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United States Privacy

RFID Drivers' Licenses Debated 514

meganthom writes "How would you feel about having an RFID chip in your driver's license? Virginia is considering just such a measure, largely because several of the 9/11 hijackers were licensed there. Civil rights advocates are obviously unhappy with this turn of events, and it seems the ACLU has already taken the case. Proponents claim it would help law enforcement determine that you are who you claim to be and would make forgeries less common. The Federal government is also considering uniform 'smart card' standards."
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RFID Drivers' Licenses Debated

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  • Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jhon ( 241832 ) * on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:50PM (#10471919) Homepage Journal
    How would you feel about having an RFID chip in your driver's license?
    I wouldn't like it.

    How soon until you can buy a pocket ID sniffer/cloner? Or the plans become available on the latest 'warez' site? Great. Just by walking down the street 20 people can steal my identity...
    • Re:Oh great... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by willy134 ( 682318 )
      I guess I will start wrapping all my cards in aluminum foil before leaving home.
      Anyone know of a good metal wallet. If the frequency is low enough a rough chainmal or mesh should do the job.
      • Even easier (Score:5, Informative)

        by Engineer-Poet ( 795260 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:07PM (#10472206) Homepage Journal
        Laminate some aluminum foil to card stock with spray glue. Fold in half. Keep your RFID cards inside unless they're in use; the pair of ground planes will make it effectively impossible to get signal to or from the cards. If you want to be able to flash your card/DL without allowing it to be read without extreme difficulty, put foil on one side of a clear envelope or card holder and keep the card inside.

        Another thing to do would be to make a reader-detector, to see who is trying to scan your cards surreptitiously. That would be a great way to embarass people and businesses trying to play Big Brother, and you might even be able to get such snooping prohibited by law.

        • A good idea but... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by baudilus ( 665036 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:23PM (#10472424)
          what makes you think that the people passing this law won't also make it illegal to purposely block or interfere with the signal?

          It seems to me that the proper course of action would be to prevent this from becoming law in the first place.
        • Re:Even easier (Score:3, Informative)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 )
          Laminate some aluminum foil to card stock with spray glue. Fold in half. Keep your RFID cards inside unless they're in use; the pair of ground planes will make it effectively impossible to get signal to or from the cards.

          No, it won't. A faraday cage has to be grounded. A piece of aluminum foil in a cloth pocket is not. Don't get me wrong, it will dampen the signal somewhat, in much the same way that a layer of anything will dampen it. To some extent, it may also act as a wave guide, resulting in hot

          • by Engineer-Poet ( 795260 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @02:59PM (#10473626) Homepage Journal
            A faraday cage has to be grounded. A piece of aluminum foil in a cloth pocket is not.
            Wrong. A Faraday cage does not have to be grounded to isolate anything inside, any more than a dipole antenna has to be grounded to radiate. What the foil surfaces would provide is a pair of "image planes" which suppress currents in anything nearby; a pair of them spaced closely is going to provide a very large amount of attenuation.

            If you want an example of this, cut out a small piece of aluminum foil, one inch by four or so. Tune a hand-held AM radio to a strong station. Now put the foil over the housing near the loopstick antenna; the reception will die. Doesn't take much, does it?

          • Re:Even easier (Score:3, Informative)

            by HeghmoH ( 13204 )
            Faraday cages have to be grounded to keep signals that are inside from getting out. They don't have to be grounded to keep signals that are outside from getting in.
    • Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GoodNicsTken ( 688415 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:02PM (#10472113)
      RFID tag is not going to bounce back your life history. It's the equivelant of a barcode.

      The problem come into play when someone or some company can start collecting information about you, tie it to your RFID profile (because they will be in your clothes, wallet, cellphone, etc.) That could then be tied to your movements.

      RFID tags at the consumer level are a complete privacy invasion. All up for sale to the highest bidder. Who knows what kind of abuses will come out of this.
    • Re:Oh great... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dr Reducto ( 665121 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:03PM (#10472131) Journal
      Just pop your license in the microwave. I think that kills RFID.
      • Re:Oh great... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by phyruxus ( 72649 )
        I think you're right about microwaves killing RFID devices. Unfortunately I think that would probably count as "altering a document" which will get you arrested.
        • Not if you didn't know how it got that way. Damn kids again.

        • Re:Oh great... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Alsee ( 515537 )
          I think that would probably count as "altering a document" which will get you arrested.

          No, I seriously doubt it. Are you suggesting you can get arrested for cutting your licence in half? Or burning it?

          "Altering a document" is about presenting fraudulent information, not about damaging it.

          -
      • by shotfeel ( 235240 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:58PM (#10472908)
        Hey Marge! I done tried to kill the tag like they told me to on that thar slashydot place so the aliens can't track me no more. But I'll be darned if they didn't go and beam it up right out of the microwave! All they left behind was a puddle of goo.

    • Re:Oh great... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by McCow ( 323710 )
      I don't mind it as long as it requires my consent to read it. I am sure there is $ out there for the first company to provide the ability to enable/disable the functionality of the chip on demand. If you need the RFID, I biometrically turn it on. Otherwise, it stays dormant.

      In the meantime, it's probably not the best tech to be putting on a drivers license.
  • I wouldn't mind (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mod_critical ( 699118 ) * on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:50PM (#10471920)

    I don't particularily like the Big Brother idea, but I have no qualms about this. You carry your licence so that people know who you are, and this would just provide a better way to verify that information. It would also be a nice way to lower the costs of corporate identification systems. I have a few workstations I manage for students to use at my college in the Physics office. I had gotten some old card readers and just set people's passwords to the raw string of text that their driver's licence would read out. It worked really well to keep them secure and the make it easy for people to log in, and if RFID tags were in our driver's licences it would make keyless entry systems and RFID based computer security systems a lot less expensive to get started with if there was enough secure information on the RFID tag.

    Of course there are problems with the fact of how much data would be on there. Could I walk past a pillar in a mall that would read my address and phone number off my licence and sign me up to receive unsolicited calls and mailings? Also, would the data be secure enough if it were to be implemented in a security system? If these concerns were taken care of (well, the security system one less so, probably actually not that feasible, that's just the old hobbiest ticking inside me), then I wouldn't have a problem at all with a more secure and harder to forge driver's licence.

    • Re:I wouldn't mind (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Headrick ( 25371 )
      I probably wouldn't mind either if there was a such thing as a completely secure system. What if the technology is compromised? If you trust the RFID system and remove all other safeguards (as in your login example) your entire system is compromised if someone can duplicate your identity. You can't just change your password to recover. This is the same problem with biometrics -- someone figures out how to break it and you're screwed -- can you change your DNA/fingerprints/retina?
    • Re:I wouldn't mind (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hype7 ( 239530 ) <u3295110@noSPam.anu.edu.au> on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:00PM (#10472077) Journal
      fair enough, you wouldn't mind.

      but I'm not getting Viriginia's apparent reasoning for introducing the RFIDs - "Virginia is considering just such a measure, largely because several of the 9/11 hijackers were licensed there". How would have RFID helped? It's a non sequitur.

      As I understand it, the issue wasn't that identification failed at the airport. So how would RFID have helped?

      -- james
      • Re:I wouldn't mind (Score:5, Interesting)

        by gcaseye6677 ( 694805 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:17PM (#10472344)
        Of course it's a non sequitur. It's all a part of the "If you don't support my harebrained scheme, you're with the terrorists" line of thinking, which has become way too common lately. You'd think people would wise up and see right through this, but I guess there are a lot of slow learners out there.
        • by jefu ( 53450 )
          It is friday (here at least) so its not terrorists, its child pornographers. Terrorists are Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday is communists (though we're thinking about eliminating them), Thursday is Identity Thieves (except for the 15 minutes after noon when its spammers), Friday and Saturday are child pornographers.

          Its important to remember this, otherwise our plan to take over the world will fail. (Oops, did I say that out loud?)

    • Re:I wouldn't mind (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jo3sh ( 258184 )
      "You carry your licence so that people know who you are"

      I think this is a mis-statement. I carry my ID so I can provide evidence of my identity and of my qualification to drive an automobile to those who I believe have a need to know. I do not carry my ID so passersby can sniff my wallet (probably one of the worst turns of phrase I've ever made) and track me without my knowledge.
    • Re:I wouldn't mind (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:04PM (#10472145) Journal
      You carry your licence so that people know who you are, and this would just provide a better way to verify that information.

      I carry my drivers license so I can drive. I have no interest in other people knowing "who I am".
      • Re:I wouldn't mind (Score:5, Interesting)

        by baudilus ( 665036 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:21PM (#10472394)
        Not only that, but with licenses as they are, the police/gestapo/etc. have to ASK for your license to see who you are - that's the big difference. You know who is requesting your license information, and if you so desire, you can deny them this access. Not so with RFID. If a cop pulls you over, he gets all your driver information and anyone else in the vehicle carrying this RFID as he walks to your car (maybe even before he gets out of HIS car, without even talking to you.

        Might not trouble some, but being a minority I've had my "fair" share of profiling. This brings it to a whole new level.
        • ...as he walks to your car

          As opposed to taking your license and registration back to his car and getting all the info then? Please.

          By the way, take some time to actaully read other people's experiences with RFID. They don't work unless you are close to the reader, which implies the officer has your license already.
        • Re:I wouldn't mind (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Mr Guy ( 547690 )
          I've had my "fair" share of profiling. This brings it to a whole new level.

          If used correctly, (I know, HUGE if) this could actually be an argument FOR the situation you describe. Most "minority profiling" isn't entirely based on racism, an entire profile. In the situation you describe, wouldn't it be nice to have your chip tell the officer you are a good, law abiding citizen BEFORE he gets up to your window? I understand it's not fair to have to be flagged as "one of the good ones", but it still works
      • Please... this is absurd.

        What exactly do you do when you are:

        - Applying for a job?
        - Applying for a loan or bank account?
        - Writing a check or using a credit card?
        - Getting into a bar or purchasing alcohol or gambling or any other activity with an age requirement?

        Driver's licenses are the only uniform photo ID issued in the US. To imply they are only for the purpose of driving implies you are either under 18 and unable to take advantage of most other uses for ID, or you are sitting at home much too often.
        • Re:I wouldn't mind (Score:4, Interesting)

          by CreatureComfort ( 741652 ) * on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:37PM (#10472600)

          The point is that all of those are activities that where I can make a decision whether to give that information or not. I walk into a place for a job application that looks shady... I just walk right back out and they don't get my info. With an RFID tag broadcasting my info, you remove that choice from me. Not only that, but you enable the covert theft of identity to an absurd degree. It's bad enough that to use my credit card at a restaurant I have to let the waitress take the card out of my site, but to now allow anyone with the sklill to build/buy a remote sniffer to gather the information necessary to apply for new cards in my name....

      • Re:I wouldn't mind (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mcrbids ( 148650 )
        You carry your licence so that people know who you are, and this would just provide a better way to verify that information.

        Heh? I seldom carry a license at all. I memorized the number years ago, and in fact, I've never HAD the license when being pulled over by police. (four times in the last 14 years) I've never been given guff because I know my numbers, and when the police call in my ID, everything checks out.

        I've never even been verbally told that I am supposed to carry it! (This is in Northern Califo
    • Ummmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)

      You know almost all of the 9/11 terrorist had valid state issued ID? Why would adding a RFID tag help stop terrorists? The can still go up and apply for a valid id just like everyone else.
    • Security Problem (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pavon ( 30274 )
      The problem with this and all other National ID card ideas that have been proposed is that they are inherently secure, because they result in people treating a single piece of information as both public information and as a secret. As an example, concider your Social Security Number. This number is used for two purposes
      1) It is a unique identifier that the government (and others) use to differentiate you from others.
      2) It used as a means of authenticating that you are who you say you are.

      This creates a pro
    • Re:I wouldn't mind (Score:3, Insightful)

      by shotfeel ( 235240 )
      You carry your licence so that people know who you are, and this would just provide a better way to verify that information.

      How is it any better than the magnetic strip on the license? Because its high tech?

      IMO its a lot like the story last week about the tokens to be used to verify the "kid" online is really a kid. All it does is wrap the high tech mantle around security which makes people think its safer, when really its not.

      So how does using an RFID tag make it any more secure? IMO it would be less s
  • Ahh.. RFID (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:50PM (#10471924)
    A pickpocket's dream come true! You can steal from a passerby without laying a hand on them.
  • by erick99 ( 743982 ) <homerun@gmail.com> on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:51PM (#10471933)
    Can you imagine how quickly wallet manufacturers would come out with new wallets that either sandwich your drivers license between two pieces of metal (aluminum foil I guess) or shield the entire wallet? I don't usually get too excited about privacy issues because I don't believe we have any these days. But, it is way too easy to imagine thieves walking around with readers and harvesting drivers licenses numbers and info in crowds. A drivers license often has all you need to get a credit card, especially if your state uses your social security number as your drivers license number (do any states do that anymore?).
  • by The Queen ( 56621 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:51PM (#10471939) Homepage
    Will now be a New and Improved Canadian.

    *sigh*

    Anybody got some tin foil?
  • Pretty Bad (Score:2, Funny)

    by mfh ( 56 )
    How would you feel about having an RFID chip in your driver's license?

    Yeah we all know how secure those RFID chips are, smart-card or not. I mean, no one would *ever* tamper with them, would they? A magic marker and a bic pen, and the thing is sputtering profanities at whoever accesses it! Better... I can see the expression on the officer's face now when he pings mine and sees I have installed Linux on it [slashdot.org].
  • Rfid (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does that mean I will have to leave my driver's licence at home before robbing a bank ?
  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:53PM (#10471966)
    I doubt an RFID in a drivers licence is any kind of deterrent when you're prepared to hijack a plane and kill yourself and everyone else in it by crashing it into a building.
  • by dan_sdot ( 721837 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:53PM (#10471968)
    How would you feel about having an RFID chip in your driver's license?
    I wouldn't really care that much. In California (at least, I don't know about other states) they already have this, but using a different technology. The magnetic strip on the back of the card has all your information that can be read when cops "swipe" the card.
    I think that RFID for some reason just always triggers a negative response from the /. hivemind, whether merited or not.
    • by FrankSchwab ( 675585 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:58PM (#10472034) Journal
      Sure it's different - as long as I leave my driver's license in my pocket, no one can read that mag stripe off the back. And, frankly, I don't give my driver's license to anyone who doesn't have the legal authority to compel me to give it to them. Cashiers get to look at it. They don't get to touch. With RFID, anyone and everyone can read my driver's license number (or a number that corresponds to my driver's license number). There have been times in my life when anonymity was important to me; there will be times in the future when it will be also. /frank
    • im sorry officer, i dont understand why your card reader cant read my id. it couldnt have anything to do with my work with at a particle accelerator could it?
  • Walk by ID theft... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chrispyman ( 710460 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:54PM (#10471982)
    You'd think that the possibility for walk by ID theft would stop them from considering this. Either way, RFID tags aren't exactly difficult to counterfiet, and they do nothing more than take another step towards massive civilan survelience.
  • by Sean Clifford ( 322444 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:55PM (#10471985) Journal

    FUD time...

    Proponents claim it would help law enforcement determine that you are who you claim to be and would make forgeries less common.

    Yeah? It would make it easier for me to know who you are too. One enterprising geek on the subway could snag everyone's identities. You thought cell phone cloning was a problem? Hoo buddy.

    Joe Geek might not be able to forge an ID, but he doesn't have to in order to snag someone's identity.

    Might want to tin-foil coat that wallet...

  • by Stiletto ( 12066 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:55PM (#10471993)
    Virginia government officials need to keep reading this until they get it:

    THE 9/11 HIJACKERS HAD VALID DRIVERS LICENSES.
    THE 9/11 HIJACKERS HAD VALID DRIVERS LICENSES.
    THE 9/11 HIJACKERS HAD VALID DRIVERS LICENSES.
    THE 9/11 HIJACKERS HAD VALID DRIVERS LICENSES.

    Stop using the hijackings to justify your pet police state!
    • Oh, and before all the RTFA nazis flame away, I did:

      "Nine of the 19 9/11 terrorists obtained their licenses illegally in Virginia, and that was quite an embarrassment,"

      They might have _obtained_ them illegally but they were still valid and let them pass security easily. Having a valid RFID inside a valid license will not stop anyone from Doing Bad Things (tm).
    • Virginia government officials need to keep reading this until they get it:

      THE 9/11 HIJACKERS HAD VALID DRIVERS LICENSES.


      I'm not sure how "has a known identity" became conflated with "is known to be sane." What the lawmakers are really looking for is an identification card which is linked to a psychological examination.

      Oh, I really shouldn't have said that out loud.
    • Virginia government officials need to keep reading this until they get it:
      THE 9/11 HIJACKERS HAD VALID DRIVERS LICENSES.

      I agree; RFID licenses won't help.

      That said, what do you (and the rest of the "I'm too cool to worry about terrorists" crowd) propose? The same people who are against measures like this are also generally against anything that would have prevented them from getting valid licenses.

      I'm genuinely curious. I don't believe for a million years that the Kerry crowd is going to tighten

      • Re:yeah, but ... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rabel ( 531545 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @02:24PM (#10473236)
        I'm genuinely curious, what is it you're afraid of? Life is sometimes hard and good people sometimes die. Is it worth living in a police state to somehow keep that one set of crazed morons from blowing something up? Honestly, is it worth it?

        How about this: Let's stop pissing people off so that they don't feel like it's worthwhile to blow our stuff up. Then, let's stop blowing up their stuff so that they won't have any reason to retaliate.

        There, we're right back where we should have been pre-9/11. Stop being frightened by the boogey-man-terrorist. Oh, he's out there alright, and he's real, but I'm much more worried about the crazies here in our own country, with valid IDs, that think they need to kill their girlfriends when they break up with them, or hold babies out of car windows while driving, or go on a sniper rampage in Washington DC.

        You can get struck by lightning, or a car can come careening out of control and smush you into the sidewalk in a New York Minute. Drunk drivers are way more dangerous than any terrorist to you. Police-state Gestapo tacticts are way more dangerous to you than any terrorist.
  • yeah all this may be great, but who is to say if the police pull you over and they scan it, well it is a computer and it is always right. so when people clone this could it be more "trusted"

    I mean they are already proposing chips so you can breeze through airport checkin, but how long before that is cloned and people buzzword("terrorists") can breeze on through...

    trusting technology to solve all problems is a problem
  • by Telastyn ( 206146 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @12:56PM (#10472004)
    Or at least I wouldn't feel any worse than being required to carry around picture ID in the first place.
  • "Almost everyone carries a driver's license, and RFID chips allow people to be tracked," said Kent Willis, Executive Director of the ACLU of Virginia. "This proposal would allow anyone to set up an RFID reader to capture the identities and personal information of every person who comes within range," added Willis. "FBI agents, for example, could sweep up the identities of everyone at a political meeting, protest march, gun show, or Islamic prayer service." -- From the ACLU link.

    For this, privacy invasion,

  • Is there some simple (metal?) case that you could slip your RFID-equipped license into that would block snoopers from scanning you until you deliberately removed the license from the case?
  • I see almost no issue in including RFID tags in this instance - you carry the thing to show who you are, and that you're allowed to drive this car.

    The only issue I see is the potential for snooping, and I'm not sure why that's really a big risk.

    I do take issue with the 9/11 thing being dragged in - why is it that you lot are letting the government push through all this crap? None of it has any bearing on 9/11! The hijackers were already in the country, had valid visas etc. etc. What the hell do drivers li
  • All these efforts to craft technical defenses to terrorism will only go so far (if anywhere) in preventing terrorists from operating.

    Smart, determined terrorists will always be able to assume the identities (and obtain the documentation) they need to operate. They may need more time to infiltrate, but that's about it. There's just too many overworked DMV workers out there for an unremarkable, prepared person to socially engineer a driver's license (or whatever) out of.

    So, if you make falsification harder,
  • Make me uneasy (Score:2, Interesting)

    by C3ntaur ( 642283 )
    Just the other day I went to Beverages and More to buy some booze. The cashier asked me for ID, so I showed him my license inside the clear plastic flap of my wallet. He asked me to take it out, so I did so and handed it to him, not realizing what he was about to do... He swiped it through a mag strip reader! I have no idea what's on the strip, but now BevMo's computers have that information. If my street address is in there, it's probably going to be used to spam me with junk mail. But who knows how
  • not for me..... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:00PM (#10472068)
    200,000 volt stun gun will tune that puppy up.
    I took my current DL and bulk erased the mag stripe, then threw it on the concrete and stood on it and twisted my foot, grinding the barcode up so that it is no longer machine readable.
    Visually, my DL still functions, it shows my ID correctly, it just can't be read by a machine.
    If they want to check it against some DB, they have to call it in the old fashioned way.
    "Sir, your DL is damaged, you need to have it replaced" "Gee, imagine that, I guess I better do something about that huh?" and that's that.

    Resistance is NOT futile.
    • Resistance is NOT futile.

      In your case, I'm not sure what you are doing. I'm not sure what magnetic stripes and bar codes on an ID are any threat to privacy. At least magnetic stripes and bar codes can't be sniffed.
  • You could still just borrow somebody else's driver's license! No, the only way to make this truly effective is to embed the RFID chip within our own bodies, so that it cannot be removed. For instance, implant it in everybody's forehead at birth... hmm, that sounds strangely familiar!
  • by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:00PM (#10472086)
    largely because several of the 9/11 hijackers were licensed there

    More direct attacks on privacy and tracking all Americans, in the name of 9/11, with something that would have had absolutely no effect on preventing the 9/11 attack at all.

    Perhaps a better idea would be to not give terrorists drivers licenses at all, or maybe not to give illegal alliens drivers licenses at all. Instead many states (including mine) have gone out of their way to make it easy for known illegal alliens to obtain drivers licenses! But somehow at the same time this is being used to justify making people cary one more thing that will make it extremely easy to track them.

    Kind of makes you think that all those crackpots who question how and why World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed when it wasn't even hit by planes, the only skyscraper to ever collapse from such a fire before or since, might be on to something.

  • If it's passive, where's the problem? It's no different than a barcode or a magstripe, as it requires extremely close physical proximity to a reading device.

    If it's active, such as an ignition interlock that prevents your car from powering up unless the RFID reader embedded in the seat detects a licensed driver, we've got a problem -- but that's not what's being proposed.

    Passive RFID drivers' licenses cannot be used to track citizens' whereabouts 24/7 unless the government is willing to spend trilli

  • Project TinFoilHat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Catbeller ( 118204 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:01PM (#10472091) Homepage
    How, EXACTLY, would the 9-11 attackers been stopped if they had been issued RFID drivers licenses? There is no sane connection. I can't think of any easier examples to prove that government and businesses are taking advantage of the 9-11 fear to lock us down. PATRIOT acts, car transponders, GPSed cell phones, RFID armbands, implants, RFIDed ID cards, biometrics... NONE OF THESE THINGS would have stopped those men from crashing those planes into the towers. But that attack is used to justify every possible wet dream of a police state.

    Now, onto Project TinFoilHat. If issued such a card, I will build a Faraday cage into a belt pouch, and there their assine tracking device can sit until a POLICEMAN asks to see it. I know damned well they can build RFID detectors that can work at great distances; I will not cooperate and being tracked on a giant Ms. Pac Man screen by whomever can afford the equipment.

    As for those of you who don't care about this, you are good Germans. What else can I say.
    • How, EXACTLY, would the 9-11 attackers been stopped if they had been issued RFID drivers licenses?

      Presumably, the hijackers' licenses would have been read by a computer and then compared to a security watch list. If the hijackers were on the watch list, they would have been flagged and possibly prevented from boarding the plane.

      My initial reaction, like many I've read here, was "Virginia ought to be a little more careful about who it gives licenses to." But a moment's reflection made me realize that lice
  • As it stands, I can walk into my local supermarket, purchase any number of items(using cash), and walk out. No one ever need know who I am. RFID Identity scanning would allow any number of people to know not only WHO I am, but WHERE I've been. That is the significant risk in allowing technology like this in place without proper security measures, both for the government, and for my personal protection. Iron out the security, make me feel safe, and I'll think about sticking an RFID tag in my wallet.
  • by Fallen Kell ( 165468 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:01PM (#10472099)
    I mean from the sense that it may be harder to forge the drivers license, then yes maybe it is more secure.

    BUT, the licenses that the hijackers had were LEGAL licenses (i.e. they went through the process of getting a license and were granted one). The problem isn't the fact that the license itself is not secure, but the PROCESS which grants the license is NOT SECURE. FIX THE PROBLEM NOT A SYMPTOM.

    That is just my 2 cents.

  • This reminds me of a kind of awful movie I saw late at night in a hotel room. The movie, which I think was called X Change, [imdb.com] had that blond-haired Baldwin brother in it, and he had this special card that he had to keep in a little pouch or else this tiny little robot airplane would find him and blow him up. He needed the card for ID purposes, so he couldn't ditch it, but every moment he had it out the people who were after him would get one step closer. So the little black pouch was a tinfoil hat for his I
  • In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cybertect ( 85900 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:04PM (#10472162) Homepage
    US Federal officials announced today that, since some of the 911 hijackers were found to have used Route I-95 during their preparations for their terrorist attack, this highway would be permanently closed from 11am Tuesday to prevent its use in future atrocities.

    Similarly, Oldsmobile saloons would also become proscribed items on the same date. Current owners of Oldsmobiles have until 15 October to hand them in to a Federal car pound.
  • by rben ( 542324 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:18PM (#10472362) Homepage

    RFID in drivers licenses means that the license information can be read from a short distance away, say in a turnstile or any other narrow entrance. This would enable someone to determine everyone who attends events, night clubs, etc. Someone with an appropriate RFID receiver could walk through a crowd and record who is present.

    While such a system would make life easier and safer for police, it would make anonymity a thing of the past. How long would it be before our current representatives, who are completely gung ho on helping business, would allow businesses to use the RFID to identify customers entering and leaving businesses? The businesses could use the information to run credit checks. Businesses could determine how much money you have to spend the moment you walk in the door.

    I don't know about the rest of you, but I think the potential abuses of this technology far outweigh the benefits.

    It is a shame that we in the U.S. have reacted to 9/11 the way we have. The world is a dangerous place and it makes sense to put reasonable security procedures in place, but no amount of protection will protect us 100%. There will always be a risk, especially in a free society. Personally, I accept that risk and embrace it. That risk is the price of freedom.

    The terrorists that attacked us sought to destroy our way of life and make us afraid. They win each time we accept another limitation on our freedom in the name of security. Don't let them win.

  • by Teddy Beartuzzi ( 727169 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:28PM (#10472479) Journal
    Used to be, you wanted some obnoxious rights violating law passed, you attached a "think of the children" coda to it. After all, no one can come out and say they're against children.

    Now, you attach 9/11 to it. No matter how disconnected. Fight it, and you clearly support terrorism.

  • by Skater ( 41976 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @01:52PM (#10472809) Homepage Journal
    I thought RFID would only transmit some unique identifier. In other words, the identity information is not stored in the RFID chip, but in a database in a server somewhere; the RFID only supplies the index key to the (presumably) correct record in the server.

    So, I don't see why RFID suddenly makes stealing people's identities so much easier as half the posts on here are claiming. You'd still have to hack into the db to know what the details of that person are if you randomly stole the code from the RFID chip.

    --RJ
  • by Gyorg_Lavode ( 520114 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @02:17PM (#10473156)
    I agree with other posters in that an RFID card is a bad idea. The main reason is that it is accessable w/o the explicit action of the user. You can walk by a scanner and have your card read. Possibly reprogrammed (though I don't know how technically feasable that is).

    On the other hand a smart card would be ok depending on the type of info on it. I don't see anything wrong w/ having a smart card that holds the data no my drivers license so I can insert it in somethign instead of holding it while the casher tries to figure out where the "date" field is to see if I'm ok to buy the beer. My first worry on this front is that the data on the smart card would be too trusted. People would assume that because it is electronic and possibly encrypted it would be more valid than the info on the front of the card. The other worry is that power hungry law makers and law enforcement would want to store more data on the card just because they had the additional space that is much less visible than the printed front. I don't care if my card has digitally stored anything that is on the front or back of the drivers license in human understandable format, but if my drivers license now carries, say, my fingerprint, my mental health, my criminal record, etc, then I would be strictly against it.

  • I wouldn't mind (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AK Marc ( 707885 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @02:18PM (#10473160)
    So what? Someone sniffs my wallet and gets #14960315. As long as they put stuff on there like just the DL number (not SSN), someone would need the rest of the DL to be able to make a fake, which would have allowed them to do it before. Or, they'd need access to the DMV database to get info, in which case they could have done it before.

    From what I see, as long as they don't list SSN, DOB, address, or other personally identifying information on it, there are no privacy problems. It lets someone see a mostly useless number from a few feet away.
  • by MacGod ( 320762 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @02:26PM (#10473264)
    OK, hypothetical question: let's say that there was a way to make an RFID unreable by random passers-by (ie: you actually had to hand someone your card). One possible way I'm thinking of would be to have a reader that is a slot into which you insert your card. This would prevent some random dude from reading your card using a portable reader in the subway.

    Let's also say that all the card stores is an ID number (ie: not your address, birthday etc; all that would have to be securely queried from the Dept of Transportation).

    If both of these hypotheticals were in place, would you feel that this was still unreasonable? I'm neither trolling nor starting a flame war, I'm just curious if people object more to the perceived lack of security or the potential abuse of power from "the man".

    If you are worried about "the man", please explain why this is worse that a barcode or magnetic stripe (again, assuming the security measures mentioned above).
  • Wonderful logic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lazlo ( 15906 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @03:08PM (#10473717) Homepage
    "Virginia is considering just such a measure, largely because several of the 9/11 hijackers were licensed there."

    because wouldn't everyone agree that it would have been just so much better if the 9/11 hijackers had Virginia drivers licenses with RFID chips embedded in them when they flew into the WTC. Sigh. Putting RFID chips in drivers licenses doesn't make it any harder for someone (terrorist or not) to get a drivers license. It wouild make just about as much sense to say "Virginia is considering just such a measure because tasty smoked ham is made in Virginia. There's no correlation between the two, but every effect must have a cause, so we'll use ham." I'm thinking that the "logic" here is that if they know someone is a terrorist, they can use RFID chip scanners to find them more easily. But if you know someone's a terrorist, then maybe you should arrest them when they come to pick up their driver's license in the first place, or when they get their airline ticket, or when they get pulled over by a cop for speeding, or at any other time when they actually present their driver's license and/or name. This is a solution to a problem we'd love to have. If someone could solve the problem of figuring out who's a terrorist, and the only obstacle was in finding them, then maybe this would be usefull. As it is, this is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
  • by bezuwork's friend ( 589226 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @03:53PM (#10474240)
    For those VAians who want to let their commonwealth general assembly critters know how they feel:

    VA Senators [state.va.us]

    VA Delegates [state.va.us]

    You can use the "Whose my legislator?" page to find out your employees, I mean representatives, if you don't know.

  • Not a great idea (Score:3, Informative)

    by SCHecklerX ( 229973 ) <greg@gksnetworks.com> on Friday October 08, 2004 @03:58PM (#10474305) Homepage
    considering how easy it is to rewrite RFID information, as demonstrated at defcon this year.

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