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US Passports To Recieve RFID Chips
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."
I have serious doubts the RFID will contain "all your information."
And you would be far too trusting of our government since from TFA:
The regulations mean that as of October 2006, all new and renewed U.S. passports will contain radio frequency identification chips that will include a digital photo and all other information currently printed in passports.
All I can hope for is that it's encrypted somehow. Which means if the key ever gets out, all US passports will be readable via RFID. Best would be some sort of time varying key so passports in Nov2006 will have one key, passports in Dec2006 will have a different key, etc. This would limit the number of people affected by the discovery of a key, but the problem would still remain.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
You are sooooo far behind the curve
http://www.rfsafe.com/
You could keep you passport in your RF proof boxers : $68.99
Pocket sized RF Shield : $7.99
or simply make your own garments from the RF Shielding Fabric 12x12" : $15
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
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.
while true; do eject; eject -t; done
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 right into the covers of the new passports in the form of a metallic-filament weave. Bruce Schneier mentions this 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, available from most electronic component distributors such as Allied Electronics, DigiKey, or Mouser.
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. 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, 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
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Quote from article:
"The department also rejected some calls for using a smart-card-type chip that must come into contact with the reader, as opposed to a radio frequency identification chip that can be read at a distance. The department said smart-card chips do not lend themselves to being put into a book-like document such as a passport."
The passports have several protections to prevent unauthrized transmittal of data. These include a cover that blocks radio waves and Basic Access Control. These measures are not perfect and a /. debate over them would be useful. You can learn more about the shortcomings at:
http://eprint.iacr.org/2005/095.pdf
I am going to repeat myself here. Let's have a debate about the technology that is going into these passports and not the RFID boogeyman that isn't going into them.
Lasers Controlled Games!
US Passport, page 6, paragraph 2: US Government Property. "This passport is the property of the United States Government. Upon demand made by an authorized representative of the United States Government, it must be surrendered." Paragraph 4: Alteration or mutilation of passport. "This passport must not be altered or mutilated in any way. Alteration may make it INVALID, and, if willful, may subject you to prosecution (Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1543).