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Fatal Flaw Weakens RFID Passports
fmwap writes "Wired news is reporting on new measures being taken to ensure RFID in US passports are not traceable. Encryption will be implemented via a key printed on the passport, which will be read by an optical scanner. The problem is the RFID serial number used for collisions will not be encrypted as is required for communication, thus still allowing tracking." We've previously reported on the decision to chip U.S. passports. From the article: "To its credit, the State Department listened to the criticism. As a result, RFID passports will now include a thin radio shield in their covers, protecting the chips when the passports are closed. Although some have derided this as a tinfoil hat for passports, the fact is the measure will prevent the documents from being snooped when closed." Update: 11/04 16:08 GMT by Z : Edited for accuracy.
How else do you think they'll react when they'll expect a RFID signal and will get none?
They'll assume the RFID chip broke. It happens occasionally. My college has had RFID-based ID cards, and there have been instances when the cards just suddenly stop working. The office in charge of them seemed to know that this occured and was ready to make new cards if needed.
"A demonstration has been made that using specialized hardware, the signal can be intercepted from up to 69 feet."
Is this anything like the BlueSniper?
Get or renew your passport now and it should be RFID-free for the next 10 years.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If you want to visit the USA, you just may have to get a new one soon, anyway (considering that they implemented this in order to still be eligible for the visa waiver program) - either that, or apply for a visa, which isn't exactly a wark in the park, either.
Case in point: I have a friend who lives in Sweden who once needed a visa. Outside of having her photo taken by a photographer certified by the US embassy (a regular photo used for passports etc. wouldn't work), she also had to come to the embassy in Stockholm in person to be interviewed - a six-hour train drive, FWIW, and the fact that they gave her an appointment at 8:30 Monday morning meant that she had to arrive on Sunday already, too (so in addition to the train ride, she also had to pay for a hotel room for one night). The interview itself was pretty much straightforward, from what she told me, but relatively long - more than half an hour. And the security measures were rather tight, too; for example, she had brought a bottle of water, and she actually had to drink that before being allowed to enter. And not just some of it, in order to prove it wasn't poison or whatever they suspected it might be - all of it.
The whole thing, IMO, was/is extremely idiotic, but considering that she needed the visa, she had to put up with it.
I'm not sure, but if that's the price you have to pay in order to get a visa, even in a highly developed country like Sweden (or Germany, for that matter), then having an RFID passport almost sounds like the lesser evil - at least you can put that into a leaded box and leave it at home whenever you're not travelling. (When you are, to the USA at least, all bets are off, anyway; you'll be fingerprinted and photographed upon trying to enter, and I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, they'd conduct random body cavity searches as well. The problem is that pretty much noone here actually cares - after all, it all just happens to foreigners, anyway.)
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Excellent Question!
US Passports have a validity of 10 years. Modern contact chips in smart cards have an estimated life of 4-5 years. So you would theoretically have to get at least twice as many passports. Also, you can't really just replace passports with smart cards because not every country in the world will be able to read those smartcards at the get go. (Think Chad or other 3rd world countries) so you have to continue to use a typical human readable passport. This program is designed for the 27 or so VISA-waiver countries. There was no way that anyone was going to successfully mandate a single physical form factor for the passports of 28 different sovereign nations, but they were able to (finally) reach an agreement on an embedded chip, interface and some minimal and optional contents. These were the driving reason for contactless, and it is unfortunate that the US State Dept. did not consider privacy from the get go. But thanks to a public outcry, now they have.
Someone else asked what was wrong with the current passports. In a word, the answer is forgery. The new passports include a digital signature across the entire contents of the passport including the photo. So if I as a bad guy, take your passport and try to replace your photo with mine, either the photo on the chip won't match, or if you somehow figure out how to replace the photo on a chip that has had its write mode disabled permanantly, the digital signature will not verify. So with the new passports, the only way to get an undetectable forgery is to get the real thing through the passport office, probably not impossible (think bribes and extortion of issuance officers), but now we have an honest shot at detecting it, and if one does turn up, you might be able to go back and figure out who issued it. This has an additional side benefit in that it makes stealing chip equipped passports worthless. This should help increase the security of travellers who are sometimes attacked or robbed solely for their passport.
Im my opinion, now that steps have been taken to reduce the possibilities of skimming, the benefits of the new passports outweigh the negatives. Schnier's alarmism about the serial numbers is just that. If someone really wants to track people so badly that they will start building databases of those serial numbers and correlating them with information that they have obtained through some justified mechanism, just so that they can track you when you happen to have your passport open anyway, then they are going to track you, and there is not much you can do about it anywyay. This is roughly the same risk as having a hidden camera near a point where you open your passport (or someone opens it for you). It's just to far to go for the limited benefit. The new protections have tipped the balance in favor of the new ePassport, and while Schnier does point out a flaw that is unfortunate, it is certainly repairable in the future, and not "fatal". If the US starts issuing passports without the flaw in the next few years (before all the passports with no chip at all expire) no one will bother trying to attack passport security in this fashion. It just isn't worth it.
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wrong. There are still 2 important benefits:
1. Contact chips only last 4-5 years. US passports are valid for 10. The contactless chip is more durable. 2. There is no need to attempt to mandate the exact size and shape of 28 countries different passport. Very difficult, especially in the current political climate. Remember that this initiative started when the US said you have to do this to be a visa waiver country. The International Civil Aviation Organization then set the standards. So don't blame just the US for the fact that it's an RFID chip. 28 countries agreed to this because it was the path of least resistance.
Also, I don't think optical codes can store as much data as this RFID chip, but I may be wrong about that
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The only way to solve this is to randomly-generate the UID on the RFID during the anti-collision process, which dramatically increases the cost of the card. Encrypting the UID is out of the question because the anti-collision process is very low-level.
To the people who are scared of identity theft: this flaw does NOT expose the information on the card, so an atacker using this will NOT get your photo,name,age,fingerprent minutia, etc. The only malicious way this could be used is to recognize a person identified before.
But the area where the anti-collision process can be eavesdropped on is at least 10m (some 30 feet), because a part of the process requires that the RFID reader broadcast the UID of the card it selects for comunication. Wrapping the passport in tin-foil will protect you from hidden readers, so your passport will not be detectable in your pocket.