. But anything else requires significant body mechanics changes, which are very very difficult to do.

    The US Immigration has actually created the INSPASS [ins.gov] program, which uses a card and your hand geometry to allow you to walk through immigration at many US airports (San Francisco has it, I know). It's a concept which is coming to more and more uses in governments.

  • why would Hong Kong do this? (Score:3)

    by swifticus ( 191301 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @10:22AM (#686775)
    this sounds like a way for Hong Kong to keep a closer eye on citizens. i can't see any reason why they would want to take on this challenge.

    "In addition, the implementation of a smart ID card scheme will be a significant step forward in enhancing our overall information infrastructure and in keeping Hong Kong in the forefront of world information technology development."

    who would want to deal with this stuff? is HK planning on educating the population about what they're carrying? think about your grandparents carrying smart ID cards.

  • Essentially, copying a smartcard like this is astronomically difficult, and at the very least, m uch more difficult than xeroxing a paper card or making a duplicate of a plastic card with a hologram.

    Like any computer running software, there is potential for exploitation. Bugs in the smartcard's OS could allow complete access to the code it runs and what information is stored upon its EEPROM. Even without bugs, glitching the circuits can open the device up to exploits. And as for biometric data, a severed finger can get reach body temperature by spending a few seconds in the microwave.

    For some ideas, check out Design Principles for Tamper-Resistant Smartcard Processors [cam.ac.uk]
  • Well, it all depends how its implemented, atleast in theory its possible to implement a cryptographically safe system. Where a person can be authenticated, without risk of abuse by the authenticating party. Ofcourse copying the smart card on a physical level is always a problem, maybe someone here could shed some light into how safe smart cards realy are physically?

    One thing that worries me is that if they are going to use a public key crypto to make digital fingerprints on all cards so new ID's cant be created without the master key. What happens if the master key is stoled, would this render all smart cards unusable? Sure the master key can be split to multiple keys, but in the end its just a bunch of numbers, once its lost its easy to hide and distribute, unlike existing passport production methods where you need some fancy equipment to produce a good looking copy.

    --typo
  • I can understand wanting to keep a handle on illegal imigration, however wanting to further the presteige of HK in technology areas at the expense of the freedom of the citizens is evil. Of course it wasn't all that long ago that Hong Kong was given back to the socialist chinese government, so i guess somthing so 1984ish is too be expected. i'l be damned if i'll ever be forced into somthing like this in my life time however.

    Ventura for president
  • Yes, you could just copy the card... but what good will that do? You still have to use the card to get through a gate at the airport (or whatever) which would require you to match your biometrics to what is printed on the card... oops, they don't match.

  • Re:Smart cards limit data access. (Score:4)

    by wkurdzio ( 32436 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @11:13AM (#686781) Homepage
    I worked for a company called 3GI for a couple summers and winters when I was off from school. They're a large smart card-solutions firm based out of Williamsburg, VA, in the USA (my hometown). Anyway, for the first year, I was a programmer and was exposed to smart cards for the first time. They're pretty cool and aren't as big a threat to privacy as people think. Here's why: * Smart cards are dumb. The OS on them does a half-dozen important functions: power on, dencrypt the data w/ the correct key (usually a PIN, but biometrics are becoming more popular 'cause PINs aren't very secure), read data, write data, encrypt the data given a key, and power off. Smart cards can't store applications and run them -- they aren't powerful enough for that. If you've seen a card that runs applications, it's a Java card. Even then, Java cards can't do much more than simple math. * Smart cards can't hold a significant amount of data. Cost-effective smart cards hold 32 kilobytes of encrypted data. There are others that hold more, but their cost goes up exponentially as the amount of space goes up. 32K isn't a lot; it's not even enough to hold complete a person's complete demographics and a fingerprint, especially if you want each smart card to hold discrete information about a billion or more people (the population of China). * The encryption methods smart cards use are pretty secure. Some of the older cards use DES; the new cards use 3DES and can be programmed to use other encyrption methods. I don't know much about cryptography, but I understand 3DES is pretty difficult to crack. Perhaps someone more fluent in cryptography can elaborate, but it's safe to say it's very tough to crack a smart card. A colleague at 3GI once related to me that it would take someone several months to brute-force a four-character-PIN-keyed smart card when valid characters are digits and the case-insensitive alphabet. Think about how long it would take someone to crack a smart card keyed on a fingerprint (11 or more coordinates on medium resolution coordinate system)! Even then, you've only decrypted the raw data which is a bunch of 0s and 1s unless you know the exact topology of the data stored on the card. * Smart cards are slow to read. Reading all 32K from a smart card can take 45 seconds. Writing takes even longer. It's a big disadvantage of smart cards (probably their only disadvantage), but at least they can't be "scanned" like memory cards can. * Their are very few standards in the smart card industry. This makes almost every smart card system different even if they use the same cards and/or even the same APIs. Some APIs encrypt data before it's sent to the card where it's encrypted even further. If you don't know the exact layout of how the data is stored on the card, you'll gonna have one hell of a time figuring it out. A lot of companies use data-mangling techniques to mangle data into values that can be stored in a smaller amount of space. A common practice is to store large intergers as two numbers: value 1 = large interger hard-coded integer value 2 = large integer mod hard-coded integer To summarize, smart cards are a good thing and are not a threat to privacy. Please don't mod an otherwise informative post down b/c of this, but a good analogy is the age-old argument that guns don't kill people -- the wrong people armed w/ guns do. Technology isn't a threat to privacy -- the wrong people armed w/ technology are.

  • Smartcards are made very hard to copy. (Score:3)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Saturday October 21, 2000 @10:31AM (#686794) Journal
    ... is it possible for someone to just make an identical copy of my smart ID card, and 'become me'?

    Smart cards are designed to be difficult to read, even distructively or by "sneak paths" (such as variations in power usage or radio emissions). The engineers working on them, even in private enterprise, are investigated and security-cleared, and work in relatively isolated areas. (I recall when some people working with me at a large chip company were transferred to that project - in a separate building. I'd done classified work before and had no interest in doing it again. B-) )

    So copying your smartcard to 'become you' is unlikely - unless that particular smartcard's technology is broken.

    If it IS broken, it will likely be by some VERY well-financed sorts - either organized crime or governmental.

    If it's governmental they'll want to use the break for covert activity, and will keep as low a profile as possible. So they'll play dirty tricks on their enemies - starting with the "short list".

    If it's organized crime, they'll want to make a profit on their investment quickly, before the break is discovered. So there will probably be a sudden large crime wave, looting some very big targets or a great host of smaller ones, and then the smartcards will be replaced with a different technology.

    Either could be a problem for some of us here. But I wouldn't worry too much about script kiddies. If they get in on it at all it will likely be on the tail end of the "organized crime" scenario.

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