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Updated Schedule for U.S. Biometric Passports

Posted by michael on from the papers-please dept.

SRain315 writes "The story from the Chicago Times via Yahoo! give more details about biometric information to be added to U.S. passports. Trial run this fall, full production next year. Slashdot covered this last year."

48 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    who will get first passport?

  2. won't work by Coneasfast · · Score: 4, Insightful

    from article:
    The goal is to prevent known terrorists from entering the country and to make the use of stolen passports virtually impossible.

    this is useless, all it does is prevent existing known terrorists from trying to enter, not that they would be stupid enough to try anyways.

    --
    Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
    1. Re:won't work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      all it does is prevent existing known terrorists from trying to enter

      It doesn't even do that. Plenty of illegals come in without passports.

  3. Yeah... by the_mad_poster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The goal is to prevent known terrorists from entering the country and to make the use of stolen passports virtually impossible.

    I'm sure that works well when the first-timers are suicide bombers that are traveling one way one time only... after all, the high-ups like bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri fly back and forth out of Laguardia all the time, right?

    --
    Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
    1. Re:Yeah... by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 4, Funny
      Fake security - real control. This is to keep people IN - not out.

      "In Soviet America, Passport stamps You!"

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    2. Re:Yeah... by Catbeller · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Damn straight. Some of the stupider government officials might think that they are tracking "terrorists", but the smart boys know they are building exit detectors at the national gates that will provide seamless information integration about their own citizens. We're being locked in.

    3. Re:Yeah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How is that a flamebait? The United States are the biggest threat to world's peace since the collapse of the USSR, because they're now the only superpower in the world and don't have any other superpower to act as a counterweight anymore, so they can recklessly do as they think they should with no regard for the consequences world-wide. The French even call them a "hyperpower", for maintaining such a high level of militarization when the rest of the world slowly tries to build their armies down.

      MOD PARENT UP!!!

    4. Re:Yeah... by orthogonal · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Fake security - real control. This is to keep people IN - not out.... "In Soviet America, Passport stamps You!"

      The parent got modded funny for the Soviet Russia joke; but he should be getting modded Insightful for pointing out the real reason from these new passports.

      Like me expand a bit on his insight: these biometric passports are the thin edge -- a proof of concept, if you will -- of mandatory National ID cards.

      Indeed, Homeland Security will point out stories, like the one posted above about the 88 illegal immigrants taking a domestic flight from California to New Jersey and the general ability if illegals to bypass our borders, as evidence that we will need a "fool-proof" way of ascertaining identity not only at the borders but inside the United States.

      And since the biometric passport will by then have been, however reluctantly, accepted, the government will apply the same technology to National ID cards.

      Of course, a National ID card is only useful if it's checked, so expect to see uniformed men asking you to present it: "Your papers, Citizen!". This will also have the useful -- for the government -- side effect of getting the citizenry used to seeing and docilely taking orders from uniformed "security" officers; you can already see that happening in airports and government buildings, where we've all learned to shut-up and passively follow orders from any guy with three days of training and a badge, on penalty of delay, harassment or arrest.

      (This acclimation to the presence of soldiers as quasi law-enforcement, incidentally, is one of the requirements Army War College grad Charles Dunlap posits for "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012", co-winner in 1992 of the of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 1991-92 Strategy Essay Competition -- in other words, it's not a fringe tin-foil hat screed.)

      Expect also that the government will quickly thereafter require presentation of the National ID for transactions that "terra'ists use", like banking or buying plane and train tickets, similar to the "Know Your Customer" requirements of the "Patriot" Act. A little way down the road, expect that the government will expanded the "significant economic activity" to encompass all credit card purchases -- and perhaps using the fig leaf of "preventing (economic) identity theft", will require your National ID Card be presented for all credit card purchases.

      At that point, you'll either have to present you National ID Card several times a day, or remove yourself from "the grid" entirely. I can think of few ways better to suppress dissent than letting anyone contemplating it know that their movements can be tracked with this sort of granularity: "why did you use the ATM machine a block from the People Against Surveillance meeting, Citizen? are you a member of this anti-Patriotic organization"?

      Now, some will accuse me of wearing my tin-foil hat too tight: I'll refer them to the subpoenaing of protest groups' membership records (dropped only after unfavorable publicity), the CAPPS II Airline screening and the subpoenaing of women's medical records of their abortions (this link from BusinessWeek, of all places, the FBI investigation of Freedom of Information act requests, and the Federal prosecution -- even after state charges were thrown out of court -- of peaceful protestors against Bush. And there are, unfortunately, many many more examples of the current administration supressing dissent -- in fact, if you're reading this, please reply with links to more of these cases.

      --
      Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
    5. Re:Yeah... by the_mad_poster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, yes. I should take off my tinfoil hat. Here's a novel idea: maybe you should consider whether I'm the one with the tinfoil hat, or you're the one with blinders?

      I will take off my tinfoil hat when I have a president that was clearly voted into office and not one who's appointment via a set of judges is questionable, at best. I will take off my tinfoil hat when I live in a country that doesn't preemptively attack sovereign nations in a sorry display of blatant imperialism. I will take off my tinfoil hat when PATRIOT is rolled back. I will take off my tinfoil hat when my country stops detaining people without lawyers, outside contact, or any hope for a fair trial even if they've not been charged with anything. I will take off my tinfoil hat when the mere act of getting on an airplane doesn't subject me to a terrorism rorschach test. I will take off my tinfoil hat when we have an administration that doesn't think the answer to every question is "terrorism". I will take off my tinfoil hat when we have an administration that actually tells the people it supposedly serves what it's doing now and then.

      Or, to sum it all up: I'll take off my tinfoil hate the second America comes back around to being America and not one goddamn second sooner.

      ...they just didn't know when to act and weren't 100% sure where to act.

      That makes no sense. If they already knew who they were, what good would a biometric system do? Is this new system magically going to tell them why people are here and everything they're going to do? No. That's stupid. Whoop-dee-frickin-doo. We can tell when some big badass comes in, in the unbelievably unlikely event that they do. Of course, if some sucker that just got recruited a few days ago gets sent in, well, we're shit out of luck, now aren't we? Gee. So... WHAT problem does this solve, exactly?

      I am a US citizen...

      Ah yes, preface all statements with that little tidbit and that's that, right? Well, I'M a U.S. citizen and I do have a problem with it. It's just another bullshit feelgood scheme to make everyone think these dumbasses are doing anything. In the meantime, it costs money, it's going to back things up at the airport when the initial rollout doesn't work right, and it's yet another governmental power that they'll never want to give up once they've got it. It's easily turned against individual citizens and it serves no other purpose.

      People always act like the U.S. government is some big huggy teddy bear. Well, it's not. Like any other government, it wants to grow and control. Funny thing about those built-in checks and balances, huh? Except, now, we're letting them kick those checks and balances right out the window. People are going to be awfully surprised when they wake up and realize one day that the U.S. government wasn't anything special, it was just built in a way that made it harder for it to turn on its own people.

      --
      Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
  4. War Passporting? by slashrogue · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Questions of privacy also had to be addressed because the chips will use radio frequency identification technology to transmit data. Without protection, the technology theoretically might allow people--identity thieves, for example, or intelligence agents other than immigration officials--to electronically and surreptitiously determine the identity of a passport holder.
    I hope that these passports will come with some kind of jacket of material that can stop the radio transmissions or whatever -- sorry, I'm not much of a geek to know the intricate details of that kind of thing. I really don't think that such protection should be limited to those "in the know" about such things -- all American citizens traveling abroad should be given an information packet about the dangers of leaving that sort of data exposed to anyone and everyone in the country you're visiting.

  5. I'm surprised... by Myrmi · · Score: 3, Funny

    That americans aren't demanding bioimperial passports...

    --
    "I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
  6. Terrorists? I don't think so... by beeplet · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "The goal is to prevent known terrorists from entering the country."


    Do they really think this is going to be effective against terrorists? Or is this just another way of saying to the public, "Look, we're doing something! And it's intrusive to your privacy so it must really work!"

    How many "known" terrorists enter the US? How many of those enter on stolen passports? As far as I know, all of the Sept. 11 terrorists were: a) unknown as terrorists and b) here on valid passports and visas. This kind of program would have had no effect on preventing them from entering.

    On the other hand, many people do enter the US on forged documents, particularly people from poorer countries who come here illegally, looking for work. I could see how this kind of biometric ID could help identify such illegal immigrants, if that were the goal. But I just wish people would stop trying to tie everything in to the "war on terrorism" - it distracts from the real problems that this kind of technology might be useful for.
    1. Re:Terrorists? I don't think so... by BigGerman · · Score: 2, Informative
      >>all of the Sept. 11 terrorists were: a) unknown as terrorists and b) here on valid passports and visas.

      that is actually not correct. 3 or 4 of them were known terrorists (to CIA) but there were no shared database (that exists now) to cross-check and identify those individuals at the border.
      Another group within 19 were here on expired / invalid visas.

  7. Is this any more secure? by strook · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From the article:
    "As the system is envisioned, Americans still will be able to mail their passport photographs to the State Department. The department will encode them into the passport chips and add them to a database."

    So, you never even get personally face scanned. They put information into the chip that lets a face scanner automatically check if your face looks like the picture on the passport... which is exactly what the humans sitting at the desk do anyways under the current system. What is this adding to our security?

    Besides buzzwords.

    --

    "TV is great! Every New Year's I make a resolution to watch more TV." - Ann Coulter

    1. Re:Is this any more secure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It adds a layer of security in the sense that you can't just remove/alter the picture from an already valid passport, which often is done. Professionals can remove the old picture and put yours in. Why do you think that there is a market for stolen passports? Other people can use them! However, it's harder for them to do this if there is a central database to verify that the picture is the same.

    2. Re:Is this any more secure? by apg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If they were just concerned that the picture in the passport was the correct one a simple database of image scans that could be accessed by customs agents would be plenty -- no need to embed anything in the passport.

      The only way this system provides anything that's not utterly pointless is if an image of the person presenting the passport is compared to the information embedded in the passport.

      But of course even that is of little value unless the customs agent is removed from the picture and the entire process is automated. That is, with an agent receiving your passport, all that's really needed is the ability to verify the integrity of the image (image database mentioned above) and comparing the person standing in front of him or her with the verified image.

      So basically, this is just someone in customs thinking that a self-checkout lane would be a good idea. I mean, they work so well in the supermarket.

      Please press the button corresponding to the reason for your entry into the United States:

      A. I'm taking a vacation.
      B. I'm on business.
      C. I'm a student
      D. I plan to blow stuff up.

  8. Similar to UK ID cards by Myrmi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The UK government is trying to introduce ID Cards that sound similar to this. I'd be interested to know if the Americans have taken on board problems that the UK trial encountered early on. These included contact lenses, I believe, as well as long fringes disrupting measurements between significant facial features.

    --
    "I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
  9. Mexico by tsunamifirestorm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will they scan everyone entering the US from Mexico (and Canada)? At some border places it all ready takes an hour to cross...

    1. Re:Mexico by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Will they scan everyone entering the US from Mexico (and Canada)? At some border places it all ready takes an hour to cross...

      Do like many Mexicans do: take the short route across the Rio Grande, it only takes 30 minutes and they don't require you to be scanned...

      Seriously thought, this police-state "security" with borders as tight as a prostitute's legs amounts to installing a steel door on a camping tent.

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  10. Chip? With software of course? by PeterPumpkin · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't like this idea. Last thing I need when I'm in some third world country is passport showing a blue screen of death. "Welcome to Congo, Mr. Thread Exception!"

  11. Quick, renew your passport! by C3ntaur · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've been meaning to do this, and this is just the kick in the butt I needed... I'm going to get one of the last chip-free ones issued. I have no doubt that no matter how much reassurance the power-grubbing muckety-mucks give that this will be secure, it won't be. Remember the Diebold electronic voting machines?

    Thankfully, passports are good for 10 years from their issuance, and hopefully by then they'll have the most serious bugs worked out.

    --
    Loading...
    1. Re:Quick, renew your passport! by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Thankfully, passports are good for 10 years from their issuance

      Boy, are you naive.

      Here in New Zealand the government sold us "lifetime" drivers licenses that were good for up to 40 years or so, according to the expiry date clearly printed on them and depending on your age.

      This was an iron clad contract between the government and drivers insomuch as:

      1. An offer was made (to provide a lifetime drivers license)

      2. The offer was accepted (by all those drivers who signed the forms and agreed to drive legally using those licenses)

      3. A consideration was paid (it cost about $35 to obtain one of these lifetime licenses).

      4. The intention was clear (the expiry date was clearly printed on the license itself).

      Then, when they realised that they were missing out on a small fortune in renewal fees and the chance to introduce elements such as digital photos, the government unilaterally broke that contract and declared that all these "lifetime" licenses, that were bought and paid for in good faith, would become invalid within a year.

      No corporation would be allowed to get away with such a blatant fraud -- but when you're the group that makes the laws you can get away with anything I guess.

      There was no compensation paid for the outstanding portion of your "lifetime" license that you'd paid for but weren't going to receive the benefit of and new laws were passed that meant if you didn't pay more money and obtain one of the new renewable licenses then you were suddenly considered to be an unlicensed (and therefore very dangerous) driver who could be fined and/or imprisoned.

      So, I would wager good money that the promised 10 year "lifetime" of your US passports could be rendered invalid just as easily -- and you'd have wasted a wad of cash.

  12. My passport has a photo of my face on it. by karlandtanya · · Score: 2

    Does that count as recorded biometric information?

    --
    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
  13. Re:prove it by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I personally don't mind extra scrutiny if it's in the name of keeping me and my family alive.

    People in 1933 Germany were quite happy to put up with Hitler's new policies, and give up "some" of their civil rights, for a variety of perfectly valid reasons too...

    Do you realize the government is taking the constitution apart slowly but surely?

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  14. Privacy vs freedom. by SharpFang · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's pity to watch all those protests against violating your privacy. And no, I don't disagree about them, they are perfectly valid and right. It's just sad that they are.

    Think of this utopia: The government is honest, never abuses info collected about the people, allows you to do mostly anything that doesn't mean serious harm to others, doesn't steal from you, that respects you and provides you with all basic necessities a good government should.
    Now would you really mind having a lot of data about yourself collected, then analysed for potential abuses of the system, then discarded when none, or some not important enough are found? While knowing that whoever actually tries to ruin your life will be caught and stopped just the same you would be if you actually meant some serious harm?
    Collecting personal data by itself is harmless. It's how it may be abused is bad. And it's sad people have strong reasons not to trust the government enough to willingly provide it with their personal data. ...or, maybe, are there so many wannabe criminals? ;)

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:Privacy vs freedom. by Zarhan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Think of this utopia: The government is honest, never abuses info collected about the people, allows you to do mostly anything that doesn't mean serious harm to others, doesn't steal from you, that respects you and provides you with all basic necessities a good government should.
      Now would you really mind having a lot of data about yourself collected, then analysed for potential abuses of the system, then discarded when none, or some not important enough are found? While knowing that whoever actually tries to ruin your life will be caught and stopped just the same you would be if you actually meant some serious harm?

      Welcome to Finland. Or any other Nordic country for that matter.

      Maybe we're just crazy, put people here generally trust the goverment, and the goverment has pretty much earned that trust. This is why many of us are pretty much taken aback on how people in US (and UK) are reacting to ID cards - what is so bad about them? But then again, maybe over there you do not have an equal degree of trust.

      (This is coming from somebody who really would have liked to visit InterOp but the company budget did not allow for it. I really would have liked this one last trip to the US, because I'm not going anywhere near the United States after September 30th - that is when they start taking those mugshots even for the travellers coming in from visa-waiver-countries.)

    2. Re:Privacy vs freedom. by bgeer · · Score: 2, Insightful
      And it's sad people have strong reasons not to trust the government enough to willingly provide it with their personal data. ...or, maybe, are there so many wannabe criminals? ;)

      Yes, actually. The US gov't (and Canada and EU for that matter) have shown a shocking willingness to criminalize reasonable behavior at the behest of campaign-donating big money corporations. Just look at the Skylarov case.

      When the bar for criminal behavior can drop from 'robbed a bank' to 'possession of a prohibited organism' to 'wrote prohibited code' we all have to fear for our privacy because it may incriminate us.

    3. Re:Privacy vs freedom. by orthogonal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Think of this utopia: The government is honest, never abuses info collected about the people,... Now would you really mind having a lot of data about yourself collected,... Collecting personal data by itself is harmless.

      Ok, I'm thinking of your utopia. I'll even make it a better utopia: I'll posit that no business try to hack into the government databases for personal gain. And I'll go so far as to pretend that no government employee with access ever abuses that access for personal reasons.

      Now, imagine that your utopia is The Netherlands. And imagine it's not May 15, 2004, but May 15, 1940 -- one day after The Netherlands surrendered to Nazi Germany. Note that in surrendering, The Netherlands legally turned over government control to the Nazis. Presumably that would included your database -- if the Nazis hadn't simply seized it outright.

      Your utopian database contains the details of all residents, anyone who might join the Resistance, and all the Jews -- including Otto and Edith Frank and their daughters Margot and Anne.
      The Frank family managed to hide from the Nazis for two years; how long do you think they'd manage in your "utopia".

      Now some will say that there's little chance of Nazi invasions these day, so we should feel safe with "utopian" databases. But it doesn't take a foreign invasion to radically change a government: sometimes it just takes an election, of an Anzar or a Berlusconi or a Blair & Blunkett team or a Bush or a Howard -- or a former war criminal like Waldheim.

      Remember COINTELPRO?

      --
      Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
    4. Re:Privacy vs freedom. by demachina · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "And it's sad people have strong reasons not to trust the government enough to willingly provide it with their personal data. ...or, maybe, are there so many wannabe criminals? ;)"

      Many of the people that are afraid of intrusive government are political dissidents who object to the actions of the people currently in power. These "security" measures usually start out aimed at foreign enemies and criminals and nearly inevitably end up being using to punish political dissidents who are vocal opponents of the people in power.

      For example, there are strong indications that the Bush administration is already using their no fly list to punish antiwar activists and political dissidents. A bunch of agencies can add your name to this list at their whim. There is no protocol to find out why your name was added to the list, or legal process to get your name taken off it. There are people that are guilty of nothing more than vocal opposition to the current regime that are being turned away at the airport or being subjected to detainment and intrusive searches thanks to this list. It slows down an antiwar activist if they have to drive cross country to a protest to voice their first amendment rights. Taken to the next level, as it is in full blown police states, the same list will be checked at train and bus stations and then at check points on the highway. At that point you stop traveling. At that point its to late to realize where all these intrusive measures you thought were so benign were leading.

      http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel08062003.html
      http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,58386,00.h t ml

      You just can't trust a benevolent government because they often turn malevolent and you may not know it until its too late. The U.S. has had its share of malevolent abusers of information in Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover who used their knowledge to attack and destroy political opponents. Hoover in particular went to great lengths to destroy Martin Luther King because he was advocating equal rights for blacks and was opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam. He also apparently neglected to return a call from Hoover and no one was allowed to no answer when Hoover called. King was no criminal but Hoover treated him like one.

      You simply can never trust people who have power. As the saying goes it corrupts. The people who get it want to keep it and will often do anything to that end, reference Richard Nixon, 1972. The people that have power also want to inflict pain and discomfort on anyone who opposes how they are using their power.

      If the people in power decide to launch a stupid war, get a lot of people killed, and people start objecting to it, they people in power can abuse all these databases to make life hard for their political opponents and dissidents.

      --
      @de_machina
  15. Nit-picking by Limburgher · · Score: 2, Informative
    There is no Chicago Times. There is a Chicago Sun-Times and a Chicago Tribune.

    This is from the Chicago Tribune.

    But, what do I know. I only live there. :)

    --

    You are not the customer.

  16. Tin foil hat are now obsolete! by Moocowsia · · Score: 2, Funny

    Time to start making tin foil contacts

    --
    Moo!
  17. You don't get it. by John+Harrison · · Score: 4, Informative
    And neither does 99.9% of /.

    There are cryptographic protocols that are well known and widely implemented to make sure that your smart card won't even talk to anything but an authorized system. There is no way that somebody can just go out and buy an ISO 14443 reader and war drive your pocket. They need the proper keys to talk to the card and if they don't have them they are out of luck.

    --
    Lasers Controlled Games!
    1. Re:You don't get it. by John+Harrison · · Score: 3, Informative
      No, you don't get it.

      If the system is properly implemented then no human eyes will ever see the keys. They are locked in the hardware and can't get out. I am not talking about a pin to unlock the data on your card, though the cards could implement that as well. I am talking about card master keys, encryption keys, MAC keys, and key encryption keys using techniques such as Open Platform secure messaging.

      I am talking about using tamper reactive hardware like an IBM 4785 on the back end and putting unique keys on all the cards. This isn't that complicated but nobody on /. understands it and they all bitch about things that understanding it would resolve and I am sick of it.

      I'll turn off rant mode now...

      --
      Lasers Controlled Games!
    2. Re:You don't get it. by gnu-generation-one · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "This isn't that complicated but nobody on /. understands it and they all bitch about things that understanding it would resolve and I am sick of it."

      Okay, well let's imagine for a moment that we don't think anyone involved in the implementation of smartcards understands these ideas either.

      It's not that strange. After all, secure voting protocols exist, but they're completely unknown amongst the people who build voting machines for government use. Why should we imagine that smartcard contractors are any less ignorant of secure protocols?

    3. Re:You don't get it. by davidsyes · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Point taken. An interesting and scary variation of this could spawn from: http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,954972 3%255E15306,00.html where someone or a cell of people strategically placed can easily or brute-force interfere with Wi-Fi-based controls and directions systems. Maybe they'll never controllably manipulate the systems, but interfering with them, making them repeatedly shut down or restart or have address-assignment contention issues and the like would be a heinous denial of service attack. If such an attack occurred to an immigration facility or an airport, thousands of travellers would suddenly find themselves in "lock-down". Imagine if the airports start getting retrofitted with cell-block doors or drop-gates to keep hoards of wanton or impatient travelers in place until the computers are rebooted (which in the case of windoze, with the issues w2k seems to be having with dual-homed Wi-Fi/traditional nic devices, could be troublesome), inspection agents sign back in, guards wait for the OK to open the gates, and then people tear the place up rushing to their taxis... Maybe the parking system might be wonky, and then nobody gets out without paying the maximum daily rate... Sigh, the opportunities for juvenile to international exploits...

      --
      Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
    4. Re:You don't get it. by Glug · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Heck, it's just that not everbody thinks thet hardware biometric schemes are as generically secure as you think they are. I dunno if they're all maroons. There might be some people on Slashdot who fritter away their home time coming up with faster ways to determine whether p mod n is primitive for large n and who like to analyze the power consumption of hardware devices to gain information about the bits that comprise the keys stored therein, or mebbe not.

      You appear to be a mite irritated by the notion that everyone on Slashdot seems to be pretty ignorant of cryptography stuff. Here's how I'd use that against you:

      I would create two files of the same size. The first file would contain stuff that I wanted to hide from you. The second file would contain the stuff that I wanted you to discover. I would use a cryptographically strong psuedorandom number generator seeded with a passphrase to make an XOR pad, and I'd encrypt and overwrite the first file with it. Then I'd use that as a pad and XOR and overwrite the second file. The result would be two files of random-looking gibberish that when XORed together, resulted in the second file. I'd leave the second file ciphertext out somewhere for you to find, and I'd scatter the first file ciphertext around in slack space or wherever to make it hard, but not impossible to find.

      I think that your belief that other people are hayseeds would cause you to stop investigating when you found the XOR decryption pad for the second file and successfully decrypted the second file. I do not believe that you would pause to consider that a completely different file was stored within the decryption pad.

      Among a larger audience however, like the set of Slashdotters, it would be virtually certain to occur to somebody. No matter how smart you are, there are always people who have different and potentially useful perspectives.

      Anyway, it seems like the "if the system is properly implemented" could be a mighty big if. Doesn't it seem probable that there will be an error or two in a complex system's implementation?

  18. Re:prove it by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Informative

    Name a single Constitutional right which has been curtailed since September 11

    The 1st Amendment

    The 4th Amendment

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  19. EU Database by Beautyon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Your name, age, address, and photograph is going to be stored in the EU passport database the instant you cross an EU border if the US Biometric passport is issued.

    Americans will have no control over what is done with this data. It will be retained forever, and shared within the EU as the EU sees fit.

    Eventually, everyone everywhere that has a passport will be stored in every country's passport database, as the billions of international travellers criss cross the globe.

    This will not happen if the Biometric passport effort fails. In the article, the spokesperson from one of the companies set to make billions out of shearing the western population talks about there not being "showstoppers". There are showstoppers. Ask any Australian about their sucessful fight against ID cards.

    We can have a more secure passport without a centralized database. The problem is that the governments WANT centralized passport databases for the purposes of control. This biometric push has nothing to do with making passports that cannot be forged.

    But you know this!

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    1. Re:EU Database by Tadu · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Americans will have no control over what is done with this data. It will be retained forever, and shared within the EU as the EU sees fit.
      Huh? In opposite to the USA, the EU does have laws to govern the use of data. And it was the US who forced the airlines to submit the data against constitutional rights, or they wouldn't be allowed to fly to the USA anymore. Somehow you've got your facts wrong here.
  20. Time to feed the trolls by Safety+Cap · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Name a single Constitutional right which has been curtailed since September 11.
    I'll give you a twofer: fifth ("due process") and sixth admendments (confronting accusers) -> Jose Padilla

    I rest my case.

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  21. Re:prove it by Valar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, constitutional rights were violated before 9/11. However, now everytime someone wants to pass a law curtailing the public's rights, they proclaim that it is a "security measure" designed to "fight terror." It isn't like it was impossible to get obviously unconstitutional laws into place before 9/11, but now it is easy. Before, patriots said "Give me liberty, or give me death!", but now our government (I wouldn't call these people, as a group, patriots) says "Give up liberty for fear of death!"

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  22. Can make things worse by Stevyn · · Score: 4, Informative

    So once these are issued, a little while later they're cracked and people make fakes relying on the notion that the passport will be checked with less scrutiny because it checks out on the computer. This is like how digital licenses are swiped to validate age when buying alcohol, but they look less at the photo. Technology like this can have the effect of making people less careful when checking someone's identity.

  23. Re:prove it by CaptainFrito · · Score: 4, Interesting
    One of the things often missed in these discussions is that the US Constitution is a charter for the government to exist, not a charter for the people to exist. All these 'rules' and 'scrutiny' add the presumption of guilt.

    All these draconian 'security' measures are not needed because barbarians are at America's gates, but that American policies around the world are creating tensions that are easist to address via terrorism.

    "Extra scrutiny" has never been shown to add true security. And the US government has been taking apart the US Constitution since the US Civil War. Consider the War Powers Act for one. The printing of a fiat currency for another. Censorship. Affirmative Action (aka 'reverse discrimination') which is strictly against the principles of the Constitution -- social engineering is ineffective and people, especially when considering generations: time and societies are not algebraic equations; you can't take away from Jim in 1850 and give Joe a handout in 2004 and make up for it. All it does is create a class of people who feel as though society owes them something, which it most surely does not. Clearly the Constitution never allowed for this; if it did, it would have included "inequalty" as its key premise. This does exist because the US government does indeed pervert the US Constituion.

    Bastiat wrote of 'legal plunder' which is how the State works. In fact he wrote that the State was 'that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.' Whenever the State gives itself authority that the indiviuals making up that State do not have, it begins to live above the power that created it and by definition must oppress the creating power. That is the mechanism through which principles of civil rights are lost, which is quite different than judging such by contravening current laws. Laws flow from principles, not the other way.

  24. Leeloo Dallas...Multipass by Pythagorus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How better to desensitize herds into accepting it... Think of the stormtroopers in 5th Element...ubiquitous A/V mapping in Demolition Man(not to mention Arnie as pres.)...eyescanners in Minority Report...going back a ways, total identity check in Gattaca... The question isn't what affect this has on the now...What's the long term goal here? I can't fathom... Imagine Columbus, Magellan, Polo, any of them being asked for biometric ID! It's as ridiculous as the concept that any of us really own anything!

  25. Re:We're all 'smart' people here by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 2, Informative

    No. It's not jut the US, and it's not just 'foreign policy'.

    Bombs found on a railroad track in France. US foreign policy? No
    Explosion near a police station in Athens. US foreign policy? No.
    OBL stated he wanted the US military out of Saudi Arabia. We were there at the behest of the Saudi govt.
    They want to reverse 500-800 years of history, and restore Moslem rule in Spain. If not, hey...let's blow something up.
    Blow up a hotel in Bali.
    Gas a train in Japan.
    Fertilizer bombs in London.

    It's far more than the current US foreign policy.

    We can't do nothing, because these fools will continue.

    So...what should be done?

  26. Re:prove it by mog007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't forget the 6th Admendment, both the right to a speedy trial and the right to council, are null and void if you're a suspected terrorist.

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  27. Re:prove it by Jodka · · Score: 2, Insightful
    personally don't mind extra scrutiny if it's in the name of keeping me and my family alive.
    People in 1933 Germany were quite happy to put up with Hitler's new policies, and give up "some" of their civil rights, for a variety of perfectly valid reasons too...

    With a single sentence you have exemplified both Godwin's law and Arthur Schopenhauer's thirty-second strategem. Readers can draw their own conlcusions about this conjunction of well-documented forms of noxious and invalid rhetoric with "+5 insighful" moderation.

    Government survilenace can be used either to protect the safety of law abiding citizens or to deprive those citizens of their privacy and freedom. The former is a shield from violent attack on the innocent, the latter a gurantee of opression. There is hard question: How does a democratic society permit benificial surveilance and disallow oppressive surveilance. Those who condem all government monitoring out of hand (see parent post) are a threat to democracy just as are those who support government monitoring without question; both groups advocate policies which place citizens at risk.

    We should have government controls in place to catch terrorists and we should insure that those controls do not become a tool for oppresion by our own government. Those serious about the defense of life and liberty will consider the complicated issue of how to achieve that. We would do well to ignore the extremeists: the tinfoil hat brigade on the left and the "my government can do no wrong" CIA fanboys on the right.

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  28. Re:We're all 'smart' people here by MKalus · · Score: 2, Insightful
    OBL stated he wanted the US military out of Saudi Arabia. We were there at the behest of the Saudi govt.


    Actually the Saudi Government wanted the US troops out as well. For quite some time.

    They want to reverse 500-800 years of history, and restore Moslem rule in Spain. If not, hey...let's blow something up.


    Because of the bombs in Madrid? As far as I remember there was never anybody really claimning responsiblity, it all seems to be speculation and even that claimed it was because of Spains involvement in Iraq.

    Blow up a hotel in Bali.


    Who claimed responsibility for that?

    Gas a train in Japan.


    Homegrown Terrorists.

    Fertilizer bombs in London.


    Also homegrown terrorism.

    It's far more than the current US foreign policy.


    Dude, I got some news for you: The rest of the world has lived with terrorism (state and "personal") for most of history, it hasn't brought civilization to an end and bombs going up in the US won't do that either.

    "Fighting" Terrorism (preventing it would be a better word) is a generational effort and not something you can solve by shoving some people some rockets up their asses. And it will never EVER go away completly.

    The sooner you and the rest of the world who thinks "war on terror" is the best thing since sliced bread understand and accept this the sooner we can maybe start on the slow treck to prevent a lot of those.
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