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RFID Cards to Include Tin Foil Hats?
An anonymous reader writes "The tinfoil hat finally gains government approval. From the story: 'Wrap an RFID chip [of the US passport] inside a Faraday cage, and the electromagnetic waves from the chip reader can't get in and activate the chip. The State Department says it may use the principle to give travelers an added sense of security. No, there won't be rolls of aluminum foil included with every passport. Instead, the passport cover may include a network of wires woven into the fabric. Fold the passport shut, and there's your Faraday cage. Even Schneier agrees that a properly shielded passport cover should solve the problem. He wonders why this wasn't included in the original plans for the new passports. 'It took a bunch of criticism before they even mentioned it,' Schneier said. And he hopes the anti-snooping technology is thoroughly tested before the new passports are introduced next spring.'" We've also seen this suggested in the past.
Was that a rational thought from the government? I know it's cold enough for hell to freeze over, but...
Wow.
I can't wait for people to start selling clothing with built in faraday cages, or a stylist alternative to the woeful 'tinfoil hat'... a (insert favorite h4x0r phrase here) hat with a built in faraday cage!
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
It is time to make a new conspiracy theory. The current one that they government wants to use our passports to spy on us just got defunct. Maybe we can not trust the government issue Aluminum foil and it will be some sort of hidden spy method.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Something like 666 strands per inch. Remember only the BAD GUYS have something to hide. Fear not.
Personally I have found that if you use a double layer of tinfoil when fashioning your headwear that it more than doubles the effectiveness! This is due to a resonance effect between the two layers of tinfoil which resonates precisely at the frequency of the government's invisible brain lasers.
In addition, if you fashion two antennas on the top of your hat instead of the usual one, it increases the effectiveness by an additional 37 percent.
(+5 Misinformative)
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
... of tin foil companies were up by more than 5 points today.
It means metal detectors will find your passport cover. When I go through airport security, I get wanded and they look in my wallet, which bugs the heck out of me. I usually carry my passport and cash in a nylon neck pouch though, and that doesn't set off the metal detectors. I don't like the sound of this new wire mesh thing. Big Brother and for that matter any club or courthouse I might visit has no need to know whether I'm carrying a passport.
Every neek and gerd should have some Mu metal which offers superb shielding of the magnetic component of the EMF. And at the close range of typical detectors it is the magnetic component which needs the shielding the most.
You can't write to an RFID tag, the data is burned in.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
A stun gun is portable, works great, leaves no marks, and has pretty blue dancing lights.
While I get the joke, you're wrong.
.05 meters of wavelength, or about 50 millimeters. A typical RF shield needs to block 1/4 of a wavelength, or .0125 meters, or just about half an inch.
The frequencies used by RFID at the most are 5.8GHz. That equates to about
In my book, that means about, oh, two strands per inch.
They can *tell* you that there're metal threads running through the cover, but can you know that without dismantling one? Perhaps the activation frequencies will be made public, but perhaps not. In any event, it would probably be a pain in the ass to figure it out non-destructively (try and stuff an antenna in there and keep the passport closed, then measure the intensity of the radiation that comes though? Microwave it and look for sparks or the wires to catch fire?).
Make my tinfoil hat a beanie with a propellor, please. Or maybe a fedora...
They want you to wear tin foil hats. It enhances the ability of the orbital mind control lasers to control you. The only sure protection is to shove your head up your ass.
I for one welcome our new RFID overlords.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
...they put metal wires in to keep others from accessing your information, big deal. How are they going to keep a thief from stealing your passport altogether?
This is an early precedent towards a totalitarian state. We say, "Okay, that sounds resonable." Then, they do it with something else, something slightly more intrusive. You know the government wants to put tracking devices in every car for "taxation purposes". Another precendent. There are already black boxes in most newer model cars that save some of the statistics of your driving. Call me paranoid, but I don't like this kind of stuff, and I seem to be in the minority.
Hang on, this solves the "random people can steal biometrics by wardriving" problem, but what about the "US Government now knows your fingerprint etc details" problem?
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
We re-write ours at work all the time. With the right equipment, they can be re-writen on the the fly.
I heard that, in order to cut costs. they will put wires only in the front cover.
Nobox: Only simple products.
It sounds like someone's getting an RFID kickback...why not use a barcode? Proven, cheap, and doesn't require new wars for foil...
Ok, lets recap: they are going to sell magnetic shield with those RFID passports, right? That's briliant! I also have some prime estate on mars I could sell them at a discount. A real steal!
Note that NOT using RFID is not what they propose. It is really impressive to see how far they are willing to go in order to justify pushing corporate interest despite its lack of use. There is plenty of technological solutions that can do the job, they have to insist on the one that won't...
In my book, that means about, oh, two strands per inch." (emphasis added)
Modifying the cover of your passport already?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Is there any reason it needs to be RFID and cant just be a smartcard thingo that gets plugged into the immigration guys box which then reads the data off it or whatever.
i'm personally going to wait for o'reilly to release "passport hacks" before i start tinkering...
Get your torrents...
If the purpose of the wire mesh is to prevent the passport from being read without opening it then why didn't they just use a 2-D optical bar code that is visible only on the inside of the passport? Seems like somebody wanted RFID for the sex-appeal factor rather than any objective need.
Has nobody thought about what a wonderful piece of misdirection RFID tags are? They're huge square blobs that ontain a lot of things you can obviously see, they are easily blocked or jammed and everyone knows about them. People can complain about it all they want and governments can listen and pretend to legislate, and all the while the real trackable stuff is silently glossed over. Don't you think there's smaller, more efficient tracking stuff that hasn't already been implemented? We're in 2004! An rfid tag looks like cold war technology in terms of apparant size.
There are two routes to killing an RFID chip:
1. Some RFID chips (such as EPCglobal Gen2 tags) have a kill password that can be issued to command erasure of the entire PROM, or otherwise totally disable the tag. Gen2 tags have a 32-bit kill password.
2. Virtually all RFID chips can be killed by subjecting them to strong RF radiation. This will induce a lethal voltage and blow out the internal circuitry. Some existing EAS systems use this technique to disable their tags.
Can't you see??!! They're just going to connect the "shields" to the tag!!! They're building antennae into these things!! Run away! Flee while you can!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
- They (incorrectly to their own knowledge) deny implications of RFID (in passports or otherwise) for the bearer's personal safety
- They want to force RFID chips inside passports
- Then they promise to shield it so the passport needs to be opened anyway - but could still be identified as e.g. a US one even when closed, and potentially still be read out with special (i.e. simply more powerful and/or sensitive) equipment, despite the apparent perception of security
- Unlike with optical reading, where the document can simply be put out of sight, the bearer has no way of knowing whether and when an RFID shield actually works
- Why pretend that only governments (or "the good guys" in general) would be able to procure RFID readers? This technology is not rocket science, and it could be every thug's dream come true (especially as the European Central Bank even seems to consider putting it into their money) - so "finally" for the nastier elements of society, remote assessment of who might be a "promising" victim e.g. for abduction, robbery or worse becomes possible
So there is always certain inconvenience -if not danger- to the bearer, but not a single valid reason for embedding RFID into a passport: If it needs to be opened anyway, and faster machine-readability than with the current (already standardized) printed text is required, a simple printed barcode would do, at much greater reliability. Make no mistake, if RFID is enforced even though it does not have any benefit in the proposed application, there have to be ulterior motives for its use - then, however, it is no conspiracy theory to suggest that future mischief is implied in this scenario.ahhh, wrong.
RFID is usually at 13.56 MHz, although they can operate in several different bands.
I can assure you that ALL shielding has only "so much" effectiveness. Since Schneier is not an RF geek, he may not know this.
Any wire mesh the gummint puts in will NOT prevent reading at quite a distance with the proper equipment.
Later, of course, Faraday discovered that the cage prevented electromagnetic waves with wavelengths greater than a quarter of the mesh size from escaping, and it is in this form that it has entered technical terminology.
This information brought to you by the Department for the Dissemination of Less than Reliable Data.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
1) A passport isn't a national ID card, which appears to still be in the works. Americans still have "May I see your papers, citizen?" in their futures.
2) Even with a Faraday cover, you will still need to take your passport out and open it. The would-be data thieves will simply hang around those places...airport check-ins, Immigration desks, hotels...etc
You're using her as bait, Master!
"You want wine? May I see your ID?"
American pulls out passport.
RFID snoopers who hang out nearby restaurant frequented by foreign tourists scoop up yet another id.
The best solution is to eliminate the stupid idea that you can send and receive vital information wirelessly.
However, baring that, somehow preventing the RFID from working unless you do something explicit to make it work should be sufficient. For example, the RFID chip won't send personally identifiying information unless it has a low voltage electrical contact that you can make by pressing a specifically marked spot in the passport marked "press here to activate wireless identification".
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
iamnotacrook, It was a post I originally wrote on Groklaw some time ago. It was intended to be extremely funny. Apparently some people agree. I'm sorry that you do not get the joke.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
You need to put the layers of foil with the SHINY SIDE OUT. If you put the shiny side in, it will actually MULTIPLY the strength by bouncing the waves between the layers, acting as a MASER. It's a scientifically proven fact that Government Mind Control Rays are reflected and dispersed 68% more effectively by the shiny side of foil than the dull side.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Naturally, I agree with the majority of people here that RFID passports are insecure, a threat to our privacy, and just generally a bad idea. However, I see a bigger problem here-- and a trend that's been growing over the past few years, at airports in America as well as in other countries. Airport security has already essentially dropped the facade of "random" checks; my male relatives (of Israeli descent, but most holding American passports) have all been interrogated/strip-searched/had the bomb squad called on them in the past few years at various airports throughout the world, for no justifiable reason. I find it pretty ridiculous that governments are spending so much money paying people to do things such as spend 2 hours detaining/interrogating a random girl (me) and doing things such as turning my violin upside down and shaking it violently, repeatedly turning my laptop on and off, etc., asking me idiotic questions ("why do you have this computer? what are you using it for?"). At any rate (sorry, got a bit off-track there), the real problem I see is this: airport security/governments in general already have such ridiculous criteria for profiling thought criminals (oh excuse me, "suspected terrorists".) It's bad enough to be detained/searched in this manner on a regular basis simply because of your ethnicity or appearance, but with RFID passports, passports containing a smartcard, etc., they can just take it one step further and start flagging "suspicious" people even more easily. Maybe I'm on the wrong track, but I really fell that the biggest threat here is not random criminals trying to steal your data or abduct you (as others have suggested); I think it's government entities with which we should be more concerned.