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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."
From TFA:
Abraham Lincoln once said "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
I don't know about you all, but I think that Abe was a pretty wise man with a great idea. I sure wish that our government was like that...
I can't help but wonder what would happen if everyone started "accidentally" microwaving their passports.
Earlier this year, I was sitting at a travel agent's office in Japan. There was a message prominately displayed on the desk in both English and Japanese informing travelers that they needed to have special machine-readable passports to enter the U.S. The rest of the world already thinks of us as loonies. This new nonsense won't help. Especially since we're requiring *other countries* to do this as well if their citizens want to enter the U.S.
What's the point of RFID in a passport? Is it somehow magically impossible to forge or duplicate? Can't we agree that the people who are willing to go through the effort to make counterfeit documents like this will also have the resources to handle RFID? Aren't there ways we can spend this money that might do something a little more rational towards increasing security? Like what? I dunno. But there are probably better ways to spend the millions (billions?) this will cost to implement.
What ever do you mean? =)
You got the touch!
In other news, shares of Litton-McBee have been soaring 3%. According to industry expert Batson Dee-Seeling, this is because it is anticipated that microwave ovens (which uses magnetrons of which Litton-McBee have 33% of the market) sales will increase in the next two years.
Now I'll be able to walk right through Customs without stopping.
Riiiiiight.
-- oh.... so..... sleeeeeepy.
Wonder how long until this gets whored out..Unfortunately for us, RFID chips can be read by any schmuck walking down the block with a scanner, not just the ones at the customs desk in the airport. Essentially, you may as well just pass out flyers with your personal information on them...Is this REALLY where we should be heading?
"Crime fighters fight crime. Fire fighters fight fire. What do freedom fighters fight?" -George Carlin
How big is this RFID chip? Small enough to be undetectable in the cover of the passport? How well will it function after being hit with a hammer?
So destroy your current passport and have a new one reissued right before they institute the chips. You'll have 10 more years of RFID-free travel.
Glad I got the matching wallet when I bought my hat
I should patent the Farraday Passport Sleeve. My slogan would be, "The 'tin foil hat' for sane people."
Oh, damn. I need to patent stuff before I post the idea to Slashdot.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
just wrap your passport in foil
i'm not saying that you don't have a right to complain about this, and that there aren't real issues of snooping involved
but i am saying the solution is easy and the implementation of this won't be stopped
so get some foil, and wrap it up, and move on to fighting for something worthwhile
don't waste your energies on a done deal with an easy work around
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
On the plus side, it will be much easier for terrorists to wave a RFID scanner and pick out the Americans on an international flight.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
So what happens to the RFID when it goes through a dozen X-Ray scans? How about just sitting in my pocket at 35k ft? Have these chips been tested to show that they will continue to work after normal wear of a passport? My passport certainly takes a beating everytime I travel: x-rays, increased radiation due to high elevation, bending, humidity, etc. I doubt all these things have been tested for.
I really don't want to have to wait and hour and miss my flight as the prove that I am who my passport says I am just because some stupid chip failed.
IMO this country is going down the tubes in a big way.
Remember history or civics class in school? The inevitable lessons about how free the US was compared to Hitler's germany or the soviet union. Back then they used to point out how free we were because we did not need papers (internal passports) to travel.
How fricking free are we when we need a driver's license to board a plane? Or when our KIDS need ID to board a plane? Or to visit a national park, or federal building? Not to mention the citizens are going to EAT the costs.
More and more it seems the only alternative is to go gulching until the country regains its "mind your own business" mentality.
Today's USA, The Anti-federalists worst nightmare coming true.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
I somehow suspect that damaging a RFID chip (or passport) will soon be illegal.
-Valiss
If you want a taste of freedom you should try visiting France disguised as a black North African. You'll soon find out how much fun having no papers is.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
This is not RFID. The term does not occur in the article. These are 14443 contactless smart cards. I can state with certainty that the chips being used are not RFID. I will admit that there is some arguement over what the term RFID should cover, but these really fall outside of the scope. These are much more complex chip that do not simply broadcast a unique id number. I've posted on this on previous articles and /. has retracted the erroneous language. I hope that they will do so again. It really muddies the debate when "technical" sites such as this can't be bothered to use proper terminology.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Hey, it got wet, I had to dry it, what else could I do?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
...your RFID passport or tamper with it in any other way. These passports contain an anti-terrorist self-distruct mechanism and any tampering with said mechanism could result in it being activated causing in severe injury to you and any other civilan personnel in the vicinity. Modifications and periodic maintenance of these passports should only be performed by qualified ordinance experts. Be sure to keep your new RFID passport in a cool place, out of the sun and do not wrap it in aluminium foil as this might interfere with the GPS sub system installed in your passport for your safety in order to allow the Department of Homeland Security to monitor your movements at all times.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
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
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).
Seriously, here in europe they still teach history in school. The USA are on a very dark path, and pretty soon the rest of the world are going to be forced to protect ourselves from them.
Perhaps there are some history lessons you have missed. In the US we have in times of war temporarily restricted liberty. During the US Civil War President Abraham Lincoln muzzled the press, declared martial law in areas of political opposition far from areas of military campaigns, suspended constitutional rights, and ordered the military to ignore Supreme Court orders to unhold these constitutional rights. What is great about the United States is that we can engage in such excesses in times of crisis but then restore liberty when the crisis is over or when we come to realize our overreactions and mistakes as with slavery, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the anti-communist witchhunts of the Cold War. We can fix things with rebellion, ok, slavery was an exception.
As far as a threat to others, well that is a strange comment from a European. In times of emergency we have had major military forces in Europe and been pretty darn quick to largely pack up and go home, no carving up the spoils, in fact helping to rebuild both friend and foe alike. I think you confuse the hysteria and politically inspired exaggerations of the moment with long standing behavior, well long in the US sense of history not European sense.
I suspect that the hysteria and political differences are due to the US believing it is in a major war (War on Terror, not Irag) and Europe being in what many Americans would say is a state of denial. It doesn't really matter if it is true or not, it only matter that many Americans do feel that we are in a multi-decade multi-generational war with "terror" and they will accept temporary restrictions on liberty. I'm speaking in general, I don't know that RFID's on passports qualify as an attack on liberty. The hysteria may really be more luddite in nature. When the war/crisis is over government excesses will be rolled back due to public pressure, no rebellion required. Been there, done that.
I just had to go search for more info on RFID implants because sooner or later bills will be proposed by somebody that they be introduced, initially on a voluntary basis....
...unlike the VeriKid service provided by the Mexican distributors of verisign technology:
http://www.solusat.com.mx/index1.html
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60771, 00.html
...they seem to be popular with body piercing fans:
Amal Graafstra Gets an RFID Implant
http://www.bmezine.com/news/presenttense/20050330. html
Back in July silicon.com reported the following: "Tommy Thompson, the Health and Human Services Secretary in President Bush's first term and a former Governor of Wisconsin, is going to get tagged. Thompson has joined the board of Applied Digital, which owns VeriChip, the company that specialises in subcutaneous RFID tags for humans and pets. To help promote the concepts behind the technology, Thompson himself will get an RFID tag implanted under his skin." http://networks.silicon.com/lans/0,39024663,391505 25,00.htm/
December 2003 - Subdermal RFID chip provokes furore http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/12/04/subdermal_ rfid_chip_provokes_furore/
October 2004 - FDA approves computer chip for humans - nice pic of an implant next to George Washington... http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6237364/
This article was followed up in November 2004 http://slate.msn.com/id/2109477/
Verisign thoughtfully provide a method to save you getting your child swapped in the hospital. "The number of total switching incidents is as high as 20,000 per year in the U.S." But don't worry. In this case the tag is not implanted... http://www.verichipcorp.com/
Although RFID implants have their detractors...
http://www.spychips.com/
http://www.notags.co.uk/page26.html
http://www.rfidconcerns.com/
http://www.shire.net/big.brother/digitalangel.htm
http://whiterose.samizdata.net/archives/cat_identi ty_cards.html
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/impl anting_chip.html
And the odd geek or two: http://www.x11.net/wiki/index.php/My_RFID_Implant He has mp4 video footage of the implanting procedure. It doesn't sound like he will want to remove this implant anytime soon - OUCH!
The Mexican Government - "Mexico's Attorney General required the Mark of the Beast in a 160 people. Thousands more are now planned..." http://www.tldm.org/News4/MarkoftheBeast.htm
And the European Parliament! "Brussels: 'Implants to track people are OK'". http://management.silicon.com/government/0,3902467 7,39128836,00.htm/
"Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely" Lord Acton (1834-1902)
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
What is the point of putting these chips in passports?
I am would like to hear some reasons for doing this and not just
"A spokeswoman said the department is convinced the electronic passports will provide enhanced security."
How will this increase security? There is already a bar code in the back of my passport. I have no idea what it says but a machine should be able to read it. I would think it would be easier to get a machine to read the text and the picture on the front page than to put chips in the passports and then deploy readers for them all over the place. Am I completely wrong?
Who is going to make these chips? I might like to buy some stock.
I have read a bunch (not all) of the comments here and understand that many people do not want this, but can a few people discus, even as a devil's advocate why this might be a good idea?
I'm sure they'll be eager to hear from an expert like you.
Actually, John is an expert on smart cards, both contact and contactless, and he knows a fair bit about RFID as well. Actually, in the context of the present discussion, he is so expert that he can't talk about what he knows, and I can't either. When you've signed a lot of NDAs you have to be very circumspect about what you say, which usually means you have to err on the side of not saying anything, even if it's probably public information.
In industry parlance, RFID means one thing, and contactless smart card means something else. The two use different frequencies, different protocols and have *very* different capabilities.
You'd better tell the State Department that. They certainly seem to think that it's RFID. It's not their fault; NIST told them.
Yes, the State Department sometimes misuses the terminology. If you look at the text, they also do understand the correct usage:
After that introduction, they mostly call the chips RFID, probably because it's a more convenient shorthand. That's reasonable, given that the document has already explained what they're really talking about. It is not reasonable to embark on a discussion about the merits of the technology without first defining what the technology under discussion is.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
So what happens if say, I leave my passport in the microwave, or decide to use it as an impact mat when flattening bottle caps with a hammer - and miss, hitting (disabling) the RFID chip? Am I arrested for destruction of a federal document? The paper's there, the chip just doesn't work.
I don't know about you, but all my RFID devices keep getting accidentally microwaved or damaged from blunt trauma...
moox. for a new generation.
Personally I don't have anything to hide. If they want to monitor where I go. What do I care.
Maybe a little more big brother watching might keep a few more people honest.
Translation: Take my rights! I wasn't using them anyway.
The problem with this view point is that these protections exist to protect you and I against the threat of arbirary government. Aside from the possibility of nuclear terrorism, it is highly unlikely that terrorists will ever be more of a threat to Americans than say Automobile accidents, but the Government, if allowed to erode our rights, can take away our liberty.
If security is what you want, then I would suggest that you refrain from driving a car. For example even in September 2001, more Americans lost their lives to auto accidents than to terrorist actions. Even in Israel, it is a rare thing that terrorists kill more Israelis than auto accidents do in any given month (only happened once to my knowledge). So.... which do you fear more? Are you so afraid of dying in, say, an auto accident, that you are willing to give up essential liberty for that safety? If not, what makes terrorism such of a great threat that the response should be dispurportionate to the historical analysis of the risk?
International terrorism is a threat that is far overblown. And as in every other area of the world where this has been the case (Israel, N. Ireland, Colombia, Spain, France), the only solution is political. That there is a fine line between a careful political solution and appeasement should not be lost on people, but that line does exist and must be used to separate terrorist criminals from their civil supporters. Indeed the rhetoric that they hate us because we are free, and that we must give up our freedom to fight them seems to me to be arguably both oversimplistic, naive, and appeasement-oriented (if subconsciously so).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Just because YOU don't excersize your rights doesn't mean others should have it taken away who use it because it'll help you sleep at night. It would honestly take less work to work things out with these people than put all these security measures in place. All this shit stems over us sticking our gaw damn noses where they didn't belong in the middle east and getting involved in holy wars between tribes.
As far as Padilla is concerned...clearly he was an enemy combatant, whether caught in the act or by association. If he isa supposed to be an example of the failure or potential failure of our sysem, I don't see it. Due process may have been eroded but the smell test definately applies. At the very best for Padilla he was a merc if not directly loyal to Al Qaeda for religious reason he was a paid gun. Why else are you running around in Afghanistan. I don't think he was a tourist or a student of foreign affairs. Guilt by association at the very least.
If he is not allowed to challenge allegations in a court of law, what protections are there for the rest of us? If he is not allowed to challenge his detention, what is to prevent Bush or some later president (Democrat or Replublican) from using the same policy to imprison indefinitely and without trial those who either embarrass his administration or otherwise pose as obstacles to implimenting policy?
One of the most important documents I know of in American history is the Declaration of Independance. In this document, Thomas Jefferson clearly lays out the dangers that arbitrary government provides to the general liberty of the citizens. Out of this experience arose our Constitution and Bill of Rights. These are not mere protections against theoretical dangers. These are protections against the dangers that the Framers experienced. And dangers I fear we are on the brink of today.
At the very best for Padilla he was a merc if not directly loyal to Al Qaeda for religious reason he was a paid gun. Why else are you running around in Afghanistan. I don't think he was a tourist or a student of foreign affairs.
We know this because we trust the Government to tell us the truth on these matters? I thought we had an independant judiciary because we *didn't* trust the government to lock people up because they always know best. I thought we had Habeas and due process protections because we *didn't* trust the government with the ability to lock up people without trial merely on their say-so.
In Article I of the Constitution (Section 9 iirc), we see a reference to another important aspect of due process rights. That Habeas Corpus can only be suspended *by Congress* and only in the case of invasion or insurrection. Habeas Corpus began as a part of English law which required the executive (headed by the King at that time), from locking up individuals on an arbitrary basis without trial. Habeas has been suspended by Congress twice in the past: Once during the Civil War, and once in the immediate aftermath during a second insurrection. But Congress has not suspended Habeas today, and this important protection applies.
I've een searched at the airport for no reason. I don't like it but that is one of the prices of safety.
There is an argument that can be made that choosing to fly on an airplane presents facts such that there can be some compromise there. After all the Consitution says we have the right to be protected from *unreasonable* search and siezure and the courts have repeatedly ruled that reasonability can exist outside the search warrant regimen provided that interests are balanced in specific circumsntaces. While I believe that most of our airport security is misplaced and while it is clearly possible to carry dangerous improvised weapons on board an airplane (in the most extreme case, are you going to ban professional boxers and martial artists from flying in the name of preventing lethal weapons on board aircraft), I will agree with this rule subject to the condition that it is not unduly expanded. I think, for example, that the scatter xray scanners (the ones that allow security guards to see through clothes) probably go too far. I think portions of the Patriot act go too far, and I think CAPS II goes too far on other grounds (in that it restricts liberty unduly without due process rights).
I think first amendmnt liberty has its time and place and protecting terrorists is not one of t
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Padilla didn't denie in his defense that he was not an enemy combatant. They tried to get him off for other reasons. I am behind our law enforcement all the way.
Dude, all he is asking for at this point is a trial to determine whether he has violated any laws, like the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which if the Government can prove what they are saying, it is very likely that such would be violated.
What the defense is claiming at the moment is that "enemy combatant" is a meaningless legal term in this context and that Padilla deserves a fair trial. Indeed the motion for summary judgement basically says that even if everything the governemnt says is true, that he still deserves a fair trial. Nothing more nor less.
In essence, nobody has really tried to get anything more than a trial. The time has not come for anything other than arguments that continued detention in the absense of a trial contravenes our Counstitution. That is the only matter that has been before a court (and, mind you, it is one of a limited number of aspects of the case that can be decided by judges in the absense of a jury). In other words, until such a time as Padilla receives a trial, the facts in the case are not the subject of the disputes. (IANAL, and evidently you are not either).
More on this below though.
Yes I would give the government as much reign as they have today. All your concerns about reduced freedoms are hypothetical, what ifs and conjectures. There have been a few screwups...Abu Graib and I'm sure you could name others, but all in all they have a pretty good record.
Extraordinary rendition?
These are not isolated incidents.
I might be inclined to limit airline access to martial artists and boxers if they recently changed their name to Mohammad.
And I suppose you don't think that the Free Excersize clause of the First Amendment applies to Muslims either, right?
Now about Padilla and the role of the courts in these things.
The most closest parallel I have seen to the case of Padilla was the case of ex parte Milligan in the immediate aftermath of the civil war. Milligan was accused essentially of materially aiding the insurrection and was tried and condemned to death by a military tribunal. He appealed to the civil court system via a habeas petition, and the case was decided eventually by the US Supreme Court (Justice Davis wrote the opinion of the court). Here are some excepts from his opinion (with some lay analysis by me):
"No graver question was ever considered by this court, nor one which more nearly concerns the rights of the whole {119} people, for it is the birthright of every American citizen when charged with crime to be tried and punished according to law. The power of punishment is alone through the means which the laws have provided for that purpose, and, if they are ineffectual, there is an immunity from punishment, no matter how great an offender the individual may be or how much his crimes may have shocked the sense of justice of the country or endangered its safety. By the protection of the law, human rights are secured; withdraw that protection and they are at the mercy of wicked rulers or the clamor of an excited people."
If such is the birthright of American citizens, then it is wrong to arrest and detain an American for a significant period of time or subject him to harsher sentences (such as death in the case of Milligan) without due process of law, including the constitutionally guaranteed trial by jury.
"Time has proven the discernment of our ancestors, for even these provisions [i.e. the fifth and sixth amendments], expressed in such plain English words that it would seem the ingenuity of man could not evade them, are now, after the lapse of more than seventy years, sought to be avoided. Those great and good men foresaw that troublous times would arise when rulers and people would become restive under restraint, and seek by sharp and decisive measures to accompl
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP