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Privacy Government United States Politics

US Passports To Recieve RFID Chips 309

Posted by Zonk from the like-it-or-not-here-they-come dept.
connah0047 writes "The Washington Post reports that US passports will be getting RFID chips by October of 2006. Despite security concerns, the U.S. has now committed to putting RFID chips in the passports of all U.S. citizens. The new regulations will mean that all new and renewing U.S. passports will contain RFID chips by October 2006. While some believe this is a step forward, there are major privacy and security issues with the wireless technology."
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US Passports To Recieve RFID Chips More

US Passports To Recieve RFID Chips

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  • If only they listened... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KingSkippus ( 799657 ) * on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:33PM (#13900094) Homepage Journal

    From TFA:

    But in a federal filing, the [State] department said that 98.5 percent of the 2,335 comments it received since it issued proposed rules last spring opposed the program.

    Abraham Lincoln once said [wikipedia.org] "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

    I don't know about you all, but I think that Abe was a pretty wise man with a great idea. I sure wish that our government was like that...

    I can't help but wonder what would happen if everyone started "accidentally" microwaving their passports.

    • I can't help but wonder what would happen if everyone started "accidentally" microwaving their passports.

      The State Department would rake in a ton of money from the passport fees when people needed a passport without a burnt hole through it ...
    • Meh, you can't expect those monkeys to listen to a mere 2335 people...I bet those wierdos who wrote in forgot to include substantial gratiuties along with their reasoned explanation of why this is the dumbest idea ever...I know I did.

      I'm still trying to figure out how this could possibly add security. You know the immigration weenies are going to start relying on their magic passport detetctors, and it's not like you can include anything like strong encryption on a RFID chip without making it the size of a
      • The Congressmen will listen to you but they will listen to everyone else and probably try to do what they think is right. They figure that you elected them to really try to make the hard decisions. Here they are most clearly wrong, but I don't blame them. However. given the sensitivity of these things to electric current, I am sure there are all sorts of ways one can disable them. Microwaves are just the beginning (and one need not microwave them long enough to get a burnt hole).

        Maybe we can start sell
        • Meh. Every letter I wrote about this elicited a BS reply that was clearly ignorant on the subject.

          Things like, "This will increase the security of our citizens at home and abroad" but with no mention of how it would do that.

          Or, "Thank you for your concern, I am deeply involved in studying this issue, and I think it's great for national security." Blah blah. I'm not deeply involved in studying it, but my limited research sez that it's not a secure format, and my personal experience is that mechanical authent
          • Yes, if I'm allowed to make a fake one that tells the next person to try and authenticate with it "I AM AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT DETAIN ME"

          • Re:If only they listened... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by bentcd ( 690786 ) <bcd@pvv.org> on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:22PM (#13901610) Homepage
            Blah blah. RFID has it's place, but it's a terrible idea in this context. Does anyone want a passport than can be read without your knowledge, by a random stranger?

            Or by a random wayside bomb. The time is past when only the anti-terrorists could do surgical strikes . . .

          • Re:If only they listened... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by einhverfr ( 238914 ) <chris.traversNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:40PM (#13901733) Homepage Journal
            Meh. Every letter I wrote about this elicited a BS reply that was clearly ignorant on the subject.

            Here is the way it works....

            Congressmen hire staffers to do some basic work regarding writing these boilerplate letters. Many do read their email personally, but some hire staffers to do it. In any event, here is how I have had the most effect.

            1) Write quick respectful summary letters to your congressmen to initiate contact on a topic. Wait for the boilerplate form letter to come back.

            2) Reply to the boilerplate form letter. Include your name, street address, and phone number at the top of the body of the email. Reply in some depth to the points and *cite your sources.* Show your congressmen that you care about the topic and know something about it. You will almost never get a direct reply from this second letter.

            However, you will likely get more attention.

            During the debate over the authorization to use military force in Iraq, I sent my senators a letter urging them to vote no on the basis that Lebannon was using the determination to go to war in Iraq to undermine Israeli water rights among other things (Sharon was threatening to go to war with Lebannon over the water issue, and everyone knew Bush couldn't let that happen if he really wanted to invade Iraq). I got a form letter back from Maria Cantwell. I replied to this, citing my concerns in more depth, providing links to articles in Al Ahram, Ha'aretz, and other Middle Eastern news papers about the effects on the region politically of the threat to war.

            While I didn't get any reply to this second email, I thought it was interesting that when Cantwell spoke on the floor of the senate, she offered a clear (if incorrect and overly simplistic) rebuttle point-by-point to my letter. It was clear to me that she had personally read it and had thought about the issues I had raised, even if she disagreed with me. If nothing else, it was clear to me that I had been heard. (She supported the war in the name of removing a tyrant from power, but I question whether it was wise to replace the tyrant with the sort of anarchy in which international terrorism thrives.)

            What I am trying to say is that each of us is one voice out of many. It is up to us to provide clear and concise communication with our congressmen about any and all issues that concern us. If only a few or even a couple of hundred people write about these issues, it is easy to disregard us as a political fringe. Congress is a marketplace of ideas and we have to participate in it in order to shape public policy.

            A second point I would make is that it is often worth initiating contact before the item becomes big public news because it is more likely that the congressman has not made up his/her mind yet, and you are less likely to get a form letter.

            In essence communication with one's congressmen should be the bread and butter of political involvement. One's vote is where one's political involvement ends, not begins. One's vote is simply a form of legitimating one's contact with one's elected officers.
      • The feds have a new toy, and they insist on playing with it. Their promises about anti skimming technology are hollow. It won't stop terrorists from using an illicit RFID reader to pick out the Americans. They might as well just paint red white and blue targets on us! I have written about this [uncoveror.com] and written about this. [uncoveror.com]
        • They might as well just paint red white and blue targets on us!

          Donald Rumsfeld has stated that encouraging terrorism is good as it "brings them out of the woodwood" (or something to that effect). Maybe you are more correct than you realise! ;-)

      • And if they did include strong encryption, all it would take is one leaked private key (or whatever they use might use to "sign" the data) to make the whole system worthless.

        -matthew
    • I can't help but wonder what would happen if everyone started "accidentally" microwaving their passports.

      I would imagine you don't get on the plane...

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • ...I can't help but wonder what would happen if everyone started "accidentally" microwaving their passports.

      OTOH, if using the chips were voluntary, but somehow got us through customs at a speed relatively equivalent to the EZ-pass lane for highway tolls, then you can bet there'd be virtually 100% compliance... and microwaves could go back to frying pacemakers...

    • Abraham Lincoln once said "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." I don't know about you all, but I think that Abe was a pretty wise man with a great idea. I sure wish that our government was like that...

      Our current government is like Lincoln's in many ways. In the Union (the North) Lincoln was considered very controversial, hated by a large percentage of the population, and his handling of the war was frequently criticized (in New York there wer
    • Sheesh, talk about quotes out of context!

      Mr. Lincoln was making an appeal to national unity (i. e. against secession), arguing that factionalism will only cause the death of the concept of republican government entirely. If anything, Mr. Lincoln's appeals could be better used to support RFID tags in passports, saying that we should all "get behind" the idea in order to "defend our way of life."

      Seriously, can't you find a convenient Wilde or Mencken quote somewhere or something?

  • Don't like it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by conJunk ( 779958 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:33PM (#13900098)

    Earlier this year, I was sitting at a travel agent's office in Japan. There was a message prominately displayed on the desk in both English and Japanese informing travelers that they needed to have special machine-readable passports [state.gov] to enter the U.S. The rest of the world already thinks of us as loonies. This new nonsense won't help. Especially since we're requiring *other countries* to do this as well if their citizens want to enter the U.S.

    What's the point of RFID in a passport? Is it somehow magically impossible to forge or duplicate? Can't we agree that the people who are willing to go through the effort to make counterfeit documents like this will also have the resources to handle RFID? Aren't there ways we can spend this money that might do something a little more rational towards increasing security? Like what? I dunno. But there are probably better ways to spend the millions (billions?) this will cost to implement.

    • I've visited the US a number of times in the last few years and not once has my 6 year old machine-readable passport been actually looked at by anything other than a human immigration officer. I have no doubt that if visitors were required to have RFID passports it would be another decade before immigration people receive the scanners to read the things.
    • The machine-readable passport requirement is no big deal - most people have one of these anyways. This is just about the code of numbers at the bottom of the picture page.
    • What's the point of RFID in a passport? Is it somehow magically impossible to forge or duplicate? No - it lines a lot of pockets! (Like UK proposed ID cards)

    • It isn't RFID (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by John Harrison ( 223649 )
      What's the point of RFID in a passport?

      Good question. Ask Zonk (or the submitter) since he seems to have invented it. Please note that there isn't RFID in these passports. Note that the article linked to never used the term. Only /. does. These are contactless smart cards, which have different implications than RFID. It would be nice to have a debate on the actual technology being used here rather than the RFID boogeyman that /. is so eager to chase.

  • Microwaving passports (Score:5, Funny)

    by GeorgeMonroy ( 784609 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:34PM (#13900103) Homepage
    What ever do you mean? =)

  • In other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig@hogger.gmail@com> on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:35PM (#13900116) Journal
    In other news, shares of Litton-McBee have been soaring 3%. According to industry expert Batson Dee-Seeling, this is because it is anticipated that microwave ovens (which uses magnetrons of which Litton-McBee have 33% of the market) sales will increase in the next two years.

  • Oh cool! (Score:3, Funny)

    by wheezl ( 63394 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:36PM (#13900123)
    Now I'll be able to walk right through Customs without stopping.

    Riiiiiight.
    • Oh, so you're a white male?

      Remember, if you're a darkie or a hot woman, plan to spend some extra time being strip-searched. It's for your own protection.
    • Now I'll be able to walk right through Customs without stopping.

      Of course you can... if you're entering most (all?) countries other than the US.
    • Now I'll be able to walk right through Customs without stopping.

      I almost can.

      When I walk through customs, they ask me where I am from and why I want to cross. Once they asked me if I had an ID. I said yes and before I could make any more to get it, they said I could pass.

      I should add that I am a canadian white man and that it's when I walk or drive through customs, by plane it's a different matter.

  • Wonder how long it'll be... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mister White ( 892068 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:37PM (#13900140)
    Wonder how long until this gets whored out..Unfortunately for us, RFID chips can be read by any schmuck walking down the block with a scanner, not just the ones at the customs desk in the airport. Essentially, you may as well just pass out flyers with your personal information on them...Is this REALLY where we should be heading?
    • exactly... and if *you* were the U.S. government, what *other* information would you include on that passport? SSN? birthday? home address?

      just think of the information you could collect hanging out in the airport lobby with an inobtrusive rfid scannr sitting under your coat, plugged in to your laptop
      • TFA states that the only information on the RFID will be the information already in the passport (basically, name, number, photo, place of birth, and age).

        As long as that's it (and not a sinister prelude to more data being put in there), I really don't care. That information ceased to be private once I started traveling on a passport. My passport spends 3 or 4 weeks a year in the hands of foreign governments (France and Russia) getting visas renewed, and it gets copied all the time at security checkpoints
      • I think all of you need to brush up on RFID. It doesn't transmit your personal info, it transmits a serial number linked to your personal info. So if you sat at the airport you would gather a bunch of serials but getting the personal info to go along with it will require more hacking of the government data bases. Ok so you're scared of that? Well guess what? If that were the case, it can already happen today. So you should have been protesting all these years!!! The only change with RFID will be that the ha
    • If you'd read the article (I know, it's strenuous having to click links and actually parse text without first jerking your knee), you'd find that they've tried to counter this "with 'anti-skimming' technology to reduce the chance of the signal being intercepted between the passport and the electronic reader", which is probably a wire mesh in the passport cover. They're also encrypting the transmission stream when the data are read off the chip.

      Plus, it's too late now, you should have raised your objections
      • While I appreciate the fact that there will be anti-skimming and encryption incorporated, that is not going to be sufficient. Just consider how strong the encryption can POSSIBLY be, as the chips currently available are only 128-bit. Plus, given the value of the information contained therein, I would bet someone would be putting cracking that encryption scheme on the top of their to-do list. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this info be VERY useful to...say...terrorists, who have virtually endless reso
        • While I appreciate the fact that there will be anti-skimming and encryption incorporated, that is not going to be sufficient. Just consider how strong the encryption can POSSIBLY be, as the chips currently available are only 128-bit.

          Especially considering passports last like 12 years, that is a long time in the computer world... Oh well, just be sure to renew before it goes into effect and you wont have to worry for a while.
  • If I microwave my passport with that disable the chip? I need to know. My passport expires in 2009.
    • If I microwave my passport with that disable the chip? I need to know. My passport expires in 2009.

      So destroy your current passport and have a new one reissued right before they institute the chips. You'll have 10 more years of RFID-free travel.

    • If I microwave my passport with that disable the chip? I need to know. My passport expires in 2009.

      If you are't leaving the country for the next 30 days or so, I suggest that you "lose" your current passport and apply for a new one. That way you'll still get an RFID-free one, but it should be good out til 2015. Mine just expired this summer so I will be re-applying immediately
    • ...your RFID passport or tamper with it in any other way. These passports contain an anti-terrorist self-distruct mechanism and any tampering with said mechanism could result in it being activated causing in severe injury to you and any other civilan personnel in the vicinity. Modifications and periodic maintenance of these passports should only be performed by qualified ordinance experts. Be sure to keep your new RFID passport in a cool place, out of the sun and do not wrap it in aluminium foil as this mig

  • Robustness (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sjhwilkes ( 202568 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:37PM (#13900144)
    How big is this RFID chip? Small enough to be undetectable in the cover of the passport? How well will it function after being hit with a hammer?

  • tin foil (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:39PM (#13900152)
    Glad I got the matching wallet when I bought my hat

  • Farraday (Score:4, Funny)

    by misleb ( 129952 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:44PM (#13900202)
    I should patent the Farraday Passport Sleeve. My slogan would be, "The 'tin foil hat' for sane people."

    Oh, damn. I need to patent stuff before I post the idea to Slashdot.

    -matthew

  • folks (Score:3, Insightful)

    by circletimessquare ( 444983 ) <circletimessquar ... il.com minus cat> on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:46PM (#13900232) Homepage Journal
    just wrap your passport in foil

    i'm not saying that you don't have a right to complain about this, and that there aren't real issues of snooping involved

    but i am saying the solution is easy and the implementation of this won't be stopped

    so get some foil, and wrap it up, and move on to fighting for something worthwhile

    don't waste your energies on a done deal with an easy work around
    • Of course, because the last thing I want to do in a foreign country is walk around with my passport in a tinfoil cover.

      Can't we get a fairaday sleeve sort of thing, where a fairaday cage is wooven into a fabric sleeve/bag, that we can put our passport into.

      Sure tinfoil is a cheap solution, but gol' darn it if that weren't gonna be a sucky thing to keep in your pocket as a tourist.
      • Just get a nice little mylar antistatic baggie with a ziploc seal on it. You can order them from assorted locations in a wide variety of sizes, at least one of which will be about the right size for a US passport.
      • metal poly ESD bags. You likely would want the farady rated ones, but they are cheap in Passport size. About $25 for 100 of them ($35 with a zip-lock closure).
        -nB

  • Enhanced productivity. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OgGreeb ( 35588 ) <og@digimark.net> on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:47PM (#13900233) Homepage
    On the plus side, it will be much easier for terrorists to wave a RFID scanner and pick out the Americans on an international flight.
    • Not really. The USA are pushing for RFID-"enhanced" passports in other countries as part of the visa waiver programme, and those governments are actually stupid enough to kiss our ass and do what we tell them to, too...
    • it will be much easier for terrorists to wave a RFID scanner and pick out the Americans on an international flight.

      And worse if there is information of use to them stored on the tags. I know that military people here in Australia don't like the fact that their passport identifies them as military personel.

  • It would seem the time to renew is now!

  • X-Ray Scanning? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by forand ( 530402 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @04:52PM (#13900278) Homepage
    So what happens to the RFID when it goes through a dozen X-Ray scans? How about just sitting in my pocket at 35k ft? Have these chips been tested to show that they will continue to work after normal wear of a passport? My passport certainly takes a beating everytime I travel: x-rays, increased radiation due to high elevation, bending, humidity, etc. I doubt all these things have been tested for.

    I really don't want to have to wait and hour and miss my flight as the prove that I am who my passport says I am just because some stupid chip failed.
    • Several people have mentioned microwaving the passport to remove the chip, but your comment about sitting on your passport makes me think an arbor press is a better bet.
      • you can leave the chip intact no problem. there will be a thin coil of wire to act as an antenna, just break the coil and no more working RFID. A very innocuous cut from an X-acto knife will do the trick quite nicely.
        -nB
    • What are you, an astronaut? Geez.

      -matthew
      • Not yet, just a physicist. Most people don't realize that you get more radiation for a single flight than is allowed by a low level radiation worker for an entire year. Thus if you take your docimeter on a flight you must return it immediately and get a new one so you will get reasonable reading.

    • Re:X-Ray Scanning? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by markdavis ( 642305 )
      That was my thought, exactly. It is bad enough to encode personal data on chips. But I can just see it now when the chip FAILS.

      It will be IMPOSSIBLE for you to PROVE the damn passport is valid. So then what? Get denied access back into the USA? Wait for hours? Days?

      And it won't stop with passports- drivers licenses are next. Followed by mass collection and abuse of biometric data.

      And, of course, none of this is going to increase security or enhance safety.

  • Papers please! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by isotope23 ( 210590 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @05:05PM (#13900381) Homepage Journal
    IMO this country is going down the tubes in a big way.

    Remember history or civics class in school? The inevitable lessons about how free the US was compared to Hitler's germany or the soviet union. Back then they used to point out how free we were because we did not need papers (internal passports) to travel.

    How fricking free are we when we need a driver's license to board a plane? Or when our KIDS [gcn.com] need ID to board a plane? Or to visit a national park, or federal building? Not to mention the citizens are going to EAT [gcn.com] the costs.

    More and more it seems the only alternative is to go gulching [wikipedia.org] until the country regains its "mind your own business" mentality.

    Today's USA, The Anti-federalists [wikipedia.org] worst nightmare coming true.
    • I agree with you man.
      Power to the people.

      And people look at me when I rant on about the restrictions the govt has and I wonder HOW in the world the people let this happen.

      Oh that's right! People could care less when their MTV works so they can watch survivor or the latest csi/real world/shit tv. There's a difference between extreme nationalism and having pride in your country and being able to stand up for the rights of the people. It's quite disturbing when people look at me for not being that mindless she

  • New Law (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Valiss ( 463641 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @05:12PM (#13900426) Homepage
    I somehow suspect that damaging a RFID chip (or passport) will soon be illegal.
  • can anyone provide a link to shielded wallets at ThinkGeek? i'll need one to go with my shiny hat
  • This is not RFID. The term does not occur in the article. These are 14443 contactless smart cards. I can state with certainty that the chips being used are not RFID. I will admit that there is some arguement over what the term RFID should cover, but these really fall outside of the scope. These are much more complex chip that do not simply broadcast a unique id number. I've posted on this on previous articles and /. has retracted the erroneous language. I hope that they will do so again. It really muddies the debate when "technical" sites such as this can't be bothered to use proper terminology.
    • While the language may not be as precise as you may like it does convey what the chip esential problems are: it transmits its data when querried and does not require any other power source. While the chip may not be as prone to hacking or forgery problems as real RFID chips it will still be able to be hacked and forged, but more worrying, to me at least, is that it will contain information about me and transmit that info when asked WITHOUT my consent.
  • Please, take a moment to consider the following:

    -The term RFID is thrown around quite a bit these days and doesn't accurately describe what they'll probably use. As in the often-discussed Wal-Mart RFID is dumb memory in a contactless format. It's probably not that kind of module, but I could see some benefit to adding something as simple as a unique ID to each passport.

    -It's probably either a Phillips MIFARE or maybe Sony's version FELICIA (sp?) Which in both cases is very proprietary encryption scheme

  • Sweden among others have these already (Score:3, Informative)

    by dastrike ( 458983 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @05:51PM (#13900789) Homepage

    Here in Sweden all passports issued since October 1st this year have an RFID chip containing biometric data. Currently a digital photograph along with digitalized information of all the regular printed information is contained in it, but within a few years fingerprints will be added to it as well.

    The harsh feelings amongst the population towards these new passports is not restricted only to the potential integrity issues. The number of police stations where one can get these new passports is less than half compared to where one could get passports before, as the new equipment required for e.g. the photography is so expensive so they didn't get the equipment to every of the old places. Also these new passports cost more, and are only valid five years compared to the ten years of the old passports. So in the long term the queues at the police stations to get a passport will be far worse than it has been, and the queuing has been bad enough already for a long time.

    Belgium and Norway are other European countries that have passports containing RFID implemented, and Germany will soon also have these.

  • A few words of sanity for an insane idea... (Score:5, Informative)

    by KC7GR ( 473279 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @05:53PM (#13900799) Homepage Journal
    Let me state right up front that, technological and potential privacy issues aside, I don't think this is going to make passports any more secure. I further believe the arrogance shown by the U.S. towards other countries in this matter ("You WILL convert to this same standard if you want your citizens to be able to visit our country") is absolutely typical of our current administration.

    In other words, I don't agree with it.

    WITH THAT SAID: Allow me to point out a few facts, based on previously-published material and my own knowledge of RFID technology.

    First and foremost: What no one seems to have noticed (it may not have been reported in TFA, which I've yet to read) is that the State Department is, reportedly, going to weave their idea of a Faraday Cage [wikipedia.org] right into the covers of the new passports in the form of a metallic-filament weave. Bruce Schneier mentions this [schneier.com] on his site already.

    This should, in theory, effectively counteract any sort of attempt to read the thing remotely when the passport is closed. If you're really paranoid about it, you can place your passport into an ESD Shielding Bag, [desco.com] available from most electronic component distributors such as Allied Electronics, [alliedelec.com] DigiKey, [digikey.com] or Mouser. [mouser.com]

    On the subject of long-distance remote reading: I doubt very much we're going to see, as one other poster pointed out (paraphrasing), "criminals with laptops and a portable reader under their coat" any time soon. For starters, the return emission from most passive RFID chips of the low and mid-frequency ranges (125-148kHz and 13.56MHz) is very weak. The chip would require a significant amount of close-up RF energy to excite it, and a large antenna and high-quality receiver to pick up the return signal.

    Going further along those lines: Remember that RF field strength decreases quickly, as you move away from the source, according to the Inverse Square Law. [wikipedia.org] The main reason that the low and mid-freq chips are only readable up to about 3 feet away is because, in order to have them work from further away, you'd need a transceiver the size of a large HF ham radio setup, and equally large (and obvious) antennas (the lower the frequency, the physically larger the antenna has to be).

    For a criminal to effectively read such chips with portable equipment, they'd have to be standing more than close enough to the security folk to attract unwanted attention.

    While I have found some references to the State Dept. having been able to read the test passports from 30 feet away with "special equipment," I also recall that this equipment was hardly portable, and required direct connection to AC power to be operable at all. In other words, it needed a lot more power than an easily-portable battery source could provide, and it was hardly what I would call surreptitious. Based on that stated range, I have reason to believe that the DoS was using 915MHz RFID tags for their test. Such tags are, according to this list, [rfid-101.com] very much readable from at least 25 feet away.

    I've been unable to locate any references on which specific frequency or type of RFID chip will be used in US passports (anyone else have any references on that?) Despite that, I think it's premature to draw conclusions based solely on the news articles to date. News articles do not, after all, make for a technical white paper.

    I would suggest that those who get the new passports, and that have the technical know-how, try to read them with an appropriate RFID reader. Try different distances and angles, see if you can actually read the thing with the cover closed and (if possible) try a variety of d
  • And just how hard is it to get an aluminum foil passport holder that it stays in except when you're crossing international boarders? I think this is all being blown out of proportion.

    I'd also like to invest in the company that is going to sell these holders. Just how long before Privacy Purses become the next fashion accessory. One that shields all the RFID-tagged items inside it.

  • Compulsory RFID implants coming soon (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tandoori Haggis ( 662404 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:31PM (#13901676)
    I just had to go search for more info on RFID implants because sooner or later bills will be proposed by somebody that they be introduced, initially on a voluntary basis....

    Back in July silicon.com reported the following: "Tommy Thompson, the Health and Human Services Secretary in President Bush's first term and a former Governor of Wisconsin, is going to get tagged. Thompson has joined the board of Applied Digital, which owns VeriChip, the company that specialises in subcutaneous RFID tags for humans and pets. To help promote the concepts behind the technology, Thompson himself will get an RFID tag implanted under his skin." http://networks.silicon.com/lans/0,39024663,391505 25,00.htm/ [silicon.com]

    December 2003 - Subdermal RFID chip provokes furore http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/12/04/subdermal_ rfid_chip_provokes_furore/ [theregister.co.uk]

    October 2004 - FDA approves computer chip for humans - nice pic of an implant next to George Washington... http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6237364/ [msn.com]

    This article was followed up in November 2004 http://slate.msn.com/id/2109477/ [msn.com]
    Verisign thoughtfully provide a method to save you getting your child swapped in the hospital. "The number of total switching incidents is as high as 20,000 per year in the U.S." But don't worry. In this case the tag is not implanted... http://www.verichipcorp.com/ [verichipcorp.com]

    ...unlike the VeriKid service provided by the Mexican distributors of verisign technology: http://www.solusat.com.mx/index1.html [solusat.com.mx] http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60771, 00.html [wired.com]

    Although RFID implants have their detractors...

    http://www.spychips.com/ [spychips.com]
    http://www.notags.co.uk/page26.html [notags.co.uk]
    http://www.rfidconcerns.com/ [rfidconcerns.com]
    http://www.shire.net/big.brother/digitalangel.htm [shire.net]
    http://whiterose.samizdata.net/archives/cat_identi ty_cards.html [samizdata.net]
    http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/impl anting_chip.html [schneier.com]

    ...they seem to be popular with body piercing fans: Amal Graafstra Gets an RFID Implant http://www.bmezine.com/news/presenttense/20050330. html [bmezine.com]
    And the odd geek or two: http://www.x11.net/wiki/index.php/My_RFID_Implant [x11.net] He has mp4 video footage of the implanting procedure. It doesn't sound like he will want to remove this implant anytime soon - OUCH!

    The Mexican Government - "Mexico's Attorney General required the Mark of the Beast in a 160 people. Thousands more are now planned..." http://www.tldm.org/News4/MarkoftheBeast.htm [tldm.org]

    And the European Parliament! "Brussels: 'Implants to track people are OK'". http://management.silicon.com/government/0,3902467 7,39128836,00.htm/ [silicon.com]

    "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely" Lord Acton (1834-1902)

  • Legal repercussions of destruction of RFID chip? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @11:51PM (#13902903) Homepage Journal
    So what happens if say, I leave my passport in the microwave, or decide to use it as an impact mat when flattening bottle caps with a hammer - and miss, hitting (disabling) the RFID chip? Am I arrested for destruction of a federal document? The paper's there, the chip just doesn't work.

    I don't know about you, but all my RFID devices keep getting accidentally microwaved or damaged from blunt trauma...

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