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No Encryption For RFID passports

Posted by Hemos on from the continued-stupidity dept.

Spy der Mann writes "Despite widespread criticism from security experts, the government is declining to encrypt data on RFID passports. Lee Tien, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said: 'It is my understanding it's possible to read this information from 10 to 30 feet away with the right equipment.' Considering gadgets like the BlueSniper as 'right equipment,' I think he's got a point. Tinfoil covers, anyone?"

2 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Why put ANY data on passports? by Andy_R · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Even if you accept that RFID should be incorporated in passports (and the concept of terrorists and criminals owning a hand-held US-passport detector should be more than enough reason to realise it's a completely dumb idea), then why on earth should there be any locally stored data?

    If the passport held a unique ID number and nothing else, then sensitive data could be stored somewhere safe off-site, rather than in the back pocket of a potential terrorist.

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    A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
  2. Better yet by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Either remove the RFID bug or fry it with microwaves.

    Either way, just guarantee there's nothing to harvest information from.

    Still, I fail to understand why anybody would want encryption on it.. Encryption schemes are broken, as are signing algorythims and other complex mathematical constructs. COnsidering how long passports have been around, would you trust your data to DES?

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