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Tin Foil Passports?
Daedala writes "The debate over contactless chips with biometric information in passports continues. Vendors have been chosen for testing in the U.S. and Australia. Privacy advocates are still arguing about the measure, as are security reporters and bloggers. The specs themselves are interesting, to say the least. The EETimes says that in interoperability tests, the potential chips could be read from 30 feet away. However, both they and the New York Times have published articles reporting vendors' low-cost solution: '[I]incorporate a layer of metal foil into the cover of the passport so it could be read only when opened.' Don't they know that the whole tinfoil hat thing is supposed to be a joke?"
They laughed when I wore my tinfoil hat.
They tried to have me committed when I said the government was tracking me.
Now they all want to buy my sporty Faraday Cagewear (TM) line of geek clothing, made of fine woven nylon and copper wire.
Bwahahaha!
Mod me down and I shall become more trollish than you can possibly imagine!
A much better idea than my tinfoil condom turned out to be.
Christ, what was I thinking?
umm...you spelled it Farady
But perhaps the joke re: tinfoil hats is that the government isn't really trying to comtrol your mind?
They stole my idea! I guess I should use a thicker tin-foil hat when walking around in public.
So now I can walk around with a real life cliche in my pocket, and use it to enter foriegn countries?
Now I just have to wait for the day that my PDA, phone and laptop can form a wireless Beowulf cluster that I can wear...
The new passport is smaller, lighter, more durable and contains more information than any previous passports, however the lead carrying case kind of makes it a wash.
Good Times email-borne virus was a joke, too.
Then Microsoft "blessed" the world with Outlook Express.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
here's the inventor
http://rave.ca/data/gallery/012596.jpg
MABASPLOOM!
Bit off topic, but I wouldn't say professional shoplifters use this technique. It's more of something an amateur would do, that they probably saw on TV or read on the internet. The professionals are the ones who get the managers to walk out with it and help them to their cars ;).
Try actually thinking for yourself. It's quite refreshing.
If you feel you need a tinfoil hat, do not use aluminum foil. Make sure you use actual tin foil. Aluminum foil hats actually broadcast your thoughts to anyone who might be attempting to... intercept.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Hmm... I see a business opportunity offering tin foil wallets for paranoid, err I mean concerned citizens.
And besides, like the USA is going to allow the "strong crypto" required to make it happen to be installed in all those airports around the world :)
It's "identity infringement."
Dude, check out the hottie on the left. I'm glad I'm not old enough to have searched for mates on CB.
"[A] high IQ is like a Jeep; you will still get stuck, just farther from help!" --Just d' FAQs, c.g.a
Actually, if you wanted to be really clever about it and doubted the quality of tin foil (although it should be noted that most people unknowingly actually use aluminum foil), you could use a copper mesh and wrap the passport several times. Copper shielding is rather hefty.
The problem is that a shielded passport, if the RFID is applied correctly, would be an invalid passport. It therefore should do you no good since the identification methods (which should not be set to allow all until a problem comes up) should flag you for coming through without being read. Otherwise, the only ones they would likely catch are those who aren't smart enough to know how to shield their ids, which is something someone with the motive to do something would make it their business to know, thus rendering this measure ineffective. Also, if one has to remove their passport from the shielding to be read, then it is exposed (if briefly), and that invalidates the measures taken if you subscribe to the privacy concerns that someone with a reader (which you will be suprised to know are very accessible and fairly cheap for someone who stands to benefit from having one, and can actually be built practically by someone with enough know-how) could use that time to lift the information.
I am hoping that there is strong encryption involved with this implementation of RFID; not all RFID implementations are very secure and, the sad truth is, from my experience, that most are not.
This reminds me of a story I was once told by someone who did work that brought in all kinds of conspiracy nuts claiming that they were reading these people's minds. This woman came in every day with an aluminum foil hat folded on her head. Every day they would sort of shrug her off, feigning interest in what she had to say. Well, finally one day one of them decided to have a little fun with her and said "You know, we can read your mind because your little hat there isn't grounded." The next time she came by the desk, she had a chain of paperclips from the hat, dragging the ground. heh heh. Needless to say, it provided a bit of amusement for some time.
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"We are Linux. Resistance is measured in Ohms."
You're a Best Buy manager, aren't you?