RFID Passports Raise Safety Concerns

CurtMonash writes "CNNMoney.com features a skeptical article about the US State Department's plans to soon issue RFID passports (currently being tested on State Department employees). One fear is that they can be hacked for information about you. And even if they can't, carrying around a little transmitter saying 'I'm an American! I'm an American!' isn't a fun and safe thing to do in all parts of the world." From the article: "Basically, you've given everybody a little radio-frequency doodad that silently declares 'Hey, I'm a foreigner,' says author and futurist Bruce Sterling, who lectures on the future of RFID technology. 'If nobody bothers to listen, great. If people figure out they can listen to passport IDs, there will be a lot of strange and inventive ways to exploit that for criminal purposes.'"

Comments

yeah

[dolson]

Yeah, that is important because I know when Americans visit say, China or India, they can blend right in with everyone else if they don't have that transmitter.

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans aren't the only caucasians out there. RFID nicely allows somebody to identify the hated Americans from the nice Canadians (and most Europeans).

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[kickedfortrolling]

I suppose the worrying side of that is that weapons such as mines or explosives or even rockets could be RFID seeking, not just americans in general, but specific people/groups

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[Potor]

What about Chinese Americans visiting their homeland?

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[Anonymous Coward]

So, what, you're assuming that American = White Caucasion? I'm Japanese American. I can blend in pretty well in China and Japan, maybe even Korea. If I go to India, people don't assume I'm American. Unless, of course, my handy RFID passport lets everyone know...

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[MrShaggy]

And being said Canadian, I am all for making it much easier to spot the difference. GO BUSH GO!

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[Burlap]

cause there arnt any Chinese or Indian Americans?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Haha. It was modded 'Funny' because all Americans are white.

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[slashdot-jake]

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.

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[Valthan]

Agreed whole heartedly.

The way the world percieves Americans is so bad, that a couple I know from there who are great people were pertending they were Canadian when we were travelling just because Americans are frowned upon so much. (We were on a Caribean (sp?) Cruise)

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[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that people in the US come in various shades, shapes, and sizes? My favorite is grande decaf mocha.

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[DarkDragonVKQ]

They can tell the difference. Unless you learned Chinese the traditional way. At home and attended Chinese school for the first couple years of your life. Then your Chinese shouldn't be that off. Though even things like your body language would be slightly different. A detection that something is slightly off.

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[LainTouko]

Especially in India, since Indians are Caucasians.

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[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I guess you use India as an example because you think Americans blend right in with the locals in, say, London. He he he...

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[Fred_A]

We since we Europeans were having trouble identifying US tourists, this will be most welcome. Now we can finally have a coke with foie gras without being treated like foreigners. ;)

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[Goth Biker Babe]

No it doesn't. Passports issued to Brits in the last few weeks have RFID chips. The excuse being given is that the US demanded it!

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[SCHecklerX]

ok, how about an unattended claymore that is configured to go off when it sees the RFID? Didn't think of that, did ya!

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[Twiceblessedman]

Thank god, hopefully americans won't get passports that signal they are canadian though. They are the most boastful people on the planet about their country, yet when they travel abroad they lie and say they're from another.

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[Shaper_pmp]

And while I hate to be a bring-down, how long until we start seeing discrete RFID readers attached to personnel-sized IEDs in Iraq/Afghanistan/wherever the US invades/liberates next?

You can have a thousand native citizens walk down a busy street, and the bomb doesn't go off until an American (or possibly, even a native with US embassy employee-ID) walks right past it.

I know it's an essential part of the whole "keep 'em fat, stupid, scared and easily-trackable" agenda the US/UK governments have going, but I find it hard to believe the USA (especially!) is actually making it easier to identify its tourists and overseas personnel.

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[xtracto]

Yah, I would welcome this, I remember a lot of times when I was in Mexico that, it was just after me and some friends knew that the people were from Canada or Europe that we wanted to be real friends.

Of course, this was not difficult were I lived as, usually people from USA get stuck in Cancun or Los Cabos were they find all their beloved touristic heaven. It is only European (and sometimes Canadian) tourism the one we (in Mexico) call "tourism with culture" that gets a bit away from Cancun to see the Mayan ruins or Campeche fortresses/history and all the incredible historical and natural wonders that are the real marvels of Mexico.

Of course the Estadounidenses dont know that because they are happy drinking Tequila and dancing until they fall in their expensive (not a lot for them of course) hotels and "Planet Hollywod" and "Hard Rock Cafe" (I have always wondered *why* do they bother to travel to Cancun if they are going to get into the same places they have in the USA).

And, as I lived in Campeche, the blonds that arrived there were usually Europeans or Canadians (although CAnadians were more often found in La Paz which is close to Los Cabos, but without all the "touristic" commercialization)

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[Otter]

As cherished as this notion is among Canadians in particular (after all traveling the world with an enormous maple leaf on your pack and every article of clothing is just the epitome of class and good taste), I've been to four continents in the last year and a half, and have never encountered a shred of anti-Americanism. This whole issue is nonsense driven by 1) idiot Americans who have never left the country, 2) idiot Americans projecting their own disdain for their neighbors onto foreigners and 3) Canadians. Anyway, even if you're concerned about this stuff, why not travel, make a good impression and improve the US's image.

Meanwhile I see some guy here (you'll never guess from what country!) spinning a story of Americans pretending to be Canadian ON A CARIBBEAN FREAKING CRUISE! I'm sorry, if you're that stupid, don't leave home.

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[kerry-buckley]

I know it's an essential part of the whole "keep 'em fat, stupid, scared and easily-trackable" agenda the US/UK governments have going, but I find it hard to believe the USA (especially!) is actually making it easier to identify its tourists and overseas personnel.

Presumably it's part of this "war on tourism" that I keep hearing Bush talking about.

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[xtracto]

Oh and by the way, the city of campeche has a history of fighting against Pirates. I just tought this comment would go with current poll (and who does not likes pirates :))

Oh, and nobody is paying me for posting all this, haha.

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[TRS80NT]

And there are Asian-Americans, some of whom visit Asia.

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[tehcyder]

I've been to four continents in the last year and a half, and have never encountered a shred of anti-Americanism

In that case you either didn't go to Europe, or else you did and walked around with your eyes, ears and mouth shut.
I'm not saying it's right, but you're deluded if you think there isn't a lot of anti-Americanism around.
As for South America, Asia and Africa, I would be extremely wary as an American tourist. But you're probably OK in Australia or the Antarctic.

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[smittyoneeach]

But how hard is it to put the passport in an absorbent sleeve?

And, for added juice, an additional transmitter in the absorbent sleeve announcing that you're CowboyNeal! Who says the era of Cowboy Diplomacy is over?

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[AcidLacedPenguiN]

that works out fine until someone asks them what city they're from. . .
"erm, Upper Canada city. yeah that's it."

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[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to fight the war on terrorism if you just assume all people are terrorists and then force them to prove otherwise bhy pressing things like this on them.

It's the same principle McCarthyists used to find "communists". All communists are atheists, after all, so if you put "under God" in the pledge, the only people who won't say the pledge must, naturally, be communists.

Believe it or not, this is exactly how the current Administration here and its supporters think. They can't possibly fathom that there is anything in the world except absolute shades of white (you're with us) and black (you're against us). You're either all in gung-ho 100% American (e.g. - you do whatever Bush says) or you're not (e.g. - you have any negative opinion about Bush in any way, shape or form).

As insane as it sounds, this is the reasoning behind things like this. They don't do "nuance", so things like "uh, gee, if people hate Americans shouldn't we NOT be doing things to make them easier to find" never even crosses their hardwired little minds. You're either a terrorist who refuses to use them, regardless of your reason, or you're an American who gets one.

Anti-intellectualism in the states is so extreme right now that having anything but a purely black and white view of things, where you either unquestionably follow George Bush or you're absolutely the enemy, is to the point where the biggest threat on the planet to freedom may well be the American public.

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[Anonymous Coward]

How about a switch? Nah, not high tech enough.

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[MaxInBxl]

I've lived in 6 countries (in 3 continents) including the US. I'm now currently in Europe where I'd say that there is a general disdain (not hatred) of Americans. I'd venture that this is due mainly to political issues.

From what I can tell, american tourists are not always well regarded by the locals because they are loud-mouthed and arrongant. Now yes, I will agree that there are some VERY loud american tourists, but for everyone one of them how many are there that go un-noticed?

Personnaly although I'm not very fond of your politics, your president and some of your louder country-men I go by the mantra that if an american has taken the steps to actually leave his country, if only brielfy, to see what else there is in the world then I should treat them with a minimum of respect and try and give a good impression of Europeans. For those fo you that enjoy that kind of thing: I'm French, feel free to flame on :)

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[Moofie]

Because the solution to our problems is MORE racism and bigotry. Yeah.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell is American anymore anyway? I'm a Californian.

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[Eternauta3k]

? We (argentinians) don't hate Americans, we just think they're dumb (specially their goverment) in certain aspects. Still, you'll probably get scammed or robbed for being a foreigner.

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[aclark]

In that case you either didn't go to Europe, or else you did and walked around with your eyes, ears and mouth shut.

I'd have to say that walking around with your mouth shut, or at least under control, is a pretty good way to avoid looking like an idiot anywhere you go. It saves you from making yourself (and the country you represent) look like an ass.

Having just come back from Europe (Rome, Nice, Paris & London), as an American (from Texas no less), I had nothing but good experiences with everyone I met. I can't say the same about the other idiot Americans who also happened to be staying at my hotel. In typical movie fashion they got louder and louder as the unfortunate hotel clerk tried to help them find a restaurant to eat at late at night. The more she had trouble understanding them they just got more irritated, annoying and bigoted. Standing there at the counter I felt so ashamed.

This isn't to say that Americans don't have a negative image in the world, but overall, people are smart and realize that not everyone conforms to the stereotype. My advice is to remember that you're not at home when you travel. Things don't go according to plan. Understand that you will have a hard time making yourself understood, but be polite. Don't leave the country if you're a rude, pompous, arrogant asshole (or leave and don't come back).

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[Anonymous Coward]

No, they don't. The few posters above us might, although I think they are just US bashing, but 99.99999999999999999% do not.

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[badboy_tw2002]

Who says you have to go to India to be spotted as an American? That can happen easy enough in Western speaking countries as well. We dress, talk, act differently, have subtly different social protocols, etc. And who even needs another country? I can go downtown and spot a tourist pretty easily. I'm not quite sure what criminal advantage definitivly knowing that someone is an American gives you that you couldn't get from just watching someone. Its not like their going to run down the street with a radio transmitter and then have a big truck behind them sweeping up Americans, because they don't have time to do an efficient kidnapping.

I guess it could help weed out the real Canadians from the people who sew Maple leaves on the back of their backpacks so they get better service at cafes. :)

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[LexNaturalis]

Yeah, because American Soldiers always carry their US Passports with them on patrol in Iraq. I'm fairly certain it'd take one, and only one, RFID-based IED to go off before all soldiers were told to stop carrying whatever RFID item was triggering the bomb.

One can only hope that the Government (or some smart entrepreneur) will have the passports in a cover that blocks the RFID signal. The only way they can be read is if you take them out, which makes sense because they only need to be "read" when handed to customs officials anyway. At all other times the signal would be completely blocked.

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[Lurker187]

Damn, you beat me to it, but I do have a refinement: put foil inside the covers of the passport, so you can only read it when it's open. Then it really only does what it's supposed to, verify the printed contents. If someone's already got your passport open, your chances of hiding anything from them aren't very good anyway.

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[nihilistcanada]

What a load of utter bollocks. If you have done any travelling while not under the safety blanket of a mega US corporation you will realize that it is not entirely safe for Americans to travel outside of a few countries, ironically the safest for you is Canada. You stand a much greater risk of getting raped, robbed or assaulted in the good ol' USA. If you want proof perhaps the tale of a mass kidnapping in Gaza a few months back. A bunch of Westerners were kidnapped, demands were made and of course the American among them was threatened with death. Funny little note, when the kidnappers went through the passports of the unfortunates, they came across a certain passport, apologized to the victim and made sure he was released ASAP. Guess which Passport he was carrying? That's right, Canadian. Your passport will get your head chopped off and the video of it on the net, mine will get me a coffee or tea, a tour of the countryside and the request that when I get back to look up his cousin Ahmed in Toronto to say hi.

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[Anonymous Coward]

. . .I'm Japanese American. I can blend in pretty well in China and Japan, maybe even Korea. . .

Yeah, because all Koreans look a little Japanese, don't they?

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[grassy_knoll]

you laugh, but it would be easy to rig an RFID reader to a detonator.

Range is of course a problem, so the reader would have to be somewhere special... like the doorway to a pub frequented by American tourists, or near the plaque on a monument... something people have to get close to.

More advanced models might increment a counter... As Americans walk into, say, a hotel, the counter increments. Once it hits, say, 42 it detonates.

This might be more trouble than it's worth for the bomber, of course. If they know a certain hotel contains Americans, and have access to place an RFID reading bomb... why not just place a bomb with a conventional timer or command detonation?

As others have pointed out, if the RFID tag can only be read when the passport is open due to shilding in the cover ( big If ) then this works even less well.

Re:yeah

[call -151]

Two things:

1) Most people in Europe, Austalia, NZ and Asia that I have met realize that the Americans that they are likely to meet are not the ones who voted for Bush. The coasts have a much higher density of passport holders than the "Heartland," for example. (Active passport holders favored Kerry to Bush 58% to 35%.)

2) The "obnoxious American" stereotype is partly a result of biased sampling. If there are two Americans somewhere, and one is a fat, obnoxious, non-local-language speaking lout with a Hawaiian shirt and a camcorder and the other is a quiet, sensible, local-language speaker, the locals may not even notice that the second is an American, let alone remember the encounter. I am an American, and when I am in Europe, I am frequently mistaken as being Dutch, perhaps because I have a beard, a bicycle and can communicate passibly in any one of about five standard European languages, even if I don't happen to speak the local language. I also usually do not go out of my way to correct this misconception...

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[Potor]

There are naturalised Chinese Americans too.

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[Otter]

...ironically the safest for you is Canada.

Ironically, the most danger I've faced during that time was in Vancouver. Don't think it was political, though, unless a junkie can judge my nationality from my bald spot.

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[mu51c10rd]

American != white person
I am sure Americans of Chinese or Indian ethnicities will blend in just fine.

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[Anonymous Coward]

From what I can tell, american tourists are not always well regarded by the locals because they are loud-mouthed and arrongant.

Fortunately for Americans, the Germans are just as loud-mouthed and arrogant, and travel around Europe in far greater numbers.

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[afidel]

According to Schneier the State Department already plans (and has since sometime last year) to include a RF shield so the chip can only be read while the passport is open and they are encrypting the data on the RFID.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shut up, you are so stupid.
What a load of crap. Why are you making such a generalization? Luckily enough for the world, there are people all over the world with more intelligence and less hatred than you, who has the brains not to stereotype entire continents.
It is ironic that you are exactly the same as the people you bitch about.

I hope it is a "troll" post but I fear it is not, and you truly believe what you write, instead of just writing it to trigger some response. And your post shouldn't really not be buried in troll mods, but stand out as an example of why there might be a reason to be concerned about the RFID issue as all countries sadly has the narrow minded people like you.

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[Roody Blashes]

There's a difference between anti-Americanism as a political and social principle and being anti-American as a matter of bigotry. When people speak of anti-Americanism, they generally are referring to the fact that, as far as the world is concerned (and correctly so) your political, military, and social behaviors are insane, dangerous, and belligerent.

However, as a matter of treating Americans individually, we tend to find you to be rather amusing people, whether because you create crazy spectacles that are entertaining to watch, or because you're simply and interesting people. Personally, I wouldn't want to live with you, but I certainly don't harbor any ill will as far as, for example, sitting in a pub and chatting it up a bit.

Furthermore, anti-Americanism as a security principle is entirely different. Americans are not hated, even by the bigots, to the point that normal people would attack them, but if you are easily identified as an American, you make an easy target for anybody looking to make a political statement. Because Americans, really, have so little to fear from terrorism, your news agencies always make a big deal about kidnapped or murdered Americans, so it's a good way to get an extreme political agenda face time. That, however, is a matter of opportunistic criminals and terrorists lurking in the crowds. The crowds themselves aren't going to mob you just because you're American. You may be shunned by some people for your country's disrespectful behavior toward the world, but for the most part we tend to look at you as people under the thumb of a violent and corrupt government, not as a violent and corrupt people.

Even the French, who you've been insulting for years (and who have been insulting the world for even longer) don't actually hate you as individuals. There's really very little ill will towards the American public, because we simply don't view you as being the same as your political views, and we can agree or disagree with you on whatever level is necessary for the current topic of conversation.

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[Surt]

Hmm, I've been to 8 countries this year and experienced anti-americanism in every one. I think I'm a pretty mild mannered person, I try my best to behave courteously, but some people will just jump on you about how you are evil and spit at you and stuff. What countries are you visiting (mine are all western europe/middle east).

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[Angst Badger]

I've travelled pretty extensively, too, and I would generally agree with your remarks except for a couple of things. I've seen a lot of bitter sentiments directed at the American government, but seldom ever caught any flak for being an American citizen. Most people around the world seem to be able to make the distinction between one's leaders being assholes and being an asshole oneself. The worst I've ever run into is a minor hassle at the Austrian border by guards who plainly didn't care for Americans, but they were able to make themselves pains in the ass entirely without the assistance of RFID.

That said, the concern isn't that angry RFID-scanner-carrying mobs will suddenly descend on American tourists and tear them to shreds. It's that terrorists (not very likely) or common criminals (much more likely) will exploit the system somehow. It's worth bearing in mind, though, that any RFID-enabled ID we might end up carrying domestically carries the same risks, and probably more so, since it's arguably easier to rip someone off when you don't have to deal with language and currency barriers.

The underlying problem with the obsession our government and others -- notably the UK -- have with abolishing anonymity is that anonymity is not just useful for criminals; it is also much more useful for people who would like to avoid becoming the victims of criminals.

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[HermanAB]

Hmm, the difference between a Canadian and an American is about 3dB, so it not too difficult to detect them...

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[Kouroth]

That was what I was thinking. Shield, or switch off, the RFID tag unless the passport is open. That would help people keep their identities some what secure but still have that verification when needed.

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[trigeek]

Yeah, that's right. All Americans are cultureless idiots. (note the sarcasm dripping from the letters)

Probably more accurately: The Europeans looking to get drunk in an exotic location go someplace closer to Europe (perhaps Minorca?).

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[plague3106]

Until our government demands that Canadians entering the US have RFID passports as well.

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[jacksonj04]

Which leads to the question, why not just make them a smart chip with contacts? Slot the passport into a reader and it does the same as the RFID does.

RFID only has the edge if the data has to be read at high speed or where putting something in actual contact with a reader is awkward (Packages etc). There are a couple of exceptions (Such as 'hidden' door locks like at my school, to stop idiots filling card readers with chewing gum) but for the vast majority of cases it's just "Ooh new technology, lets use!"

I'm all in favour of digital passports, but RFID?

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[Anonymous Coward]

It was a little embarassing in Fiji (the Aussie Hawaii) and Australia itself.

As it should be.

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[MMC Monster]

And caucasians are not the only americans out there.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. Americans' behavior still gives them away.

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[swiftstream]

You've been in the wrong places, or you haven't been there long enough. I've lived in Western and Eastern Europe and Latin America for all but 3 of the last 18 years, and I've seen plenty of anti-Americanism. Sometimes being mistaken for Canadian (in part because of lived overseas for so long, my accent isn't "typical American") can be very useful.

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[mi]

You can have a thousand native citizens walk down a busy street, and the bomb doesn't go off until an American (or possibly, even a native with US embassy employee-ID) walks right past it.

It would be flat-out wonderful, if the enemy did this — especially, if they had placed a major production order for these, consuming Iran's full capacity for some time.

US would just explode all of them at once from the air by broadcasting the same radio waves, the RFID chips are designed to emit.

Unfortunately, the remaining enemies are much smarter than their sympathizers (flamebait my behind) — as one US general put it, all of the dumb ones are already dead.

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[plague3106]

Ever stop and think that maybe the reasons Americans don't go to the ruins is because they're afraid of being attacked by Mexicans (after all, you confirm the hatred is there).

As to why eat at the hard rock; perhaps Mexican food isn't to someones liking, and they know EXACTLY what they're getting from a Hard rock.

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[Anonymous Coward]

even worse

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[plague3106]

Thank god, hopefully americans won't get passports that signal they are canadian though. They are the most boastful people on the planet about their country, yet when they travel abroad they lie and say they're from another.

Maybe that's because other countries have a blind hatred for someone they don't know. Its amazing that the world complains about America and then has the nerve to paint almost 300 million people the exact same way.

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[Skjellifetti]

One can only hope that the Government (or some smart entrepreneur) will have the passports in a cover that blocks the RFID signal. The only way they can be read is if you take them out, which makes sense because they only need to be "read" when handed to customs officials anyway. At all other times the signal would be completely blocked.

Except when you have to present it at the front desk of the hotel in order to check-in or at the bank in order to change money, cash a traveller's check, etc, or when you are trashed in a local bar and want to show off the cool visa stamp from some country that no longer exists. You haven't done much foreign travel, have you?

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[whitehatlurker]

I'm sure you mean Upper Canada Village . (After all, Canada is from the Huron word kanata, or village.)

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[plague3106]

Huh? He was talking about American CITIZENS, not soldiers.

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[Peyre]

Well Otter, for what it's worth, when I travel I try to give a good impression of Americans--speaking the language as much as my meager talents allow, etc. And, like you, I really haven't seen any anti-Americanism abroad. Then again, I've mostly been to Europe.

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[jdavidb]

Aw, Lex, there you go again, injecting reason into a debate. You ruin all the fun that way. :P ;)

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[SpiritGod21]

I had a similar experience at the beginning of this summer (traveling to Switzerland, Germany, and England). I didn't have any problems with anti-US sentiments; the stereotype I seemed to be on the receiving-end of was "dumb tourist," more than "hated American." I clearly didn't know much about where I was (that's why I was there, after all), but people were kind and helpful, not disdainful because of the latest poor foreign policy choice by my president.

Amusingly enough, I roomed with a couple from Texas in a hostel in Berlin who seemed to have a similar experience. If I learned nothing else overseas, it's that people are people everywhere; we all have families and jobs and dreams. We* don't think that we're mean and hateful, so why do we assume that everyone else is?

*I'm from the US, so by "we" I mean "people with whom I associate myself," such as other people from the US. /trying-to-avoid-flamewar-about-Americans-displaci ng-negative-attributes-on-else-everyone

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[Anonymous Coward]

I've been to four continents in the last year and a half, and have never encountered a shred of anti-Americanism.

My wife is Indonesian and I'm American. I didn't encounter anti-americanism when I travelled in Indonesia but, then again, I didn't tell people I was American unless it was necessary or I trusted them.

On the other hand, when people in my wife's neighborhood found out she was marrying an American, the insults got so bad that she was afraid to leave her house and her family may even have to move to a different neighborhood. My wife is now very reluctant to go back to her neighborhood (where she had spent her entire life before coming to the United States).

Basically, when I was in Indonesia, the nature of my situation made it easy to avoid those people who didn't like Americans and easy for them to avoid/ignore me. On the other hand, in my wife's situation it was much harder for such people to ignore/avoid her and as a result she was exposed to some really nasty stuff.

That's not to say that some anti-americanism isn't exaggerated or that it can't be easily avoided as a tourist but it certainly isn't nonexistent either.

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[sponglish]

"Oh shut up, you are so stupid."

Applause! Anonymous Coward. Such a glittering example of open-minded discussion.

"What a load of crap. Why are you making such a generalization?"

Because I'm responding in kind to someone who painted with an equally broad brush. If you had posted with a real name, we could have carried on a conversation of specifics, but you chose instead to be an Anonymous Coward.

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[OldeTimeGeek]

Care to expand on that?

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[Senzei]

Having just come back from Europe (Rome, Nice, Paris & London), as an American (from Texas no less), I had nothing but good experiences with everyone I met.

It has been my experience that the rest of the world seems to have more respect for Texans than any other state in the US. I don't exactly know why this is, although I would assume it is an image of being crazy, cowboys, or both. Either way, it works for me.

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[eno2001]

I went to the Pyramids when I was 16 and climbed to the top of one of them. Awesome. Almost spiritual. Absolutely awesome and the ONLY reason I'd go back. Unfortunately, my family and I drank the water in the hotel in Mexico City that said, "purified" and got sick. So our trip was cut short by a week. Plenty of warnings to avoid the "ladrones' as well...

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[Skjellifetti]

The worst I've ever run into is a minor hassle at the Austrian border by guards who plainly didn't care for Americans, but they were able to make themselves pains in the ass entirely without the assistance of RFID.

Austrian border guards? Last time I drove over the Austrian border, both the Italian and German border stations were empty and mostly used as a convenient place to pull over and switch drivers. I thought Hungary, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic were in the EU, too, now, so having border guards in Austria would be kinda like having border guards in Kansas.

Re:yeah

[LexNaturalis]

Yes, but if you show off the current passport to hotel clerks, drunk people in a bar, or to cash a check, everyone can tell you're an American. Blocking the RFID signal will only prevent passive detection of an American's status as an American. If you physically take it out and show it to someone you don't need an RFID reader to tell their country of origin. You just need eyes.

Re:yeah

[hey!]

? We (argentinians) don't hate Americans, we just think they're dumb (specially their goverment) in certain aspects.

Most Americans I know have no difficulty speaking. Qutie the contrary, we tend to speak too much. That goes double for our government.

Re:yeah

[Valthan]

More like CN, thinking that the tower is named after the city.

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't I reas somewhere that they were inserting sheets of lead/whatever into the covers and such to block outside readers from reading the RFID and that they could only be read while the passport was opened?

Re:yeah

[The Mad Debugger]

We're loud, arrogant, conspicuous consumers.. but we're not stupid. ;)

Re:yeah

[dcavanaugh]

I have to agree, at least to the extent that my overseas travel matches your opinion. I have yet to see anti-Americanism in Europe or Asia. Surely it must exist at some level, but I think you have to go and look for it in order to find it. If you look for anything (racism, poverty, disease, crime, unemployment) -- it's all out there somewhere.

So my theory is that journalists go looking for this stuff, find it, and then proceed to tell us that what they found is typical and representative of the world as a whole. Total BS. I am reminded of the Cold War, when the USSR propaganda press would shoot all kinds of documentaries in the most impoverished parts of the US they could find, so they could tell Soviet citizens that living in the US was worse than living in the Soviet Union. I understand how the Soviet journalists were forced to support the government point of view, but who is forcing the supposedly free press to spew all of this crap? What is their motivation?

Re:yeah

[hey!]

or else you did and walked around with your eyes, ears and mouth shut.

Well, I find that mouth shut and ears open does tend to improve one's chances of making a positive impression.

Unfortunately, there is a small minority of my fellow Americans who seem to get this backwards. And what comes out of their mouths tends to be stupid and ugly.

Remember the run up to the war, the big stink about France? France's crime: disagreeing with us about strategy (all the while cooperating with us on the parts of the strategy they agreed on). It's impact on us: nil. We went ahead and did what we pleased, and at least the part of the war that was within our planning horizon went as perfectly as it was possible to have it go. So our reason for acting like France was some kind of bully that pushing us around was pretty lame.

This was hardly America's worst hour, but it may well be our most embarassing.

Re:yeah

[MaxInBxl]

If there are two Americans somewhere, and one is a fat, obnoxious, non-local-language speaking lout with a Hawaiian shirt and a camcorder and the other is a quiet, sensible, local-language speaker, the locals may not even notice that the second is an American

yes this is precisely my point! That said I've met obnoxious non-local-language speaking louts from all over the world, and I myself have been one at times, but my personnal experience has shown that north americans are usually louder than other nationalities. (with the other side of the spectrum being the quiet Japansese for exmaple)

the Americans that they are likely to meet are not the ones who voted for Bush.

Yes I too have noticed that a crushing majority of american tourists or students studying abroad are not very proud of the current US president.

Re:yeah

[l0b0]

I've been to four continents in the last year and a half, and have never encountered a shred of anti-Americanism.

I come from a Northern European country, and I live in a Western European country, working with lots of people from all around the world. In addition to bashing the French & Italian for their driving style, the Norwegian for their drinking, the Russians for not knowing English, and the English for not knowing French, most nationalities (even Americans) seem to percieve the average American as being completely ignorant of the rest of the world, and unwilling to absorb other languages and cultures. But I'd not be very surprised to learn that they are too discrete to start trying to convert Americans, or simply that they learn that you are not a typical American, and, as such, not to be bashed for the (percieved) faults of your nation.

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of airports?

Re:yeah

[Malakusen]

Maybe because our country got to where it is because of the failures of the country as a whole. Can't take credit for the good stuff and then say "well, I had nothing to do with it" when things go sour.

Re:yeah

[Malakusen]

Yeah, because American Soldiers always carry their US Passports with them on patrol in Iraq. I'm fairly certain it'd take one, and only one, RFID-based IED to go off before all soldiers were told to stop carrying whatever RFID item was triggering the bomb.

American soldiers don't need passports to get to and from iraq, their military ID cards count as a passport. I am one, I know. However, the current military id card is the common access card, which has a RFID chip built into it.

Observe: http://federalvoice.dscc.dla.mil/images/030423pic/ cac.jpg

According to the DoD's FAQ page on the card, it is capable of employing "Non-contact and radio frequency transmitters". However, I don't think it does, and I can't recall hearing of any cases where a CAC has caused an IED to detonate.

Re:yeah

[Kumiorava]

Well I have first hand experience of an American couple having trouble in Tahiti for not accepting dollars. The man was after the incident frustrated and said to his wife, they don't want money, they want Francs, which in my opinion shows the whole attitude of some Americans. I had no troubles with the younger generation of American travellers, unfortunately most Americans tend to travel around after they retire. In my experience Europeans do travel a lot more and a lot younger.

Re:yeah

[Conare]

This is actually a very good question. The answer is twofold:

1) Most contact chips don't last past 5 years, and they wanted a longer validity (10 years in the US case)
2) The chip specification was for the 28 (?) Visa-waiver countries and each of them can have a different passport form factor, so it would be very difficult/expensive to implement a single contact based reader or set of readers for them all. Contactless solves this issue and allows each country to keep whatever form factor they want.

The specifications for this were acutally developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization. Anti-Skimming is not a part of any of those specifications, however data encryption schemes are.

OK OK here you go, but you will have to buy them:

http://www.icao.int/

Re:yeah

[TheRaven64]

Except that RFID tags only transmit in response to a signal. How long does it take a person to walk through the range of a bomb? 10 seconds? How long does it take to query an RFID tag? About 0.1 seconds (if that)? The bomb would be programmed to only go off if it received a response to the signal immediately after sending the query pulse. It would also be programmed not to send the query pulse if it was already receiving an answer. If you sent a blanket pulse, then you would not set any off, but you would prevent anyone from using RFID tags while you were doing so.

Oh, and the query pulse would not be sent all of the time. You don't want to blow up the first target to trigger the device; you want to blow up the fourth or fifth person, who believes the area has already been cleared (look at current - US - landmine designs for more information). You also don't want it to be sending out radio pulses advertising its position too often...

Re:yeah

[feepness]

Of course the Estadounidenses dont know that because they are happy drinking Tequila and dancing until they fall in their expensive (not a lot for them of course) hotels and "Planet Hollywod" and "Hard Rock Cafe" (I have always wondered *why* do they bother to travel to Cancun if they are going to get into the same places they have in the USA).

Plus I hear they constantly stereotype people from other countries! Stupid Americans!

Sorry, but you don't sound like someone it's particularly worthwhile being "real" friends with. Tell me, how do you treat your "fake" friends? What if I'm one of them and don't know it? Guess I don't need to worry about either, being born in the wrong country and all.

Re:yeah

[Eccles]

Yes, but as we've said the concern is an explosive with an RFID reader, that blows up when there are (enough) Americans, Brits, Australians, Indians, Russians, or whoever is a hated group, in a given area.

Re:yeah

[Profane MuthaFucka]

If your cheer is successful, and Bush really does push all his plans through, then you and I will be neighbors. The only question is where will we live. Will I be your neighbor in Canada, one of the "lucky ones" to get out? Or will I be your neighbor in the United States, playing chess with you around corners with the assistance of mirrors?

Re:yeah

[Gadgetfreak]

I'm not much of a traveller myself (though I have a valid US passport with stamps on it), but I do take some issue with assertion. Even if it's true, I think your Kerry vs Bush passport data needs a source citation and explanation of the study. Regardless, my real issue is that liberal or conservative, there are plenty of non-partisan reasons for why I didn't vote for Kerry.
In my opinion, the largest indirect result of Bush's policies (i.e. not the ones directly resulting from piss poor decisions) is that so many Americans, and indeed the world, will start assuming that all conservatives/republicans are the same as the GW Bush conservative, faith-based, anti-gay, Christian neo-crusaders. There are plenty of well educated, socially centrist or even socially liberal people who are still conservative and republican in general. I've explained this to many a foreigner, and they seemed a bit surprised.
I went to Bermuda last year, and was fully embarrassed by some of the American representation that showed up. A cruise ship from Boston let out a load of ratty t-shirts, fanny packs, camcorders, and loud mouthed obnoxiousness. Some of the locals I talked to at a table next to us didn't even realize we were tourists. I wore nice clothes (business casual best summarizes it) had my digicam in my pocket, and I was quiet and polite. That's all there was to it. I'm a New Englander myself, so it's not like I represent a vastly different part of the USA.

Point being is that there were probably a large number of those Bostonians who view themselves as liberal and voted for their own senator Kerry, yet still do not give the world a good view of Americans.

Re:yeah

[Conare]

I find it hard to believe the USA (especially!) is actually making it easier to identify its tourists and overseas personnel

What do you think passports are for?

Seriously though, I hope by now you have seen that there is a sheild in the cover that prevents this type of skimming.

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Or: Ibiza, Tenerife, Falaraki, Gran Canaria, Cyprus (or for less sun and more beer, Prague). All of which are within the EU however, so don't really count as foreign. For more exotic alcohol, I imagine there is Goa.

Re:yeah

[Jtheletter]

You missed the actual reason (IMHO) why the major excuse for preventing this feature is "American citizens will be targeted." It's not because the world is so anti-American that it's patently unsafe to be identified as American, but because claims of terrorism sells in DC.

The opposition to RFID passports has tried other arguments - the technology is (relatively) unproven and insecure, there are privacy issues, cost vs benefit, ID spoofing, etc. None of it did any good since we still see the measure being pushed. So if you can't beat em, join em. And why not? Screaming 'ZOMGWTFBBQ terrorists!' has pushed through every other piece of oppressive and stupid legislation since 911, so let's speak the language our reps appear to understand. If you RFID passports then terrorists will use them to ID and target American citizens abroad. Who cares if it's true, practically nothing else this administration has based on terrorism allegations has been true. If only we could demonstrate that the RFID tags somehow aided pedophiles then the tags would be shot down in a special session of congress tomorrow! RFID passports?!?! Think of the Children!!!

Re:yeah

[feepness]

I am an American, and when I am in Europe, I am frequently mistaken as being Dutch, perhaps because I have a beard, a bicycle and can communicate passibly in any one of about five standard European languages, even if I don't happen to speak the local language. I also usually do not go out of my way to correct this misconception...

Exactly. I am an American of Mediterraen descent. I tan quickly, speak passable Spanish, and short business transactions do not give away my accent. I'm sure many times people in Mexico have interacted with my without ever realizing they met a "gringo". I've seen the change when my pale-skinned wife is there or walks up to me later. I don't mind being treated differently... it's human nature... but it does reinforce the point that for every loudmouth you see there are probably 1000s who are not.

Re:yeah

[mi]

The bomb would be programmed to only go off if it received a response to the signal immediately after sending the query pulse.

An American aircraft (a pilotless drone) could hover above with sensitive electronics listening for these inquiry signal made by the bombs. The typical RFID chip is not very sensitive, so the signal of the inquiring device (in a card-reader or a bomb alike) would have to be fairly strong. The aircraft's sensors will pick it up and respond quickly — enough times for it to explode, even it is smart enough to not do it on the first time.

Several such aircrafts will find the bomb via triangulation — within minutes.

You also don't want it to be sending out radio pulses advertising its position too often...

This kills the idea flat. It would have to do it often, or else it will never go off — the chances of it making the inquiry within the 10-20 seconds of an American passing by will to low otherwise.

Fooling their machine-executed algorithms is easy enough. Unfortunately, the enemy appears to trigger the explosions manually — such as by radio or cell-phone signal sent by a human...

Re:yeah

[pianophile]

I'm French, feel free to flame on :)

How about an anti-flame? I'm an American that loves France. On behalf of my country I would like to apologize for all that anti-French, "surrender monkey", "freedom fries", etc. stuff. All of that was/is shameful. Yes, we helped France a lot in WW1 and WW2, but we wouldn't have survived our Revolution without your help, and thanks for staying out of our Civil War, too, by the way. I hope that one day our countries are once again the great friends and allies we once were. I love your wine, your food, your films, your women :-)

Vive la France!

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it's true, I think your Kerry vs Bush passport data needs a source citation and explanation of the study

Was the direct link to the Zogby poll not enough?

from the gp:

Active passport holders favored Kerry to Bush 58% to 35%.

Re:yeah

[sgt_doom]

I think this goes a bit deeper than that - one has to examine the overall pattern. The Dept. of Homeland Security is pushing human chipping - or some form of RFIDing - on "guest workers" - the DOD (and its military contractors) is pushing chipping - or some form of RFIDing - on military personnel to replace dog tags -- and there are various other examples.

Next, one should examine who owns these RFID firms (Hint: with the one exception of Savi Technology --- owned by Lockheed Martin, the largest military contractor --- the major players in the RFID field can be traced to two, that's just two, private equity firms - and one of the two appears to be so financially interlocked with the other, it is most likely owned by the other --- so we're looking at one private bank here, guys. The end result could be awesome financial and business intelligence.

Help stop the Oman Free Trade Agreement, it will offshore more jobs, make legal the foreign ownership of senstive American infrastructure, and aid and abet a premier human trafficker on this planet!!!

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

"I love your wine, your food, your films, your women"

Then get the hell out of here already!

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

I am frequently mistaken as being Dutch

I suggest you upgrade your deodorant.

Re:yeah

[Guido von Guido]

Playa del Carmen appears to be the European equivalent of Cancun. You can find plenty of Europeans doing the same things Americans do in Cancun, albeit less obnoxiously. It's also just down the road a bit from Cancun. LIke Cancun, Playa del Carmen was built primarily for tourists, and when we were there (spring of 2002) they were building it up pretty quickly.

On that trip to the Yucatan, my wife and I stayed a week in Merida and the surrounding areas (we rented a car), and a week in Playa del Carmen. Personally, I wouldn't go back to Playa del Carmen, but then again I wouldn't go to Cancun, either.

Re:yeah

[Abalamahalamatandra]

Personally, when I used to travel to Asia and the Middle East, I always wore earthtones and Birkenstocks a lot and pretended I was German - worked great for me. Of course, being somewhat heavyset with close-cropped hair, a mustache and goatee and small German-stereotype glasses helped a lot too.

Now I'm considering scrambling to get my passport renewed before they start issuing this crap - my company was recently bought out by EMC and EMC has big plans for Europe and Asia in the coming couple of years.

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 4 no make that 5 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. and the one you keep your RFid in Use in that order. Starting now.

Re:yeah

[pjp6259]

I went to Europe for 3 weeks two years ago (Amsterdam, Germany & Paris), and the closest I saw to anti-americanism was some guy sitting in the restaurant who kept glaring at us. No idea if it was because we were Americans, or just sitting at his favorite table or some other reason, but other than that everyone was very friendly and polite.

Re:yeah

[kchrist]

Those are two different groups of people you're referring to. The loud boastful Americans don't have a problem advertising where they're from when traveling overseas. And the rest of us pretend we don't share a country with them.

Just recently in Italy I witnessed another American get upset at a hotel desk clerk because he estimated a distance in kilometers. He actually replied "Whatever that means". I'm sure if the hotel employee had spoken less-than-perfect English this guy would have had something else to be upset about.

I cringed just hearing this conversation and moved down the counter a bit so no one would mistake me for part of his party. Ugh.

Re:yeah

[kchrist]

Heh, I just posted a comment in another thread about an American tourist I saw in Italy getting upset about a distance given to him in kilometers.

Re:yeah

[jonin]

How exactly does that work? If the coasts have higher rates of passports (one would assume that means they travel more) and they tend to be blue states, wouldn't that suggest most travelers including the large, obnoxious ones are more likely be liberal?

Re:yeah

[popejeremy]

There are countries where they might assume you're rude and uncultured if you're an American, and that's one thing. But there are also countries where they'll kill you if you're an American, and that's quite another.

Either way, it's nobody's business but mine where my citizenship is held, unless they work at customs or have some other legitimate reason for knowing and I consent to their knowing.

Re:yeah

[kchrist]

Austria does put guards on international trains, at the very least, checking passports of non-EU citizens. While I didn't have any trouble crossing the Austrian border with a US passport (both in and out by rail), the guards were a bit intimidating and certainly didn't go out of their way to be friendly.

Re:yeah

[MrShaggy]

Hey thats pretty funny ;) It reminds me of the screaming guy from DILBERT.

Re:yeah

[Eternauta3k]

I think you have both the smartest and the least informed people (and combinations of those)

Re:yeah

[Rob Kaper]

(I have always wondered *why* do they bother to travel to Cancun if they are going to get into the same places they have in the USA)

For the same reason they still listen to domestic music on their iPod instead of local music, and are they still in touch with their friends at home instead of locals only. People travel to other places to have some new experiences, if any at all, not to change their entire life. Travel has become a commodity for many people.. if you don't see all of the local stuff in Cancun at once, you can surely return another time. There's no longer a real need to complete soak up a foreign culture at a trip and clearly there hasn't been a desire to do so when return visits became accessible to the masses.

I used to label my city trips as holidays, but these days flying to London or Copenhagen (from Amsterdam) is little more to me than hanging with mates and going out elsewhere, experiencing some local culture but still doing what I like doing best.

Re:yeah

[Elvis Impersonator]

I travel quite a bit. In the past 2 years I've been to 12 countries in Asia, Europe, South America, North America. Never have I been treated poorly for being an American.

In my experience it is ALL about approach. I am interested in my hosts and their ways. I like to eat their way, drink their way. I can't tell you how many times I have been told that they expected me to just want Americanized experiences, American food. People are pleasantly surprised when you don't insist on the American Way and are instead open and interested.

Try to blend. Try to experience what is there instead of comparing it to what we have in the US.

Make no mistake. Most Americans are annoying. However, this is because most PEOPLE are annoying.
Our government is powerful and corrupt. This makes us a focal point. Don't be a focal point when you are traveling.

Re:yeah

[k31bang]

According to Schneier [schneier.com] the State Department already plans (and has since sometime last year) to include a RF shield so the chip can only be read while the passport is open and they are encrypting the data on the RFID.

I've already got one of these said shields.

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

No, anti-skimming, in the form of Basic Access Control, is actually very much part of the specifications. It is however not part of the core specifications but you can find it in the PKI technical report. The data encryption is not that strong and is actually more debatable than the anti-skimming.

Re:yeah

[SvnLyrBrto]

You must not have been paying attention then. Shit... the last time I was out of the US, I was called both a yankee and a gringo within half an hour of walking across the border; before (so I thought) I even had the CHANCE to offend anyone, boorish behavior or otherwise.

Of course, my travels in years before that were more positive experiences. I caught a bit of the "stupid tourist" flack that's common pretty much everywhere tourists go. But I found that if you're polite and respectful and at least ATTEMPT to learn and use the local language, it's no worse than being a tourist anywhere in the US.

cya,
john

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Given history, the only reason the Europeans are doing "tourism with culture" is to pillage and plunder artifacts. So please keep an eye on the ruins.

Re:yeah

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

The more she had trouble understanding them they just got more irritated, annoying and bigoted. Standing there at the counter I felt so ashamed.

This isn't to say that Americans don't have a negative image in the world, but overall, people are smart and realize that not everyone conforms to the stereotype.

Or, more pessimistically, there is no stereotype - they're right.

Think about it. How many stupid, bigoted, annoying, simple-minded, hawkish, egotistical Americans have you seen in America? Haven't you seen people right here do exactly what parent said they do in Europe? And then you worry that foreigners have what's actually the right perception?

(For the record, yes, I'm an American.)

Re:yeah

[terrymr]

Gaza is probably one of the least safe places for anybody to be. There's hundreds of countries to travel to where having an American passport will not get your head cut off.

Re:yeah

[terrymr]

I got one of those from the embassy in DC. The passport inspector in London said "This must be new, I haven't seen one of these before" and waved me through.

Re:yeah

[nrlightfoot]

I ran into a little bit of anti-Americanism in Venezuela a couple years ago, but there isn't too much of that going on in places I've been. Probably not enough that you would notice it if you were Canadian.

Re:yeah

[identity0]

Oh, come on, this kind of thing is normal for any "tourist town". Especially places like Cancun, which draws the drunken frat-boy crowd more than most. From what I can tell, getting drunk in Cancun seems to be an annunal spring break ritual among American frat boys, and I'm sure more unsavory things go on there, too.

Not that Europeans and other nationals don't do it. I'm sure they go to some Mediterranian resort to enjoy the beaches, girls and drink, but the grandparent poster would not have seen that from Mexico.

Then again, the lure of drunken partying in Mexico might have something to do with the puritanical laws and campus regs in the states, which don't exist in Europe, so it might not get foisted on some random town overseas.

Re:yeah

[Mark Hood]

Absolutely true.

Most of the Americans I meet are intelligent, well travelled and well informed on world affairs. Of course, I meet most of them not as tourists, but as people who've chosen to move to the UK to work here, so there's a lot of self-selection going on.

My favourite story told by one (who was working in Budapest at the time) was when he tried to hide on a subway because he heard the stereotypical 'brash, obnoxious tourist' nattering away in the next row of seats.

Naturally they heard he was American, asked where he was from... (if memory serves, the tourists were Texan).

When he said 'Seattle' the response was (in all seriousness) - "Oh, a treehugger".

So believe me when I say that I agree with both points!

Mark

PS It cuts both ways - as a Brit abroad (especially during the world cup) I'm always happier to be mistaken for Dutch, Scottish or Irish than English (which I am) because we have our own stereotypes to live down.

Re:yeah

[jedrek]

The European equivalent of Cancun is actually Ibiza.

Re:yeah

[jedrek]

Sure there are a lot of well behaved americans, who even if they don't speak the local language, behave well, use the international language of pointing when they can't communicate and generally act like normal people. And that's great. The thing is, they're unnoticed (which, for locals in high-tourist areas, is pretty great too)

But for every group of quiet, backpacking americans there's a group of american senior citizens dressed in identical hot pink polo shirts making a b-line across one of europe's many old towns.

Re:yeah

[jedrek]

Hungary, the Czech Republic and SLOVAKIA (Slovenia doesn't border with Austria) are all in the EU, but are not part of the Schengen accords, which allow for document-less travel between countries.

Re:yeah

[jedrek]

I really don't know what people expect. I've traveled all over the EU this year and I didn't meet a single 'jovial' security guard. That said, I didn't meet anybody who was rude or mean, everybody was just... professional.

Re:yeah

[Skjellifetti]

Actualy, both Slovenia (between Italy, Austria, Croatia, and Hungary) and Slovakia share borders with Austria.

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Some obvious points for Mr. "too good for the Estadounidenses":

1. What makes you think any visiting American would want to encounter you at all, much less be your "real friend"? We don't travel to make friends, we have plenty of those at home. We travel to get away from work for a while, party a bit, and relax where our bosses can't find us.

2. Having said that, while travelling, we do sometimes make friends with people who are at the same social level as us, i.e. other tourists in the same hotel. But we're not going to make friends with some weirdo from out in town. We won't even notice you, much less talk to you. The Europeans probably feel about the same way, but they find you amusing for some reason. We Americans are a bit less playful.

3. If we Americans want culture, we go to New York or Europe. When we go to Mexico, we're looking for a high exchange rate, beaches, resort hotels, and sometimes fishing. We don't give a rat's ass about your pyramids, your forts, your wars, or any other damn thing. We're there to party with the other Americans. If the Europeans want to spend their vacations ooh-ing and aah-ing at all the amazing history, God bless 'em. It keeps 'em out of our hair. But we couldn't care less.

Bottom line: It's not that you REFUSE to be friends with Americans, it's that it was never an option to begin with.

Re:yeah

[Shaper_pmp]

Yeah, because American Soldiers always carry their US Passports with them on patrol in Iraq.

Sorry, who mentioned soldiers? I just said "Americans" - you know, tourists, contractors, ex-pats, you name it. Where did "soldiers" come from?

I'm fairly certain it'd take one, and only one, RFID-based IED to go off before all soldiers were told to stop carrying whatever RFID item was triggering the bomb.

Indeed, and I would hope so too (in fact I'd hope it took no RFID IEDs to go off)... but again I wasn't talking about soldiers. And if you generalise this to "all americans" (which I was talking about):

1. Try to stop tourists carrying their passports around, especially in the type of middle eastern/asian foreign country where they don't feel safe leaving them in their hotel rooms.
2. What's the point of a passport that you can't carry around safely? In fact, what's the point of a passport that makes you a target?

Re:yeah

[Shaper_pmp]

An American aircraft (a pilotless drone) could hover above with sensitive electronics listening for these inquiry signal made by the bombs.

Just to be clear I've got this right, your "kills it flat" solution to RFID-triggered bombs is to task a multimillion dollar drone to hover over (or even just patrol) every busy American-frequented area in every nation on earth which could conceivably hve a terrorist problem?

Genius.

Frankly, even if you restrict the application to just Iraq/Afghanistan/wherever we're currently fighting (and, y'know, fuck all the US tourists elsewhere in the world), all the reader has to do is randomly query every x minutes, and the drone will likely never find it.

The typical RFID chip is not very sensitive, so the signal of the inquiring device (in a card-reader or a bomb alike) would have to be fairly strong.

Who says? First off, by changing the strength of the query broadcast you can change the RFID-detection radius, and so also the radius within which the IED could be detected. Stick a bomb in a barrel or bag in a busy shopping street and someone could well brush past the damn thing to set it off - what chance does a drone hundreds or thousands of feet up in the air have of detecting that?

The aircraft's sensors will pick it up and respond quickly -- enough times for it to explode, even it is smart enough to not do it on the first time.

Genius. Again, even if your zero-cost drones manage to somehow magically detect the infrequently-querying bomb, your best solution to terrorists setting up hidden bombs in highly-populated areas is to automatically explode them?

Way to do the terrorists' job for them. You'll really win the hearts and minds of the liberated Iraqis/Afghanis/whoever with that kind of consideration.

Re:yeah

[Shaper_pmp]

What do you think passports are for?

Passports are a mechanism for me to identify myself, not for any random mugger/secret policeman/terrorist to cherry-pick me out of a crowd. Or do you habitually carry your passport in one hand, waving it over your head and loudly proclaiming "Look at me, I'm an American citizen!"?

Seriously though, I hope by now you have seen that there is a sheild in the cover that prevents this type of skimming.

There may be, yes, and that would be a good start. However, it still means that the simple act of opening your passport for any reason immediately announces to anyone nearby that you're a US citizen, in case they might be interested.

Frankly, the day when the act of opening my passport in my bag potentially identifies me and/or my nationality to anyone within up to tens of metres is the day I staple the blooody thing shut, and I'm not even a US citizen (with all the attendant antipathy that carries with it across the world).

Re:yeah

[Shaper_pmp]

Lovely. Wonderful. Nevertheless, the mere act of opening my passport now identifies me and my nationality to anyone in the vicinity who's interested, potentially making me a target for anything from pickpocketing to terrorist bombing.

All because it's vital the USA and UK have to have an RFID chip in our passports... because... y'know... erm... well, anyway.

Re:yeah

[mi]

Genius. Again, even if your zero-cost drones manage to somehow magically detect the infrequently-querying bomb, your best solution to terrorists setting up hidden bombs in highly-populated areas is to automatically explode them?

The anti-American, who started this thread, was particularly joyful about the fact, that the bomb will only kill Americans. If it is set in a crowded place, or, indeed, is triggered to go off by a detector independent of who is near it at the moment, then it sets the terrorists back to what they already have — an indiscriminate mass-killing device.

them. You'll really win the hearts and minds of the liberated Iraqis/Afghanis/whoever with that kind of consideration.

America has not placed that bomb... It happens almost daily in Baghdad today — people die in explosions intended to kill Americans...

Re:yeah

[plague3106]

You're arguing that its OK to stereo type Americans? Geez, you might as well call all Germans Nazis or all Jews penny pinching cheap scates.

Re:yeah

[Shaper_pmp]

The anti-American, who started this thread, was particularly joyful about the fact, that the bomb will only kill Americans.

Uh, the first post in this thread was by Dolson, who just pointed out that US citizens would have a hard time blending in in Asia anyway, even without RFID passports.

If you mean the AC follow-up that said:

Americans aren't the only caucasians out there. RFID nicely allows somebody to identify the hated Americans from the nice Canadians (and most Europeans).

I took that to mean from the terrorists' point of view Americans were hated and Canadians/Europeans were "nice" (or at least, nicer).

Either way, it doesn't seem particularly "joyful", so try strapping down that jerking knee. And if it was meant as baldly as you suspect it would have to be an obvious troll. Please don't feed the trolls...

If it is set in a crowded place, or, indeed, is triggered to go off by a detector independent of who is near it at the moment, then it sets the terrorists back to what they already have -- an indiscriminate mass-killing device.

Sigh. You mean you don't see the difference between a bomb which goes off randomly and kills tens of people and a bomb which is set off by the presence of an American and kills tens of people?

It doesn't have to be a surgical strike picking US citizens out from a crowd - all you need to damage your international reputation is the perception that US citizens are walking detonators and you won't be welcome anywhere.

Do you honestly not see the difference in public perception between a bomb set off randomly and bombs which target american citizens, whose very presence in a "liberated" country causes (or at least contributes to) an atrocity?

America has not placed that bomb... It happens almost daily in Baghdad today -- people die in explosions intended to kill Americans...

And that, right there, is why you're losing Iraq, you've lost the "hearts and minds" of Iraq and Afghanistan and your international reputation is going down the tubes.

Picture the scene - there's a busy market street in Iraq, India, wherever. People are shopping, kids are laughing and chasing one another through the streets. A US drone appears over the square and begins broadcasting[1]. Within seconds a bomb goes off, killing tens of native people and injuring hundreds more. The drone flies off.

The bomb could have sat there for days or even weeks, and no-one was harmed. The US army pro-actively sets it off, directly causing harm to tens or hundreds of local people, all in case a US citizen ever happened to walk past it.

Sure, someone else planted the bomb, but the US set it off, directly causing an atrocity that might otherwise never have happened.

How many "hearts and minds" do you think that'll win you, exactly? Not counting the ones raining down on horrified locals after the explosion?

And to a lesser extent this applies even to bombs set off by detected US passports. Sure, the fact of US forces being in a country means terrorists plant bombs - it's a fairly disconnected sequence of events, but you still get people protesting that the "US go home" because of it.

Now imagine that a US citizens walks down a busy street and immediately a bomb goes off - it should also later be relatively easy to determine from fragments that the bomb was RFID-triggered, and that's two, much stronger connections between the two events. People could argue that the US citizen's presence not only contributed to, but directly caused the atrocity - after all, regardless of the bomb there if the citizen hadn't triggered it it would never have gone off.

And if

Re:yeah

[mi]

By "anti-American", I meant your earlier posting.

And that, right there, is why you're losing Iraq, you've lost the "hearts and minds" of Iraq and Afghanistan and your international reputation is going down the tubes.

Phhlease... Our internation reputation went down the tubes when we restarted this war. Iraqi fractions killing each other has not made our reputation worse.

Sure, someone else planted the bomb, but the US set it off, directly causing an atrocity that might otherwise never have happened.

If one shoots at me, I duck, and the bullet hits you — do you blame me for the ducking or my enemy (who, BTW, is your enemy too, in the cases being discussed) for the shooting?

Re:yeah

[Shaper_pmp]

This is just getting silly, and I'm starting to suspect I'm being trolled.

By "anti-American", I meant your earlier posting.

What part of my posting exactly struck you as "anti-American" (specifically, rather than "anti-US-and-UK-government", which is a totally different thing), "joyful", or remotely happy about the idea?

In fact, I believe that my post started with the words "And while I hate to be a bring-down", rather implying the thought of nationality-specific RFID bombs was, y'know, a bad thing.

Phhlease... Our internation reputation went down the tubes when we restarted this war. Iraqi fractions killing each other has not made our reputation worse.

This is such a non-sequiteur I'm starting to wonder if you're even reading my posts, or just responding to isolated phrases that catch your eye.

And incidentally the USA's international reputation now is "poor". You can try for "really bad", "terrible" or "execrable" if you really want to, but the fact the USA (and UK) have made themselves unpopular is hardly an excuse to carry on doing so.

If one shoots at me, I duck, and the bullet hits you -- do you blame me for the ducking or my enemy (who, BTW, is your enemy too, in the cases being discussed) for the shooting?

Well, if you've deliberately pissed off our enemy, know damn well I'm standing right behind you, and you're wearing a t-shirt saying "I'm an american citizen" in a part of the world where that's deeply unpopular, then yes, damn straight I'd blame you, at least in part.

Would I blame you for the guy shooting at you? Not entirely. Would I blame you for my injury? Yes, you had a clear contributory role in it.

Re:yeah

[mi]

What part of my posting exactly struck you as "anti-American"

Right there, where you made fun of our desire to liberate Iraq...

If one shoots at me, I duck, and the bullet hits you -- do you blame me for the ducking or my enemy (who, BTW, is your enemy too, in the cases being discussed) for the shooting?

Well, if you've deliberately pissed off our enemy, know damn well I'm standing right behind you, and you're wearing a t-shirt saying "I'm an american citizen" in a part of the world where that's deeply unpopular, then yes, damn straight I'd blame you, at least in part.

In this case, I don't care if you get shot... There is nothing wrong with being an American citizen, and your blaming me for getting shot over it, means, you are ready to blame the victim (as in: "Her wearing the mini-skirt is the reason, she got raped."). I'll cheerfully pass the victimhood onto you by ducking...

Back to the RFID-enabled bombs, there is no need to really explode them necessarily. Triangulation will find, where they are, so they can be disabled (or even exploded after an evacuation). If the bomb is making ANY kind of radio broadcast, it can be detected. It does not matter, how infrequently it makes the broadcasts — it needs to make a lot of them to detect a target, but the detectors only need one or two to locate it.

Once again, I wish, our enemies were so dumb as to try this...

Re:yeah

[Shaper_pmp]

Right there, where you made fun of our desire to liberate Iraq...

Deary, deary me. Where exactly did I make fun of "our" (yes, the UK was involved too) desire to liberate Iraq?

I may have posted "wherever the US invades/liberates next", but but that was an unimpeachably factual statement:

The US did (along with the UK/others) unarguably invade Iraq. Look up the definition of the term using the handy link, if you like - invasion means "any entry into an area not previously occupied", or "a military action consisting of troops entering a foreign land (a nation or territory, or part of that), often resulting in the invading power occupying the area, whether briefly or for a long period".

Note please that invasion doesn't necessarily say anything about the intentions of the military power involved.

Liberation deals with the intention of the invasion - in this case, to "free: grant freedom to; free from confinement".

Therefore, "invasion/liberation" was precisely correct in every detail.

"Wherever... next"? Well, unless you're privy to inside information, the US/UK hasn't invaded anywhere since then, so we don't know where they'll invade next. We also don't know if they necesarily will invade anywhere next (despite the US in particular eyeing up Syria, South Korea and, recently especially, Iran), but then again in normal usage the word "wherever" implies the possibility of "nowhere":

"Where are you going on holiday?"
"Pffft, I dunno - wherever I can afford".

So, again, apart from that jerking knee that's threatening to do you a mischief, what exactly was taking the piss out of the Iraq invasion/liberation?

And, as an aside, while I strongly disagree with both the US and UK foreign policies, I actually have a great affection for both countries, and many people (of both nationalities) that I've met.

Apart from the kind of childish black-and-white "you're either with us or against us" bullshit that the US neocons are famous for using to derail intelligent debate, exactly when did disagreeing with Bush's policies become being "anti-american"?

In this case, I don't care if you get shot... There is nothing wrong with being an American citizen, and your blaming me for getting shot over it, means, you are ready to blame the victim (as in: "Her wearing the mini-skirt is the reason, she got raped."). I'll cheerfully pass the victimhood onto you by ducking...

Again with the black-and-white.

I don't blame you entirely. In fact, it's mostly the fault of the guy pulling the trigger. Nevertheless, if you cause a situation where I get hurt by someone after you, then that's at least partly your fault. I know it's comfortable to pretend you have a right to do and say whatever you like to whoever you like, but it's bullshit.

There are areas of Northern Ireland I wouldn't wear a "the Pope is gay" t-shirt, and areas of the US I wouldn't wear a "Fuck god" baseball cap. Although it's my right to do so, if I do and something bad happens to me, whose fault is it?

Ok, now if I cause the same situation but I know damn well that you're going to get hurt not me, whose fault is is that you get hurt. Yours?

Back to the RFID-enabled bombs, there is no need to really explode them necessarily. Triangulation will find, where they are, so they can be disabled (or even exploded after an evacuation).

Now you're making more sense. However, you're assuming that an unmanned drone would be able to detect something that may only have to be detectable from inches away. On what basis, exactly, do you base this conclusion? Your entire argument falls apart if a drone (in fact, multiple drones, widely spaced) can't detect the transmitter, when

Re:yeah

[Conare]

Passports are a mechanism for me to identify myself, not for any random mugger/secret policeman/terrorist to cherry-pick me out of a crowd

But to whom are you identifying yourself? Passports are an assertion by your government to another government that the data in the passport correctly identifies you and that you meet that country's criteria for holding a passport (citizen diplomat etc.). It is not for you. It is for other countries to identify you as a citizen of whatever country you claim to be a citizen of. The other uses of a passport are merely conveniences. You are not forced to travel btw, it is a privilege not a right, so you accept the risks when you choose to travel (airflight accident, luggage theft, passport catching fire and burning your butt because someone scanned it with too strong a signal...)

Or do you habitually carry your passport in one hand, waving it over your head and loudly proclaiming "Look at me, I'm an American citizen!"?

Only when I am trying to attract hookers

...opening your passport for any reason immediately announces to anyone nearby that you're a US citizen, in case they might be interested

Only if they have the right equipment and are actively seeking the information. When you open a current passport without a chip in it, you are broadcasting to anyone who has thought to install a hidden camera nearby or paid some fanatic or criminal or intelligence agent to hang out with a pair of binoculars, a pencil, and a piece of paper that you are an American citizen. The risk is roughly the same.

Frankly, the day when the act of opening my passport in my bag potentially identifies me and/or my nationality to anyone within up to tens of metres is the day I staple the blooody thing shut, and I'm not even a US citizen (with all the attendant antipathy that carries with it across the world).

I would recommend a rubber band if you feel the need. Less destructive. Although I will give you credit for being more moderate then the microwave and hammer crowd.

Save tinfoil hat for passport

[f0dder]

So if I wrap my RFID laden passport in tinfoil I am safe right? right?

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[joe 155]

yes, as far as I know, tinfoil does block the signals of RFID... so does a sheet of metal from my personal experience, which is why I keep on in my wallet with my RFID card.

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[alanxyzzy]

Bruce Schneier thinks that it will be OK

...

The new design also includes a thin radio shield in the cover, protecting the chip when the passport is closed. More good security.

Assuming that the RFID passport works as advertised (a big "if," I grant you), then I am no longer opposed to the idea.

...

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[jeeves1914]

I wonder if my snazzy duct tape wallet would protect me?

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[rnelsonee]

Wrapping metal around it certainly won't make it easier to read, but it is limited in it's ability to block signals because it's not grounded. Electric fields will still be free to pass through the mesh. Perhaps we should all just get grounding shoe straps....

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[3waygeek]

Too bad Thinkgeek stopped selling their RFID-blocking T-shirt.

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[Guanine]

Would a miniature Faraday cage be feasible in an application like this? I would be more comfortable with these devices if, like cell phones, their communication with the world could be controlled by the user.

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[Anonymous Coward]

Schneier goes back and forth on the issue depending on the current proposed implementation of the technology. Schneier thought that particular implementation proposal looked promising.

Later articles discuss flaws:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/11/the_ security_of_2.html
http://www.schneier.com/essay-093.html

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[drinkypoo]

Yes, it's called a ziploc antistatic bag.

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[Anonymous Coward]

The prototype (european) RFID passports I've seen didn't have a conductive cover to block the signals.

I rather doubt they would add it as it's rather hard physically, as the conductive cover would have to be really close to the RFID chip itself (both mounted in the passport cover), while the wavelength of the RFID signals is at least 23 meters (freq=13MHz), thus the RFID chip antenna wouldn't receive much.

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[fishbowl]

Do you even have a source for Tin (Sn) foil? I can find Aluminum (Al) foil, Gold (Au) foil, and even Lead (Pb) foil, but I have never even seen Tin foil.

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[Kainaw]

So if I wrap my RFID laden passport in tinfoil I am safe right? right?

The wallet I've had for, hmmm..., 17 years now is lined on the inside with foil - aluminum I think. It could be tin or lead. I don't know - it is inside the leather and I don't want to cut it open to find out. I worked on radars and all the radar geeks got them becuase they supposedly protected credit cards. Regardless, none of my RFID cards can be read when they are in my wallet. I've tried. I've also run into the situation where I ran cabling through a room with an MRI machine in it. I forgot that I had my wallet in my pocket. My debit card which is rubber-banded to the outside of my wallet was erased. My credit card inside the wallet was not. So, in my opinion, there's a lot to say for a foil-lined wallet.

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[p33p3r]

Of course you are safe.
Until you are stopped by DHS and arrested for deliberately blocking the RFID.

Re:Save tinfoil hat for passport

[grcumb]

"Bruce Schneier thinks that it will be OK"

That's fine for Bruce, and in fairness I think he's right that an RF shield in the passport cover reduces risk. But the one thing that nobody seems to have considered is that the passport is often the only ID considered valid for non-residents of most countries.

A briefcase bomb sitting in a Western Union office in Jakarta, for example, would likely prove quite effective.

Even if it can be hacked?

[blindbug]

One fear is that they can be hacked for information about you. And even if they can't...

It can... and it will be... period.

Re:Even if it can be hacked?

[Shaper_pmp]

The only way to make any compter system perfectly hack-proof is to disconnect it from any external network, switch it off, lock it in a very secure room and then destroy the only key. And even then it's susceptible to lock-pickers and social engineering.

And you're right - if they can be hacked they will be. And then what're the government going to do - upgrade the security and re-issue every citizen's passport all at once? Pffft...

Re:Even if it can be hacked?

[Anonymous Coward]

How... can you be so sure... question mark?

Re:Even if it can be hacked?

[owlstead]

How can these statements ever become insightfull? Shall I send you a 256 bit AES encrypted text and request you to find the text within it? Can that be hacked? Or WPA2?

Currently, the cryptography seems to defeat crypto-analyses. Of course there will be bad implementations. But evem "It can't and it won't be" seems to be more insightfull than these kind of statements.

Hopefully, I won't have to close any of my sentences with the word "period" either.

Re:Even if it can be hacked?

[Shaper_pmp]

How long are passports valid for? 10? 25 years?

How long does the average encryption scheme or key-length last between widespread introduction and being basically trivial to crack?

And what happens when (oh, ok, if) someone cracks it? Recall every passport ever issued and upgrade them?

How about "remotely-patchable" passports? Ooooh, that doesn't sound remotely exploitable or dangerous.

Completely impractical.

Confused?

[GI Jones]

Aren't RFID tags a passive technology? It doesn't hang around "broadcasting" anything, but it can be queried. Am I wrong here?

Re:Confused?

[neonprimetime]

There are 2 types of RFID tags from what I understand

• Passive
• Active

Re:Confused?

[Mayhem178]

As I understand it, RFID cards don't do anything until they're exposed to an electromagnetic field, which gives them just enough juice to fire off a message, usually an identity code. Unless I've been completely misinformed, you'd have to generate quite the field to even have a chance of reading one of these things at a distance. I know that my RFID card doesn't work until it's within a coupla inches of the appropriate reader.

The whole "it's broadcasting all of your personal information!!!!" hype is a bunch of FUD. The only way it could really be a security risk is if the card itself was stolen, and then it's really no different than having your S.S. card or driver's license stolen.

Re:Confused?

[MrSquirrel]

There are passive and active RFID transmitters. The ones they're referring to be used in the passports would be passive. Passive transmitters can have batteries, but these ones would not, meaning the reader would have to be very close to read them... or VERY powerful (car-sized). Furthermore, RFID chips have security protocols and they are fairly safe (nothing is unhackable). The only safety concern is the possibility that someone with either a very large and powerful reader could read you at range or someone with a smaller human-held reader could get up close to you (they would have to be RIGHT next to you... maybe even put their hand on your heiny) and read your data... they would have to break heavy encryption to read any actual information about you. They could not alter your information (depending on the type of RFID chips used, there are RW [Read-write, multiple times] and WO [write-once] flavors of RFID).

Re:Confused?

[truthsearch]

Right, because no one could walk around an airport or through a train with a suitecase containing an RFID reader.

Re:Confused?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you are saying those portable handheld readers don't exist? So nobody could just walk by you and get your information without you knowing about it until you get metaphorically fucked up the ass? Or nobody could set up a hidden reader any-fucking-where they want? They must not actually work. Huh, amazing. And I thought I was an EE that knew how this stuff worked because I fucking worked on it. But no, I'll take your word for it, this stuff is completely safe. No possible problems here! No-siree.

Just... go fuck off. Really.

Re:Confused?

[cmeans]

I have no technical knowledge about RFIDs, but would it be possible to not allow the RFID to respond to the "scan" request unless the user/holder OK's it. Say by integrating a fingerprint reader into the passport as well. This would also seem like another general security measure. Where the user/holder must place the finger on the passport to "activate" it.

I don't know whether fingerprint readers are getting tiny enough to be embedded in something that small, but it seems like a good idea. I would be more comfortable with having an RFID passport if I could control when it was being accessed.

Re:Confused?

[SCHecklerX]

I'm sure that if there is a bomb that is nearby configured to go off when the proper RFID signal is detected, said bomb can certainly send out the RF needed to light up the RFID tag.

Re:Confused?

[Anonymous Coward]

In a November 2005 article, noted security expert Bruce Schneier states that the maximum distance at which an RFID chip had been read so far was 69 feet.

See "The Security of RFID Passports" in Crypto-Gram #0511.

The article also has links to Schneier's other writing upon the subject.

Re:Confused?

[Mayhem178]

As I understand it, in order to read an RFID chip, you have to be close. We're talking a matter of inches. So, not only would the guy with the reader have to know exactly where your card is on your person, but he'd have to shove the reader practically right up against you. I think you'd probably notice if he started rubbing you with his suitcase.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'm not losing any sleep at night over my RFID card.

Re:Confused?

[Akaihiryuu]

The place I work uses passive RFID badges to let us into the building (and to get through doors in the building)...the readers do not work until you get the badge to within an inch of it. If the technology is like this, it would be impossible to read "at a distance"

Re:Confused?

[karandago]

If you're going to go so far as to require some actual activity on the part of the RFID tag holder why use a passive device? Instead of RFID tags your passport could just as easily have a chip that needs to be placed in physical contact with the appropriate reader to work.

Re:Confused?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that my RFID card doesn't work until it's within a coupla inches of the cheapest, lowest power reader the company could buy, right? Electromagnetic fields fall off at r^2, so if I want to read yours on a subway car, I would probably have to carry a briefcase of batteries, or if I wanted to read yours at an airport, a couple of suitcases on a trolley, but saying it can't be done because your company buys the cheapest stuff is ignorant. If I was going to do it, I certainly would have no problem spending $10,000 on reader equipment knowing that I'll easily make it back off of fools like you.

Re:Confused?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd hate to be responsible for costing you any sleep, but your understanding is wrong. A standard reader needs to be a few inches from the chip to read it. However, someone trying to steal your identity will not use a standard reader; they will use custom equipment which can read your card at a distance. Such equipment has been demonstrated to work, relatively cheaply.

Re:Confused?

[truthsearch]

People should lose sleep over their RFID tagged passports. The federal government has repeatedly demonstrated incompetance when it comes to our safety and privacy. We should be able to trust them, but we obviously can't. The public needs to keep a close eye on them. Otherwise even more mistakes will be made.

Re:Confused?

[Bastian]

You have it right. I used to go to a school which used RFID keycards to open doors. In that particular case, it wasn't even a matter of inches - the card had to be within about two centimeters of the reader.

It would take a heck of a lot more juice than what those readers put out to make something that's actually useful for reading these passport chips remotely. Assuming the effective range on the readers I've used was exactly 2cm, the inverse square law tells us that doubling the power my chip out (and keepin the reader's receiver at the same power) would increase the range to 2.83cm, quadrupling it would get us to 4cm, octupling it would get us up to 5.66cm. . . and by the time you get to the point where a potential passport snooper isn't making himself *really* suspicious by running around an airport waving his briefcase next to everyone's baggage, you've got yourself quite an RFID reader. And then you throw on the shielding that's being put into these RFID passports and it's back to square one.

Not saying it's impossible to make a device that effectively identifies Americans by their passports, just saying that everyone should probably put their tinfoil hats on now because a device like that would probably give you one heck of a headache.

Re:Confused?

[RedOregon]

Fer cryin' out loud, people, RTFA!!! An inch? Try 160 feet!!! RTFA!

Re:Confused?

[Shaper_pmp]

It's only passive until you bring it within range of a receiver.

That's secure in the same way as an object that's only invisible until you look at it, or a door that's only locked until you try the handle.

Passive RFID chips are likely harder to detect at range than active ones (for obvious reasons), but no-one's answered the question yet: Why do we need ranged querying at all?

Much, much safer would be a normal smart-card chip (like the one in your credit card) that requires physical contact to read anything. Frankly, once somone's got their hands on your passport it doesn't matter if it's a smart-card or normal paper one - they can easily find out things about you from it (or just nick it) at that point.

Allowing ranged querying seems to offer no really compelling benefits, and opens up a whole can of worms on issues like personal security, remotely tracking/identifying people without their knowledge, you name it.

Re:Confused?

[Anonymous Coward]

The distance is more like 69 feet.

See http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=191202&cid =15719109

Re:Confused?

[cmeans]

Yes, I agree, an even simpler approach.

Though I do still like the idea of extra biometric security before the passport gives up it's data.

Re:Confused?

[Chineseyes]

This only half correct it depends on the operating frequency of the rfid tag and reader. High frequency rfid tags operate at longer ranges and lower frequency rfid tags operate at shorter ranges nothing new there. But you are correct provided that if you use a passive rfid tag that operates in the 200-250MHz range you are going to be relatively safe from having your tag read unless someone brushes up against your wallet with an rfid reader.

Re:Confused?

[crossmr]

you ever been on the subway?

Re:Confused?

[Sam Legend]

The encryption bears no difference to the bomb programmed to blow you up.It can as easily identify you as 'John Smith' or 'G/)#weY347wTf'.

Re:Confused?

[drinkypoo]

As I understand it, RFID cards don't do anything until they're exposed to an electromagnetic field, which gives them just enough juice to fire off a message, usually an identity code. Unless I've been completely misinformed, you'd have to generate quite the field to even have a chance of reading one of these things at a distance.

You can use off the shelf hardware to read RFID tags at ranges up to something like 100 meters. You should be able to do a very good job at 50 meters. You will need an antenna with a whole bunch of gain, and it will be very directional. It's also not cheap, or amazingly small, but I'm quite sure you could fit everything you needed into a suitcase.

People thought the same thing about bluetooth; remember that bluetooth "sniper rifle"? They were hacking people hundreds of yards away. This is much lower power, but you can still do it at range with sufficient gain.

Not to mention, if you just put readers in doorways, you've got a maximum range of about a foot and a half to deal with, and that's cake. How many doorways do you pass through in a day?

Re:Confused?

[katsiris]

Since RFID tags use the transmitting signal to send a reply, the strength and therefore distance that it will transmit or echo is dependant largely on the signal of the detector. Obviously the tags themselves can't rebroadcast an infinitely large signal, but the fact that you needed to get close to the doors at your school is a design feature of the doors and not a limitation of the technology. After all, they don't want doors unlocking just because someone is walking by...

Re:Confused?

[drinkypoo]

Assuming the effective range on the readers I've used was exactly 2cm, the inverse square law tells us that doubling the power my chip out (and keepin the reader's receiver at the same power) would increase the range to 2.83cm, quadrupling it would get us to 4cm, octupling it would get us up to 5.66cm

...and using an antenna with different gain would completely invalidate your math, making your entire comment utterly devoid of interesting or useful information.

Re:Confused?

[dorkygeek]

On top of that, the diameter of the antenna also has to scale with the distance to the chip. The larger the distance, the larger the antenna you need to read out the RFID chip.

Re:Confused?

[dorkygeek]

Exactly! And the higher the frequency, the less it can penetrate through e.g. water. And since the body is made of approx. 90% of water, you also make a great shield if the reader should happen to be on the other side of a person.

Re:Confused?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

by the time you get to the point where a potential passport snooper isn't making himself *really* suspicious by running around an airport waving his briefcase next to everyone's baggage, you've got yourself quite an RFID reader.

Of all the possible threat models, you've picked the least likely. If you are in an airport you can probably just look at the guy's luggage tags.

No, the threat is out in the real world where there is plenty of opportunity to disguise super-huge equipment. Like a doorway where the entire frame is a field generator and detector and the target is still only a few inches away, or the entire trunk of the car parked along the roadside, or along the sidewalk where the wall of that warehouse you are strolling by is just a thin piece of wood and on the other side is a some big-ass (and relatively cheap since there is no need to miniaturize) detection equipment.

Not saying it's impossible to make a device that effectively identifies Americans by their passports, just saying that everyone should probably put their tinfoil hats on now because a device like that would probably give you one heck of a headache.

Yeah, because humans have that 6th sense - the one that lets us detect EM waves. If you are lucky, maybe your watch will stop working, or your cell phone will drop a call and crash. Neither of which are particularly obvious clues to the layman that he's been whacked with a ton of EM.

BTW, here's a guy demonstrating a system to detect these RFIDs from at least 50 ft and who claims it goes a lot further. Note that whether or not he actually reads any of the data from the RFID is irrelevant, the fact that you've got one in the first place is plenty of information all on its own. http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/000798 .html

Re:Confused?

[dorkygeek]

For which you presumably need very high power and a really big antenna (as a rule of thumb, distance r between chip and reader equals to antenna diameter of r). Furthermore, the orientation of the tag to the antenna matters as well (you know, if the RFID's chip antenna is tilted 90 degrees with respect to the orientation of the reader's antenna, nothing can be read).

This all makes it extremely difficult to read out tags unnoticed from more than a feet away.

For theoretical background, read How to Build a Low-Cost, Extended-Range RFID Skimmer by Kirschenbaum and Wool.

Re:Confused?

[YrWrstNtmr]

I think you'd probably notice if he started rubbing you with his suitcase.

Subways & buses
embed the reader in the seat of a taxi
Ever been in a line at a German grocery store meat counter?
Clubs & bars.

Re:Confused?

[ChaosDiscord]

As I understand it, RFID cards don't do anything until they're exposed to an electromagnetic field, which gives them just enough juice to fire off a message, usually an identity code.

They can broadcast whatever they like. In the case of passports, it's much of the information in your passport: name, gender, birthdate, nationality. Several countries are trying to get various forms of biometric information, especially your passport photo.

Unless I've been completely misinformed, you'd have to generate quite the field to even have a chance of reading one of these things at a distance. I know that my RFID card doesn't work until it's within a coupla inches of the appropriate reader.

That's because there is no good reason for, say, an RFID door key reader to detect keys furthere away than a few inches. Any further and you risk someone loitering near the door accidentally letting a bad guy in.

If you're actively interested in reading RFID at a distance, the rules change. The theft detectors in stores are all RFID and some have ranges of 5 or so feet. At least one group has developed tech capable of reading RFID at 69-feet. (Sadly the 1, 2.) It's a big rig, but small enough to hide in the trunk of a large car.

The whole "it's broadcasting all of your personal information!!!!" hype is a bunch of FUD. The only way it could really be a security risk is if the card itself was stolen, and then it's really no different than having your S.S. card or driver's license stolen.

It's broadcasting most of the information in your passport: name, date of birth, gender, nationality. The last one is perhaps the most important. Want to kill some Americans, but don't want to be nearby when it happens? Plant a bomb attached to an RFID reader. You don't need 69 feet of range, 10 or so will be plenty. When it detects 2 or more American passports nearby, explode. Looking for an American to kidnap? Future versions are likely going to be broadcasting a low-resolution version of your passport photo. Set up a scanner in your backpack and wander around.

Only because people raised concerns like this the passport design was modified with a shield in the front cover. If the passport is closed, in theory no data is broadcast. That reduces the exposure, which is good, but isn't perfect. If you're in a foreign country you need to display your passport occasionally: airports, checking into hotels, and the like. The window of exposure is smaller, but not zero.

Re:Confused?

[natet]

You are basing your assumptions on the fact that there will be no advances in the technology involved with RFID readers. The fact that you had to be within a very short range for your school tag to be read doesn't mean that it will always be the case, or that your school didn't just go with cheap tech instead of a nicer reader. Further, the field to power the tag itself may be small, but what's the broadcast range of the tag? Could someone with a passive reader pick up the signal from your tag being read at a border? The research mentioned in the article seems to indicate this is possible.

Now, I must point out, that this article is based on old assumptions. As someone else pointed out, Bruce Schneier has been talking about these passports for some time, and has provided a number of suggestions to the government about how it can handle many of the issues he has raised. The current implementation calls for shielding in the covers of the passport that would render it unreadable when closed. If that works as advertised, then many of the issues that Bruce has with the passports are nullified.

Re:Confused?

[dorkygeek]

See my reply to the post you linked to. Since the diameter of the antenna is approx. directly proportional to its reading range, you'd also need an antenna which is 69 feet in diameter here. Not something you can carry in your pocket to sniff around in the airport or on the subway...

Re:Confused?

[dorkygeek]

You are basing your assumptions on the fact that there will be no advances in the technology involved with RFID readers. The fact that you had to be within a very short range for your school tag to be read doesn't mean that it will always be the case, or that your school didn't just go with cheap tech instead of a nicer reader.

Have you ever heard of something called "the laws of physics"? They can't be broken, you know, not even by the marketing department...

Re:Confused?

[BigCheese]

> Why do we need ranged querying at all?

So some government contractor can make an obscene amount of money.

There are cheaper solutions without the security issues.

Re:Confused?

[MrSquirrel]

So they're going to target ANY RFID tag? Well aside from the fact that there're many other things with RFID tags, still comes the problem of scanning it (range on battery-less passive tags is very low and scanners to pick them up from a distance would have to be huge)... Even if a terrorist/criminal is going to go through the effort of getting a massive RFID scanner powerful enough to scan for ID tags at a distance they would still have to basically guess whether the person they were pointing at was an American or just a European carrying something with an RFID tag (assuming they're white). Without breaking the encryption, they won't know whether it's a passport, laptop, or what-not that the scanner is picking up.

Re:Confused?

[reed]

Ever taken a bus or subway?

Re:Confused?

[Conare]

And a happy RTFA to you. Let's just try your suggestion shall we? Ah! here is an interesting tidbit Mr. Troll - "ID thieves who figure out a way around the security precaution on RFID passports, which includes anti-skimming material in the cover" So actually an inch is terribly optimistic. More like 0 inches really. Unless you open the passport, in which case you undergo the same risk that you do from hidden cameras and fanatics with binoculars and detonators.

Re:Confused?

[vadim_t]

Have you ever heard of something called a "cell phone"? We easily communicate with towers that are hundreds of meters away.

Just because your door uses power in the milliwatt range doesn't mean it'd be hard to build a 1W version of the device. And I bet it can be made in a cell phone sized format, too, nothing very large.

Re:Confused?

[Bender0x7D1]

Have you heard of directional antennas? What about antenna arrays?

These are techniques that don't require "breaking" the laws of physics. They involve sneaky humans looking for ways around them. The Voyager spacecrafts send signals that can be detected billions of miles away. It takes several large antennas to detect the signal, but it can be read from that far away.

So, before you whip out your laws of physics, why don't you read about how we have worked around them. If you had bothered to read TFA, you would have noticed this bit:

In 2005, a researcher at Cambridge extended the range to about 160 feet while successfully accessing a contactless smart card's details.

Or does Cambridge exist in a different space-time continuum?

Re:Confused?

[Bender0x7D1]

If you had RTFA, you would have discovered that the range increases to a couple feet. I'm sure when you are standing in line at the airport you noticed all of the people who are walking past carrying briefcases or even larger pieces of luggage.

All you would have to do is walk into the airport at one end with your big rolling suitcase, walk past all the people standing in lines and walk-out the other end of the concourse. Sure, you didn't get everyone's information, but you got information from several hundred passengers.

Since you have an RFID card, I assume it is for work. How often do you carry it when you go out for lunch? Do you always notice the people in the booth/at the table next to you and what they are carrying? When I worked at a large corporation I could go to any of the nearby restaurants and find dozens of employees, with their badges on, all with access to the buildings. If I wanted, I could walk to my table, read a few badges, eat, encode an RFID chip and enter the restricted buildings that afternoon.

RFID cards are a nice convenience, but security-wise they are horrible. I would only use them if all communications are encrypted and it required two-way authentication. Much easier to issue a card with a magnetic strip that also requires a PIN. Even without a PIN, at least it can't be read without physical access to the card.

Re:Confused?

[natet]

So, what you're saying is that improvements in technolgy never make it possible to do things better. So radio recievers from 60 years ago are just as effective and useful as radio recievers today? What I said had nothing to do with the laws of physics, and everything to do with the technology that is available. Reading RFID tags at distances greater than inches is already being done, as pointed out by TFA. Even advanced as it is, there is still room for improvement in the area of signal processing and radio recievers.

Re:Confused?

[bbhack]

As I understand it, RFID cards don't do anything until they're exposed to an electromagnetic field, which gives them just enough juice to fire off a message, usually an identity code. Unless I've been completely misinformed, you'd have to generate quite the field to even have a chance of reading one of these things at a distance. I know that my RFID card doesn't work until it's within a coupla inches of the appropriate reader. The whole "it's broadcasting all of your personal information!!!!" hype is a bunch of FUD. The only way it could really be a security risk is if the card itself was stolen, and then it's really no different than having your S.S. card or driver's license stolen.

Distance snooping is a real possibility. The RF reader does not have to supply the energizing RF field to power the chip. If you put you RFID tag next to a reader, someone can snoop that with a directional antenna from a good distance.

Re:Confused?

[jonadab]

> I used to go to a school which used RFID keycards to open doors. In that particular case, it
> wasn't even a matter of inches - the card had to be within about two centimeters of the reader.

Cheap reader. It's easily possible to make one that can read from a foot away or more.

What really should be done, if RFID tags are used in passports, is that the passport booklet should be shielded on the cover, so that the tag can only be read when it's open. Then it doesn't matter how powerful the bad guys' readers are unless they're operating at a place where you have to show your passport -- in which case, they could probably read it anyway, with hidden cameras if nothing else, so the RFID wouldn't be introducing any major new problems.

Re:Confused?

[JudgeDredd]

You have it right. I used to go to a school which used RFID keycards to open doors. In that particular case, it wasn't even a matter of inches - the card had to be within about two centimeters of the reader.

Actually, he has it wrong. RFID can be read from quite a ways away. The activation distance can be chosen based on the implementation. The distance can be chosen based on the signal strength of the RFID response. They don't want the door to be opened just from you walking near it, they want to be sure that you intended to unlock the door.

As a concrete example, my Esso Speedpass used to activate the gas pump from 6 to 12 inches away. Later, they changed it to about 1 inch. I assume it was reduced to prevent unintended activations.

Re:Confused?

[fuzz6y]

Yeah, because humans have that 6th sense - the one that lets us detect EM waves.
I've got a sixth sense that lets me detect EM waves. Well, if you start numbering from 2. It doesn't work for the RFID wavelengths, but it seems to be correctly calibrated for the current generation of passport-reading devices.

Re:Confused?

[Jherek Carnelian]

Much, much safer would be a normal smart-card chip (like the one in your credit card) that requires physical contact to read anything.

This is america, we aren't that smart.

Seriously - Chip & PIN does not exist in any detectable quantity over here..

Re:Confused?

[dorkygeek]

Yeah, then show me how big their antenna was, how much power they needed, and if there were any obstacles between the reader and the chip, and if the target was moving... Then please come back and tell me how such an artificial setup can be translated into a real-life threat.

Re:Confused?

[Anonymous Coward]

"As I understand it, RFID cards don't do anything until they're exposed to an electromagnetic field, which gives them just enough juice to fire off a message, usually an identity code."

The chips used for the passport need to do 3DES operations for secure messaging. These kind of chips are fully featured CPU's, with 1 or 2 crypto-processors (symetric and a-symetric encryption). They run in the tens of MHz. They don't have a lot of EEPROM/RAM memory or peripherals though. This may quickly change in the future (flash, MRAM). But for high end chips, your "identity code" may be an encrypted blob of 64 KB or more. This is enough for holding your facial image or fingerprints. So, all in all, you are wrong.

Re:Confused?

[dasdrewid]

From the article:

The equipment needed to skim an RFID chip neither has to be large nor expensive. Nokia sells cell phones capable of reading RFID chips. Texas Instruments sells kits to do the same thing.

In May, researchers at the University of Tel Aviv created a skimmer from electronics hobbyist kits costing less than $110. The equipment was small enough to fit into a briefcase or be disguised in any manner of luggage or clothes that could hide the 15-inch copper tube antenna.

...

In 2005, a researcher at Cambridge extended the range to about 160 feet while successfully accessing a contactless smart card's details.

And frankly, I don't really care if anyone can tell I'm an American. I'm Texan. I've got Texas this and Texas that all over the place, and a drawl that makes it seems like it's not even English anymore. If it took you an RFID chip to figure out where I was from, then I'm really not worried about you actually being able to figure out who to use that information.

I'm worried about what's stored on the chips. I know, by treaty, that the US Passports will eventually carry biometric data, starting with a digital picture, and expanding beyond. The thought that someone could, eventually, get my fingerprint from 160 feet away is somewhat diquieting. The thought that someone could see my name, face, and home address as I drive past in a darkened taxi is, frankly, terrifying.

Re:Confused?

[Dracophile]

As I understand it, RFID cards don't do anything until they're exposed to an electromagnetic field, which gives them just enough juice to fire off a message, usually an identity code. Unless I've been completely misinformed, you'd have to generate quite the field to even have a chance of reading one of these things at a distance. I know that my RFID card doesn't work until it's within a coupla inches of the appropriate reader.

The whole "it's broadcasting all of your personal information!!!!" hype is a bunch of FUD. The only way it could really be a security risk is if the card itself was stolen, and then it's really no different than having your S.S. card or driver's license stolen.

*ahem* Electronic tolls seem to work at a distance of 5m or more.

Re:Confused?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The reader is cheap, the transmitter is low-power. RF changes its behavior quite a bit when you change those assumptions.

The RFID tags have protocols to keep them all from talking at once, so you can read more than one at a go. If the government were motivated by efficiency, they could
o Run a wire the length of the ceiling in the Customs building (assuming LF or HF) to light up the RFID chips
o Use a sensitive reader or put everyone in a line and aim a high-gain antenna (assuming HF) at them
and read everybody at once.

>The only way it could really be a security risk is if the card itself was stolen

Or if someone bumps into you, the way pickpockets do, except an RFID thief wouldn't have to risk reaching into your pocket.

Re:Confused?

[generikz]

Yes, slightly confused just because people keep referring to ePassport as RFID (passive memory chip with limited cpu commands, anti-cloning functions, etc.) The idea was to take these inexpensive micro-memory chips and wire an antenna to them for traceability... but ePassport are _not_ RFID!

ePassport are made from contactless microchips which are more like a little computer with contactless capabilities. DES, 3DES, AES, RSA, SHA, etc. are all inboard. Please take a look at the ISO 14443 specification. The first round of commands in contactless are called "anticollision" and do not disclose anything about the nationality of the owner.

Then you need to get challenged/challenge the card to establish a secure channel for communication. This is done using a key linked to your passport which is simply... the information you get when you swipe the MRZ (Machine Readable Zone, the digits/letters below your picture) at the aiport. It means that to get access to your personal information on the chip you *already have to show your passport opened*.

There is no way I can guess you nationality by probing your passport if it's protected by the BAC (Basic Access Control) simple protocol. Some early passports were not though (like Belgium). For the past few months, all passports are now BAC-protected.

Re:Confused?

[Bender0x7D1]

From TFA:
In May, researchers at the University of Tel Aviv created a skimmer from electronics hobbyist kits costing less than $110. The equipment was small enough to fit into a briefcase or be disguised in any manner of luggage or clothes that could hide the 15-inch copper tube antenna.

So their antenna is 15-inches. From this brief description, it seems they tried it in a briefcase, so the material of the briefcase was an obstacle. Having the target moving at walking pace is negligible. A range of a few feet takes 1-2 seconds to travel, and RFID powers up and sends data much faster than that. As for a power source... My cell phone can send radio signals several miles, through concrete walls with a small battery. This is on the same order of power. In fact, there are cell phones that come with RFID readers.

If you are really wondering if it is a real-world threat, keep in mind that researchers are doing "walk-by" readings all the time - others are building devices that read from much farther away. Just look up some of the research. A device doesn't need to be small if I can fit it in the back of a van and drive by an airport - all those doors and glass aren't a big obstacle to the radio waves.

Re:Confused?

[Shaper_pmp]

Jesus, really? Still, neither does RFID, yet - why phase in one insecure, potentially-dangerous technology over a safer, tried-and-tested one?

Hows about..

[kickedfortrolling]

What if they just transmit the pasport number, a unique but largely useless reference? that way legit people can use it to check against records, and illigit people are buggered. I personally would prefer a chip in my arm so i dont need to bother carrying a passport/driving licence etc, and i'd certainly have all criminals tagged.. wait.. i mean branded.. Think of it as a VFID

Re:Hows about..

[Anonymous Coward]

For even more convenience and increased security, the ID number could be the same as your Social Security number.

Re:Hows about..

[Rob T Firefly]

legit people can use it to check against records, and illigit people are buggered

For someone sitting around with the gear to query RFIDs for illicit puurposes, getting any response at all is a good thing. Even if it's a useless string, the fact that it's there paints you as an American national with your passport on you. There are very many ways to exploit that information.

Re:Hows about..

[LanMan04]

The problem is, what if someone managed to get their fake passport to respond with *your* passport ID?

Now they can impersonate you, and when that person's crimes come back to you, the cops will say "We know it was you, those passport chips are unhackable!" It makes no sense, an optical (2D barcode or something similar) system would make MUCH more sense.

Re:Hows about..

[b0s0z0ku]

What if they just transmit the pasport number, a unique but largely useless reference?

I suspect that the length of a passport number or the structure might identify the passport holder as an American...

-b.

Re:Hows about..

[kickedfortrolling]

Im sure people could fake my passport without it ever leaving my room, are passports a secure enough concept regardless of media?

I read that the UK DVLA no longer needs to see your passport to verfiy id, and to get your photo and signiture, so thats all stored somewhere just waiting to be hacked

Re:Hows about..

[kickedfortrolling]

Thats a flaw in the present system. Doesnt have to be a problem with a new system

Re:Hows about..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the "unique but largely useless reference" will probably be USA-0123456789 for Americans.

Re:Hows about..

[Elros]

That would require changing a few laws. There's a very limited set of people that can use a SSN. If I remember correctly, it's something like employers, lenders, and the IRS. There may be others, but I'm sure that you can't use a SSN as a generic ID number.

Re:Hows about..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah man, double-plus good...

Re:Hows about..

[Anonymous Coward]

dont fucking call me a troll just because i post Something You dont agree with

Re:Hows about..

[kickedfortrolling]

As someone else posted, most americans are fairly conspicuous anyway. At very worst, RFID's make the process quicker, but its no different to mugging someone for their passport, breaking into their room, stealing their briefcase. Why carry ID if you dont want to be identified?

I know these are popular views on slashdot, but im not trolling. i genuinely think this is an idea to be considered. call me a fool if u want, but not a troll

Re:Hows about..

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no law prohibiting me or my company from asking you for your SSN and refusing to do business with you if you refuse to provide it.

Employers and lenders need to collect your number so that money transactions the IRS is interested in can be reported. Others can ask for the number and store it however they like.

Heck, here's your number: 173-54-5439

Re:Hows about..

[Rob T Firefly]

As someone else posted, most americans are fairly conspicuous anyway.

But, it's not compulsory.

Why carry ID if you dont want to be identified?

Carrying ID usually is necessary, at least when travelling, but when it's not immediately needed you have the choice whether to keep it tucked away in a pocket, or paste it to your forehead and install a system of glowing neon arrows pointing to it while shouting your name, rank and serial number through a megaphone.

Re:Hows about..

[kickedfortrolling]

or paste it to your forehead and install a system of glowing neon arrows pointing to it while shouting your name, rank and serial number through a megaphone.

-Its RFID or nothing, i aint subsidising megaphones and glowing arrows

Maybe your right, it just always irritates me when ideas like this are dismissed without real cause on grounds like privacy. A bit like people who stop thinking about viri as soon as they install an antivirus, i think its probably quite dangerous to let people think there info is secure just beacuse they avoid RFID.

Thinking about it, i dont know or have any idea how i'd test to see if my passport has RFID. I might already be being cloned

RFID security

[joe 155]

I know that having your personal data stolen isn't any fun, it'll be worse if they put biometric data in there as well (I don't know what data the US passports currently have, in the UK we'll be having that put in soon). but for me a bigger concern is that they can be infected with a virus, which could quite easily be used to cause havok with the computers at airports and possibly bring the whole system down... the register reported on the proof of concept here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/15/rfid_tags_ infected_by_virus/

Re:RFID security

[IAmTheDave]

Yes, but this and other arguments don't matter, because the RFID lobby paid more than you did.

Re:RFID security

[maxume]

What's wrong with hashed and signed biometric data? All it does is make it a whole lot harder to forge a passport or impersonate someone else. Simply including the biometric data doesn't help with authentication, but it makes it a whole lot more likely that the credential a person is carrying was made specifically for them. It leaves the issue of who made it open, but it doesn't really create any problems for the carrier.

I will add though, that I don't really see what the benefits of this program are.

Re:RFID security

[hclyff]

These so called 'viruses' are actually chunks of SQL planted in backend database via SQL injection. This method assumes that the database software concats (fprints()s, ...) unescaped strings to produce SQL queries, which, I hope, is the favourite method for hobbyists, not professionals worth their salt. And even if such crappy software finds it way to the server, it can be patched easily when problems occur.

Re:RFID security

[Quadraginta]

In principle the benefits are that if you're Muhammed al-Boom -- male, age 27, height 5' 10", weight 165, scruffy beard -- trying to enter the country with a stolen US passport, the biometric data that pops up on the screen when you swipe the passport -- female, Asian, age 65, height 5' 2", weight 140, wearing thick glasses -- will suggest something odd to even the most harried, incompetent or distracted border agent, who will then be inclined to take you aside and ask you to open that curiously heavy briefcase you're carrying.

Re:RFID security

[hcob$]

Kind of difficult to impregnate an ASIC with a virus since these will most likely be unique serial numbers burned into a chip.

Re:RFID security

[maxume]

Muhammed al-Boom is not going to try to enter the country legitimately, and if he is worth worrying about, he will lose the beard.

I get that it makes a passport harder to forge or mess with, but fake passports are far from the biggest border security issue.

Re:RFID security

[Quadraginta]

Muhammed al-Boom is not going to try to enter the country legitimately...

Don't be silly. All of the 9/11 hijackers did. The guy nabbed in Canada in the "Millenium Plot" was trying to. If you're trying to do secret stuff that could get you sent to the gas chamber if caught, it's not smart to risk calling attention to yourself by sneaking across the border illegally in the dead of night. Much better to walk in with a firm step and a three-piece suit on, looking like you belong, courtesy of a passport stolen from a clueless American college student abroad.

And if new security features mean the only reasonable way to get into the country when you're up to no good is to walk across the Sonoran desert for a day and a half and then hitchhike 500 miles to your destination -- why, that sounds like a net plus to me. National security is little different from computer network security: it has to be a many-layered defense, with no one layer guaranteeing complete security, but each layer making it just a bit harder for the bad guys to penetrate.

If he is worth worrying about, he will lose the beard.

No doubt. But he'll have a harder time losing the extra 3" of height, or changing his facial features to look Asian or Caucasian.

fake passports are far from the biggest border security issue.

And so? Must the State Department only address issues in strict order of their priority? They can't implement a cheap 'n' easy solution to moderately-important problem Y because no one's yet thought of a solution to big and nasty problem X? Like, we shouldn't try to develop vaccines against influenza because we haven't cured cancer yet?

Re:RFID security

[maxume]

Echinaceae doesn't prevent the flu or cancer, but people still take it because they think it makes them feel better...

Just one more justification...

[ralf1]

For my new lead lined briefcase. Who cares if it weighs 125 pounds.

Re:Just one more justification...

[Memnos]

That's why I always travel in my lead-lined softly cushioned "mobile sleeping unit", tastefully outfitted on the outside in a rich Cherrywood finish, with an easily opened top cover and a sunlight sensor on the outside. I also carry some dirt from my central European ethnic homeland to help me remember who I am. And I stay away from garlic.

Re:Just one more justification...

[drydiggins]

Coming soon from the Sharper Image and Brookstone: A beryllium copper mesh tote for your passport. Us old radio farts call it a "Faraday Shield"

good business opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to start my business for "ePassport Sleeves" Put in a gaussian shield, and nothing to worrk about.

Re:good business opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear US Patent office..

Re:Good Business Opportunity

[scaryjohn]

But if Canada doesn't also start horse-tagging its people, you'll still need a bottle of Molson to say "I AM CANADIAN!"

The chips may as well say, "I voted for Kerry."

Re:Good Business Opportunity

[tehcyder]

This gives me a great idea for a new business opportunity! Sell RFID tags to American tourists that broadcast to the world "I AM A CANADIAN"

You wouldn't want to wear it around any groups of technologically proficient seals though, eh?

Re:Good Business Opportunity

[dr_dank]

It could be sold as part of the Canadian Disguise Kit, containing:

$50 in Canadian Tire Money
Milk in a bag
Those Groucho glasses with the fake nose and moustache on them (trust me on this)
Ticket stubs from a recent Gordon Lightfoot concert
and a mini Canadian phrase book

Re:good business opportunity

[michaelaiello]

Actually I started a company that does just that a little over a year ago. RFID Blocking wallets and passport cases. http://www.difrwear.com/ -All the best.

Re:good business opportunity

[xtrat]

Cool :) I'm saving up for the pink wallet!

What's the range?

[gasmonso]

How far are you broadcasting in the first place? If its like 10 feet who cares? Now in good practice, whenever I travel I leave my passport in the safe at the hotel. Not really a good idea to walk around with it ;)

http://religiousfreaks.com/

Re:What's the range?

[LimDesWein]

I'm pretty sure you are supposed to have your passport on you at all times when traveling abroad.

Re:What's the range?

[gasmonso]

No way, if you lose it or it gets stolen, then you have some problems. I've been all over Europe and China and that's what worked the best. No problems :)

Re:What's the range?

[blindbug]

A problem with this statement is that it is *theoretically* possible to read short-range RFID tags at longer distances. There are already companies (and hackers) creating tools to read at distances of around 25 feet for active RFIDs and 10ft. for passive. RFID Readers can also emit signals out to 100 feet to activate the card, although they cannot read it. Since short-range readers are relatively small, you could work as a team, 1 person pushing out an activation signal at ranges of 100+ feet away, and another person waiting in line or walking next to you to read the information.

A high-tech game of pick-pocket.

Re:What's the range?

[Burlap]

you are, two of my co-workers were rather "rudely" treated when they thought they could walk around with just a photocopy and were stoped at a military checkpoint.

and even 10 feet is pletny of range, hang out at a tourist trap, wait for your RFID reader to go off, find the american in the crowd and swipe their wallet/purse for the nice little greenbacks therein... in fact for targeted crimes, a smaller radius would be worse as it would make it easier for them to pick you out (unless we are talking a few cm)

Re:What's the range?

[karandago]

How far are you broadcasting in the first place? If its like 10 feet who cares?

Ten feet is huge though. I figure a good distance is between one and three inches. Anything beyond that and a digital pickpocket could just walk around with a RFID reader in a briefcase and collect passport information.

My ATM card now has a RFID chip in it for use at gas pumps and cash registers and the like. I don't see what's preventing a digital pickpocket from stealing my card information while my card is in my pocket. Anyone bold enough to bump into me and steal my wallet is bold enough to bump me with a briefcase and steal my card number. I wouldn't even know that my information was stolen until I saw my bank statement.

Re:What's the range?

[tehcyder]

Now in good practice, whenever I travel I leave my passport in the safe at the hotel

That always has too much of a "please surrender your passport while our friendly secret police check up on it" vibe about it to me.

Re:What's the range?

[hosecoat]

It would be scary if they managed to use the rfid as a detonator for a small bomb. It would bw like an american only activated landmine.

Re:What's the range?

[Sloppy]

How far are you broadcasting in the first place? If its like 10 feet who cares?

What a convenient tool for implementing an application named "proximity fuse."

Re:What's the range?

[moracity]

That's foolish. You are supposed to have your passport on you at all times. If you are in a hotel with a safe, you should leave a photocopy of your passport in the safe. You should have also left a photocopy of it with someone back home. You should never leave any original passport/id/credit cards at a hotel, even if it's in one of those hotel safes. You think someone can't get into those?

Only fools walk around anywhere in the world with no ID. If you have no ID, you do not exist and no one will miss you when you "disappear". You are far more likely to be asked/questioned for your ID in Europe than you are in the U.S.

For all the crying in U.S about fascism and privacy concerns, police in Europe have far more power than those in the U.S. Our police also don't run around with machine guns slung over their shoulders either. I'm tired of ignorant Americans pointing to Europe as some shining example of freedom. I enjoy Europe immensely, but their restrictions on freedom haven't changed in 200 hundred years. If you remember, this is one of the reasons people left Europe and settled the New World.

I'm also tired of peons thinking that the government is out to find secretly find out everything about you. Oh no!!! RFID on my PASSPORT!! It's the end of the world!! News flash: THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU AND YOUR PITIFUL LIFE. YOU ARE NOTHING. They already know everything they need to know. You cannot function in the U.S without voluntarily giving up basic information about yourself. The governement needs things like RFID in passports for far less paranoid reasons: 1) because it's a buzzword and 2) the governement full of idiot worker bee's with a union-mindset that can't be trusted to do anything right.

All of you crackpots give the government more credit than they deserve. In fact, I think you are all government agents trying to convince the public that the government actually knows what it's doing. If you know anyone on the inside, you know that it's really a zoo and the animals are running amuck.

Re:What's the range?

[technothrasher]

you are, two of my co-workers were rather "rudely" treated when they thought they could walk around with just a photocopy and were stoped at a military checkpoint.
 
Yes, I always do the opposite. I take the passport and leave the photocopy in the hotel.

Re:What's the range?

[Phillup]

What a convenient tool for implementing an application named "proximity fuse."

Better yet "minimum target count".

Place a bomb at desired location... have it count the number of 'mericans in the vicinity... when the number exceeds a certain threshold... detonate.

Cool new way to make sure you don't waste explosive!

Other variations abound.

Place bomb inside but trigger at doorway. Count number of individuals that pass through door. Detonate when target amount reached. Of course this method can't account for persons leaving vs. entering... but you get the idea.

Hey... you could even have it wait for a specific passport! Great for those times when you need to knock off someone and collect insurance while making it look like random violence.

Gotta remember to thank the state department for such a convenient tool...

Passports & Immigration

[neonprimetime]

"Basically, you've given everybody a little radio-frequency doodad that silently declares 'Hey, I'm a foreigner,'"

Whenever I have questions about Passports or Immigrations, I always say WWFD (What Would Fez Do?)

I am a free man

[LiquidCoooled]

Barring the bloody obvious target painted on you, they say in the article:

They'll have radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and are meant to cut down on human error of immigration officials, speed the processing of visitors and safeguard against counterfeit passports.

Human error will still occur in whichever system a human is involved in.

Couldn't they get all the same benefits with a simple barcode?
Does the RFID hold just your ID number for lookup on the database or is the RFID part now full identification?

I hope this doesn't go ahead (like the UK now isn't going ahead with its ID scheme) because whilst RFID might make tracking warehouse stock easy, its not great for humans.
Just because the technology exists doesn't mean we should use it for everything.

Re:I am a free man

[Coopjust]

If it's made by humans, it isn't perfect. Most RFID tags are just a unique identifier which is a lookep for a database. You could put such information on a 3D barcode- look at the back of your drivers lic. It holds all the info on the front and is easily scanned, yet it isn't vulnerable from a distance.

Re:I am a free man

[Aladrin]

They'll have radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and are meant to cut down on human error of immigration officials, speed the processing of visitors and safeguard against counterfeit passports.

Sounds to me like it's an additional way to verify the identity, not a replacement. Assuming they use encryption/etc, it should be a lot harder to fake a passport.

Nothing will stop a determined counterfeiter, I'm sure, but the newbies won't be able to handle this.

Re:I am a free man

[Atzanteol]

Couldn't they get all the same benefits with a simple barcode?

That's a damned good question. The government has given absolutely zero reason why the chip on the passport needs to be accessed remotely. I'm sure there are plenty of solutions that would give the same information but require physical access to the passport. This is a stupid government "we're going to jump on a new technology because it is cool" trick.

The whole *point* of RFID was to replace barcodes because on assembly line like systems the barcodes must be aligned properly with a laser that reads them. RFIDs don't have this issue.

Re:I am a free man

[blackcoot]

take a look inside your passport some time, i expect you'll see a bunch of barcodes (mine does, although it's a south african passport that's about to expire. not sure what the newer passports look like these days).

Re:I am a free man

[nincehelser]

>Couldn't they get all the same benefits with a simple barcode?

No. Barcodes are trivial to forge.

RFID forging would take much more effort.

Re:I am a free man

[jackbird]

OK, then, a chip that requires electrical contact to be read, like you find in smart cards.

Re:I am a free man

[RosenSama]

Ahhh security by obscurity.

Re:I am a free man

[Haeleth]

take a look inside your passport some time, i expect you'll see a bunch of barcodes

Nope, not a single barcode anywhere on or inside my passport. The closest it gets is where all the information about my name, date of birth, etc. is repeated at the bottom of the back page in a more easily OCR'd format, but it's still all plain human-readable text.

However, my passport is 10 years old now. As you say, I expect things are quite different in the ones they issue today.

Re:I am a free man

[RosenSama]

Couldn't they get all the same benefits with a simple barcode?oes the RFID hold just your ID number for lookup on the database or is the RFID part now full identification?

I have read articles in the past that the RFID would contain some biometrics. Here are some (quickly googled) references.

Re:I am a free man

[Anonymous Coward]

a simple barcode is already on all old passports. rfid is an excuse for every country being able to DL your photo and details when you enter.

It's already here, my Australian passport has rfid. Been pondering whether to accidentally bend it.

Re:I am a free man

[General_Corto]

The barcode format is trivial to forge, but if you have a cryptographically signed (or preferably encrypted) 2D barcode, not so much.

If each country has, say, a 16kbit secret key that is used to sign 'passport issuing' certificates (which could be associated with specific staff if you wanted to be really paranoid), then you could confirm the keys up the signing chain and get at the data. All the nations publish their passport issuing public keys at the UN or something similar.

Is that so hard?

Re:I am a free man

[amliebsch]

But it's still trivially easy to copy a cryptographically valid barcode (say, from a legitimate stolen passport) to forged passports.

Re:I am a free man

[nincehelser]

>Is that so hard? Sure. You could do that. But I don't think a copy machine is going to care.

Re:I am a free man

[drinkypoo]

The whole *point* of RFID was to replace barcodes because on assembly line like systems the barcodes must be aligned properly with a laser that reads them.

That's not true. Not even remotely. The lasers can be aligned, through rotation. Barcodes can also be scanned optically (as in, a picture) and the data extracted from the image through software.

Re:I am a free man

[/dev/trash]

No you're not.

Re:I am a free man

[Atzanteol]

But it still has to be 'visible'. A package on a conveyor belt can't have it on the bottom, there can't be a sticker over it, etc.

I didn't mean to imply that there was a single laser that needed perfect orientation of the barcode...

Re:I am a free man

[MadEE]

The real problem becomes scanning a barcode 2 boxes deep in a pallet of 80 boxes. That is where RFIDs excell.

Re:I am a free man

[Phillup]

Assuming they use encryption/etc, it should be a lot harder to fake a passport.

Why fake a passport when it is so easy to steal a blank or bribe some low paid clerk into giving you one?

Hell... this will just make the lives of people using good fakes easier... because questioning the legitimacy of a passport becomes that much harder.

Re:I am a free man

[LiquidCoooled]

Its easy to copy the barcode identifier from my own passport, however its VERY tricky to modify its value so it displays your information and not mine when swiped.

Re:I am a free man

[tfrayner]

(like the UK now isn't going ahead with its ID scheme)

Um, yes it is. From October new passport applicants will be automatically entered on the National Identity Register. This is effectively the ID card scheme, without any of the "benefits" to you, the end user. All of the tracking with none of the crunchy empowerment of the citizen. The only people who won't be hit by this will be those who don't need a passport. Like my shiny new RFID-enabled one. What the hell happened to this country?

Re:I am a free man

[LiquidCoooled]

Actually, up until recently the register was planned for introduction in 2008 (they haven't built it yet so they can't store the required things in it).
Read this from the BBC in March of this year.

Then more recently (within the last week) the whole thing has been crumbling, read here for a short piece about it.

Re:I am a free man

[radtea]

Couldn't they get all the same benefits with a simple barcode?

I'm not a big fan of the whole universal RFID thing, but my experience with a chipped passport has been positive. I'm a Canadian scientific consultant, and have a TN visa for a job in the US that contains an RFID chip. I routinely cross the Canada/US border at one of the five crossings equiped with RFID readers.

The thing that it gives you that a bar code does not is the ability to read the thing before I get to customs. There are scanners at the stop line before the booth, so by the time I get to the booth the customs guy already has all my info in front of him.

This is all of a few seconds difference, but it is a big deal in the workflow, because the customs guy has those few seconds to "get to know" me. Psychologically, there is a big difference between having those few seconds in hand, vs having to read the information off the screen while I'm sitting there waiting. It creates a "handshake" phase to the interaction that speeds and smooths it.

So yeah, I think in this case there is some justification for RFID chips, but I'm a scurvy foreigner coming to the US as a guest-worker, not a citizen. I'd be a good deal less keen on having a chip as a permanent part of my passport.

Re:I am a free man

[linhux]

Does the RFID hold just your ID number for lookup on the database[...]

No, it holds all the data that is also printed in the passport, as well as additional biometrical information which can be (if I recall correctly) just a simple JPEG with your picture, or fingerprint data. Of course, more information is available on Wikipedia.

As a bonus, here's an interesting PDF regarding RFID passport security.

I myself have an RFID passport that I carry around most of the time (since I live in a foreign country and haven't bothered to get a valid local ID card yet). The first page of the passport is hard plastic, and if I hold it against a light source, I can see the antenna and chip.

Re:I am a free man

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a US passport in June and they do have barcodes in them, used for the exact same thing these RFID tags are used for, and it is pretty convenient. I didn't even have to deal with paper plane tickets on my trip to Mexico, Continental just scanned the barcode on my passport and let me on the plane.

Is This Madness?

[blueZhift]

Surely they cannot be unaware of how this could be exploited by those wishing to do harm to Americans, therefore I can only reach the conclusion that rfid passports are being pushed as a way for the government to ultimately track people in general. It would begin with being able to track foreigners and later as rfid makes its way into things like driver's licenses and auto plates, it could be used to track citizens. This is probably a goal of governments everywhere these days. First they'll tell you it's to stop terrorists, but with a flick of the switch, tracking citizens will be a breeze. I know the effective range is pretty short, but I can imagine that it would not be too hard for the government to build out an effective network, certainly in the most densely populated cities. It might even be able to piggy back on cell phone tower locations, so ordinary people wouldn't even know it was there. Ironically, true terrorists will be able to easily defeat this kind of tracking.

Re:Is This Madness?

[nincehelser]

That's just paranoia. It would be easier to track your cell phone.

Re:Is This Madness?

[dave420]

So make sure your government can't run away with technology. Make sure they're accountable for what they do. Otherwise we'd never adopt any technology, as it can all be used for evil. The ability to control the government allows society to adopt technology that could prove harmful. The government has a fucking ARMY - if they misused that, we'd be fucked a great deal more than if our passports could announce themselves over 10ft.

Re:Is This Madness?

[drinkypoo]

Soon everything will contain RFID tags. The most worrying locations I've heard of them being placed are in tires and the soles of shoes. both of these are happening already. The tire chips are supposedly for managing inventory and recalls, and the shoes are for inventory management. Either way, they'll be trivial to read as you pass over them.

Re:Is This Madness?

[Phillup]

I don't have a cell phone. (tho I did buy one of those pre-paid thingy's for my wife's car... but the batter is dead on it and she'd have to plug it in to the cigaret lighter to make it work)

But I do have a passport. (which I don't carry on me so you are right in that this is a poor method also)

Remember... defence in depth!

Re:Is This Madness?

[yoha]

That's right. It's quite simple. The government is developing a vast-worldwide conspiracy (chips, infrastructure, adminstrators) to track the movements of inconsequential people like yourself.

Or, the far more complicated reason, that they are looking for a low-cost way to limit counterfeiting.

Let's hear it for Occam!

Any part of the world?

[Anonymous Coward]

carrying around a little transmitter saying 'I'm an American! I'm an American!' isn't a fun and safe thing to do in all parts of the world

hmm. I'm torn between:

Dude, you so don't need a little transmitter for that. Didn't you know that when an American enters a foreign country, they are covered in an invisible (to Americans) dye. Everyone else in the world can see it thought. Obviously thats why Americans stand out a mile anywhere else in the world.

and correcting:

carrying around a little transmitter saying 'I'm an American! I'm an American!' isn't a fun and safe thing to do in many parts of the world

Good Business Opportunity

[Dr_LHA]

This gives me a great idea for a new business opportunity! Sell RFID tags to American tourists that broadcast to the world "I AM A CANADIAN".

What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[ConsumerOfMany]

Lets say you burn out the RFID using something like This

Will you still be allowed to travel with just the written portion of the passport. Hell, just go around burning up other peoples passports and the riots will soon begin in the security line....

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[jcupitt65]

The UK's ID card regulations include a £1,000 fine if you know your card to be defective but do not report it :-(

You will be required to attend an enrolment centre with some form of identifying material - bank statements, credit cards, driving licence or birth certificate, who knows what. Then you will be fingerprinted, photographed and the iris in your eye will be measured. You will give the authorities 49 pieces of information about yourself. If you don't, you may be fined up to £2,500. Additional fines of up to £2,500 may be levied every time you fail to comply.

If you fail to inform the police or Home Office when you lose your card, or if it becomes defective, you face a fine of up to £1,000. If you find someone else's card and do not immediately hand it in, you may have committed a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for up to two years, or a fine, or both. And you will be fined £1,000 if you fail to inform the NIR of any change of address. You will also be expected to tell the authorities your previous addresses. Truly the government will be able to say with all the menace of the underworld enforcer: "We know where you live."

If you don't inform the register of significant changes to your personal life, or any errors they have made, you will face a fine of up to £1,000. Astonishingly, you may also face a fine if you fail to submit to being reinterviewed, rephotographed, refingerprinted and rescanned.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1817436,00.h tml

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[ConsumerOfMany]

and just how would you know it was defective until you were scanned while attempting to travel?

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[jcupitt65]

You'd know it was defective if you'd used an RFID zapper on it :)

But you're right, if it's just sat too near your microwave and gone pop, you won't know until you next try to use it.

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully it looks like the UK ID card is getting canned for being too expensive and too complex.

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[Macthorpe]

Yes, but they say all that crap about not changing the address on your driver's license, and I haven't done that for 7 years. I haven't got government agents beating my door down fining me.

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[ConsumerOfMany]

knock knock knock

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[Macthorpe]

No, I don't want to hear about Jesus!

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[Greyfox]

Yeah but they've beaten down the door of the poor bastard renting your last address 7 times trying to find you so they could fine you.

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[BalanceOfJudgement]

If I didn't know better, that section would read like it was straight out of 1984.

And THAT is scary.

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[sgt_doom]

That is the logical outcome of people being mandated to wear/use RFIDs. (Please refer back to my earlier post.)

And once that new extradition law fully goes into effect (the one between the UK and the USA, which is now being used to extradite those two British bankers who were involved in that Enron thing), said rules will also apply to Americans!!!

For those who don't believe me, just peruse the fine print on that treaty...

Re:What happens if the RFID doesnt work

[matrixhax0r]

Supposedly, you can fry RFID chips in the microwave.
Try it by sticking a new $20 in the microwave!

http://www.prisonplanet.com/022904rfidtagsexplode. html
Note that the charred burning may be kind of... obvious.

Easy Way To Stop Skimming

[Valthan]

Why not just have the case lined with tin-foil or a thin metal sheet of some kind. Then when it is needed to be checked you have to open the case and/or take it out. These cases can be distributed with the Passports. In my experience with RFID wrapping it in tin-foil alone stops it from working (My work makes me use one to get into the office, yes I have tested this)

Re:Easy Way To Stop Skimming

[b0s0z0ku]

Why not just have the case lined with tin-foil or a thin metal sheet of some kind.

I'm assuming that the "anti-skimming material" mentioned in the article is a thin sheet of foil embedded in the cover. I could see how a damaged cover or one that's not closed completely would allow RF leakage. Perhaps the best solution would be something like an old metal cigarette case that snaps shut around the passport and won't open unless you want it to. Hmmm ... marketable idea...

-b.

Re:Easy Way To Stop Skimming

[mikeee]

Last I heard, that was actually the plan! Foil in the cover/binding, IIRC, with the tag inside so that it can only be read (easily?) when opened.

Re:Easy Way To Stop Skimming

[bdcrazy]

People keep trying to come up with ways to block the rfid from transmitting. How about stop it from recieving power to begin with by adding an on/off slider/switch to it?

Re:Easy Way To Stop Skimming

[necro81]

Another idea I have tossed around in my head would be to build the passport such that it needs to be opened flat in order for the RFID to activate. That way, one would need to have physical access to the passport (like a customs agent would) in order to read get the RFID chip to respond. Otherwise, when the passport is closed up in your jacket or suitcase, it wouldn't be readable.

How to build a passport that requires such physical access? I haven't work out all of the details, because I am not an expert on RFID (or antenna design). However, it would be based on the fact that, when the passport is closed, the front and rear covers are facing each other, whereas when the passport is opened flat they aren't. Aligned and anti-aligned. The two physical states are separated by 180 degrees of rotation, something that a clever designer would be able to take advantage of, and would be impossible to spoof unless you had the passport in hand.

One thought that comes to mind would be to have the pickup antenna (from which the RFID tag gets its power) span across front and rear covers, across the fold, so that when the cover is closed, the antenna is essentially folded in half. Consider a simple antenna made up of a loop of wire. The strength of the signal it picks up depends, in part, on the amount of flux passing through that loop. Now fold the loop in half so that you have two half-circles of wire - the effectiveness of the antenna is greatly reduced, theoretically to zero.

Unfortunately, I don't think that this is necessarily practical, because repeatedly folding your antenna (over the course of 10 years) will eventually cause it to break. But, it's a start. It wouldn't be effective against all attacks, but would significantly reduce the possibility of casual skimming in an airport.

With every technology advance

[DarkDragonVKQ]

With every technology advance in security, there will be those who break it. And then another technology advance comes, that will be broken. We've been playing this cat and mouse game for nearly 5000 years. Nothing is going change.

Re:With every technology advance

[Daniel_Staal]

But why hand people the way to break it?

The problem isn't that it is an electronic chip. No one has a problem with that. The problem is that the chip is designed to be read by radio, automatically, at range.

Give me a good scenero where I want someone able to read my passport without me being able to hand it over to them. I can think of a few places where it might speed things up a bit, but no legitimate ones where it would save more than a few seconds.

On the other hand, I can think of lots of illegitimate ones where it would make a crook's (or an opressive government's) job much easier.

It would cost about the same, and provide more data, to embed a smartchip in the passport instead. And then no one could read my passport without me knowing about it.

Re:With every technology advance

[DarkDragonVKQ]

True, we could make it harder for them to crack. And if it didn't cost any extra I don't see why they shouldn't do it.

The transmitter is useless

[Anonymous Coward]

>carrying around a little transmitter saying 'I'm an American! I'm an American!'

No transmitter needed for an American to be recognized everywhere in the world...

Re:The transmitter is useless

[sponglish]

"No transmitter needed for an American to be recognized everywhere in the world..." Ain't that the truth! It's that certain air, not of condescension, but the pride that comes from being a citizen of the world's only superpower. For those of us who aren't self-loathing liberals, it's a nice feeling. Go ahead and mod me down, it doesn't change the facts.

Re:The transmitter is useless

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to disagree because Frenchies are too recognizable easily. Why ? Because both aren't very opened to others culture. By example, most (Not all) french/American are unable to say simple thing like 'Hello/Bonjour/Thx/Merci' in the local language. When I move in an other country I always try to know the basis of the language. If you do so, the locals population will appreciate a lot more. What an arrogance to impose his language to others !

Re:The transmitter is useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, the pride of one inhabiting the "nicest trailer park I've ever seen". Go back to fucking your cousin, hillbilly. We all know you've never set foot outside the U.S. and never will.

Re:The transmitter is useless

[sponglish]

Wow, a trash-talking message from--wait for it--an "Anonymous Coward". Kinda reinforces the point of my earlier posting.

Get yours now!

[Chris Pimlott]

US passports are good for 10 years from the date of issue. Get or renew yours now, before RFID becomes required.

Re:Get yours now!

[tclark]

My new passport just arrived yesterday, so I'm off the hook until 2016. Whew.

Re:Get yours now!

[lawpoop]

You think that paper passports will still be valid after they introduce RFID passports? That would ruin the whole idea -- 10 years is a long time, and I imagine that anyone who would need a passport already has one. There would be a slow trickle of RFID passports if they let paper passports remain valid.

Not that I'm saying the government always does the smartest, most efficient thing, but they seem pretty serious about this.

I don't think it would be that much of a problem..

[Vokkyt]

Don't they already do this at Animal Rescue Shelters for dogs and cats? If these chips work the same way, then I think you need to get pretty damn close to the chip before it can be read. Now I realize that other countries do have different definitions of personal space, but even then, guessing where the chip was put in is still a crap shoot. It's not like these things are broadcasting nation-wide. I honestly don't think it will be that much of a problem.

They don't care

[MikeRT]

If anything it'll just make it so that fewer Americans travel abroad outside of areas that the feds want them to. In case anyone's not noticed it, but we have a very perverse open borders policy. We'll allow immigrants to flood our borders, but damned if we'll allow Americans to come and go freely without having to report almost every dime of property they're taking out and where they're going.

Re:They don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

You do not have an open borders policy. Do you know how hard it is for a Mexican to get a visa?

Re:They don't care

[rafimg]

No, that's just not true. I've been abroad more than a couple of times (and I don't just mean Canada), and US officials simply do not stop you, let alone ask where you're going, before you board the plane. When you arrive at a foreign country, yeah, the local immigration officials want to know a bit about why you're there, but that's because you're a foreigner entering their country!

As for the customs end of it, you only have to report what you're taking back into the US that you didn't already have when you left, and only if it exceeds something like $400 in value or includes regulated items. That exists to minimize smuggling that circumvents import taxes and restrictions on hazardous items (like plants that might introduce non-native pests). And honestly, if you have nothing to declare and fill out the form properly, customs usually hardly says a word before waving you on. YMMV

Re:They don't care

[AK Marc]

You must not get out much. The USA will let me go to China, no questions asked. I don't even have to tell them I'm leaving. I show up when I get back and tell them who I am and whether I'm importing enough for tariffs. But for someone from China to get to the US, the US is likely to refuse them entry. I know more than one person that tried to get into the US for business but was refused. They get into Germany, Holland, Denmark, and other places without a problem, but the US won't let them in. This is similar with other places. My boss at work married a Belorussian and couldn't even get her daughter in the country to be at the wedding. It was more than a year after the wedding until the daughter was ever allowed in the US for any reason.

The US has some of the most closed borders in the world, certainly in the "free world." Maybe if you got out a little more and talked with the people, you'd understand this. But then, I travel a bit, have an immigration lawyer for a friend, and keep my eyes open. Oh, and I don't recall ever being asked how much I was carrying when I was leaving the US (though many places ask when I land for their own customs), and if "tracking every dime" means reporting over $10,000, then you have a lot more money than I do. Or was inaccurate hyperbole your goal?

The Department...

[Valthan]

Zonk, you are a retard. 1) That is a stupid reference that people try to use to make fun of the way SOME Canadians speak (started as far as I know by South Park) 2) This article has nothing to do with Canada at all.

So, if I am mistaken and you are not a complete and utter moron, what were you referencing with the "... dept" line?

Re:The Department...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Americans sometimes try to pass themselves off as Canadians when travelling abroad?

Re:The Department...

[db32]

Valthan, you are a whiner. 1) That is a valid reference that people use to laugh about the way northerners speak. Its not even just Canadians though usually applied mostly to Canadians...almost EVERY northerner (specially north west) I have ever spoken to or hung out with has had the same accent. It was not started by southpark, it was started by northerners (including canadians) saying Aboot and Eh alot. In fact last time I had to deal with high level tech support it was a canadian guy...before the call was over I almost asked him to say "aboot" because he had said "eh" a dozen times already...but he said it without me asking and I about fell out of my chair (I hadn't slept in a few days fighting its problem so I was easily amused). Deal with it, many do say "aboot" and "eh" quite frequently. 2) You are right, with the exception of it makes Canada look like a terribly nice place to move to. So call it a real estate advertisement.

Bruce Sterling would say that

[91degrees]

But he's a paranoid idiot.

People can spot Americans abroad from a mile away. Their tendency towards hanging around in tourist areas, acting like tourists and speaking to each other in English with an American accent is probably a much better way of telling if someone's an American than getting an expensive RFID reader. If you want to know whether they have their passport, hold a knife to their throat and ask for it.

Re:Bruce Sterling would say that

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly!

Americans stand out all on their own. Given the range read limitations of RFID transmitters, anyone looking for an American is going to see them with their own two eyes a lot sooner than picking them up with an RFID reader. Not that most of the countries that hate Americans can afford to install readers within 3 feet of however many locations they want to scan people anyway.

And besides, if the RFID chips are ISO-18000 compliant, then they will be "lockable", require encryption to read, and won't even signal their presence unless scanned by a reader sending the correct wake-up algorithm. That's all IF the state department implements and uses these features. if so, then no problem, if not...

All I can say is that there is a lot of misinformation and misperception out there about what RFID can and can't do. It's too bad that many "alarmist" journalists don't do their research. Like that stupid Wired magazine article about RFID's threat to privacy. I've never seen so much alarmist hogwash about such a promising new technology.

Re:Bruce Sterling would say that

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone looking for an American is going to see them with their own two eyes a lot sooner than picking them up with an RFID reader

I always find I can hear them from further away... I wonder if they ever think anything they don't share with the entire street :-(

Re:Bruce Sterling would say that

[tehcyder]

If you want to know whether they have their passport, hold a knife to their throat and ask for it.

Wuss, why not just cut their throat and search their still-twitching body for ID and cash?

New uses for microwave ovens ...

[Tux2000]

Just drop your RFID-contaminated passport into a microwave oven and turn the oven on for a few seconds. Tadaa!, toasted RFID chip with no visible sign of manipulation.

Tux2000

Re:New uses for microwave ovens ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tux2000 wrote "toasted RFID chip with no visible sign of manipulation"

I've tried this on an RFID embedded object (not a passport, but a similar document). It did leave a small scorch mark right above where the RFID tag had been before it popped.

My verdict: this is an effective way to destroy the RFID tag, but it isn't undetectable.

Interesting

[supersky]

Yeah they have been doing this for years, except they where attached to ears, and pushed through different paths until they met there ultimate demise, welcome cattle.

Could you...

[OctoberSky]

Could you or I get one of these new Passports and get it home... and proceed to slam it with a hammer? I mean, the passport is still just paper, but with this little thing inside. What would happen? It would break, but you could never tell if it stopped working. So the next time you go to fly/leave the country, you could just say "I didn't know it stopped working?" which is pretty true, unless you had a RFID reciever in your home.
This would be the simple answer to all those who fear the wrath of the RFID technology.

Re:Could you...

[gol]

I recently had to renew my passport, and much to my annoyance, received one of the UKs new passports with a chip containing biometric information about the shape of my face inserted into the back. There is a great big solid lump of plastic where the details page used to be, it's probably about 1mm thick, and makes the passport less comfortable to carry and flick through.
That aside, one mine the chip is quite clearly visible on the other side of the details page (the plastic is transparent on that side), and looks rather tough. I reckon it would take more than a whack with a hammer, I'm quite keen on using a microwave or similar to disable it.
My only concern with this is that they will say "your passport has stopped working, please pay for a new one". I'm currently a PhD student, and I don't have £51 (about 95$ US) to waste on a new passport.

Re:Could you...

[OctoberSky]

Couldn't you say back to them "Your technology stopped working, you pay for it"

If it's the standard grain-of-rice sized RFID they wil just make one thick page with it in inside. If you smash it, no one will be able to tell (probably). Although I do like your Microwave idea.

If they did make these mandatory (like a Nation wide ID card) then we should all throw them in the Microwave on a planned day and the next day go to the issuing agency and say "it no longer works" if 150,000 people or more did this I think the Governement would realize that they can't afford to fix them all, then scrape the program. At least I can dream right?

Re:Could you...

[tehcyder]

Could you or I get one of these new Passports and get it home... and proceed to slam it with a hammer?

I think when the Customs man noticed the sound of jangling little bits of metal and saw the hammer-shaped indentation on the passport, he might get suspicious.

Passport holder activation switch

[DodgeRules]

Why doesn't the government just make the passport such that the holder must activate the passport RFID by pressing a momentary flat switch so that it can only be read when the holder allows it to be read. A cardboard slide protector can be integrated into the passport to prevent accidentially pressing the switch when in a pocket by separating the 2 halves of the switch. (hmmm, DodgeRules applies for a patent based on this.)

Re:Passport holder activation switch

[SCHecklerX]

or... Use barcodes or mag strips instead. RFID has no good use in these, other than to compromise your security and even endanger your life.

Some thoughts

[CodeMasterPhilzar]

What's the range? From what I've read of standard RFID type systems, anywhere from a few inches to a few feet. Some "high power" systems for say, reading tags on the cargo of a truck going through a toll booth are a few yards... Now, of course higher power transmitters and sensitive directional antennas can significantly increase that range...

What's the data load? As far as I know (here again, from what I've read of other RFID systems) it is a single large integer. Something like 128 bits. Therefore, it would not contain your bio data, bank accounds, SSN, etc. It would merely be an index into a database. So all a stray reader would get is a number. Without access to say the US Embassy DB, they wouldn't have anything other than you had an RFID tag on you. Heck, some of the products, clothing, etc. you have on may already have RFID tags. So just having a tag doesn't necessarily mark you as an American anyway.

Yes, they are passive systems. Like old crystal radios, they are powered by the elecromagnetic energy in the signal sent from an outside system. So you don't broadcast, you merely respond if someone else does. IMHO, broadcasting, looking for RFID tags is a much riskier business. It basically says "Hey, I'm scanning for tags..." And that can be detected completely passively... (Here we go again with Spy vs. Spy...)

RFID tags can be jammed. You can (depending on legalities in your area???) carry a specific RFID tag with you that effectively jams the system and makes any other RFID tags on your person unreadable. When a reader querries for tags, if say two respond then the reader has to go into arbitration. It basically re-broadcasts the query with "only if your number starts with 1" (think 128 bit binary here). If it still gets a collision on the response, it'll try "only if your number starts with 11" and so on, until it finds a differentiating point (bit). Then it will query each tag separately with subsequent signals. The jammer tags are set to always respond, period. So they in effect mask every possible number from any other tag. So if it were me, I'd carry a jammer tag in a small envelop tucked in my passport. (same location as passport tag) effectively blocking it from snooping. Then I'd merely hand over the passport, sans envelop, when dealing with a legitimate inquiry.

Take all this with a grain of salt. I'm no RFID expert, and it has been months since I read anything on it. Neat technology though...

Re:Some thoughts

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Without access to say the US Embassy DB, they wouldn't have anything other than you had an RFID tag on you.

Given the recent rash of private data being stolen from US government computers, this is not a statement I would make with much confidence.

Enterprising RFID Entrepeneur

[dbc001]

My guess is that some enterprising RFID Entrepeneur got into the Old Boys Network and landed some massive contract. Here in Missouri we have s imilar situation - Within just a few months of the state mandating increased ethanol in all gasoline, the governor's brother was found to have invested a substantial amount of money in ethanol (Matt Blunt is governor if your curious, see here for info on the ethanol scandal). Their orwellian response was simply to state that "there is no conflict of interest here."

It would be nice to know who got the contract, what city they live in and what relationships they have with government.

Re:Enterprising RFID Entrepeneur

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't ethanol one of the alternatives that is constantly pushed strongly for by environmentalists? Hailed as indepent of fossil fuel, not adding to the carbon cycle, etc?

Could it simply be that said brother saw this coming a long way off, and decided to take advantage of it?

If you posit this as an example of a meaningless waste piggybacked through an 'Old Boys' network, I hope you stay consistent in your claims and escribe ethanol as equally much a waste depending on who proposes it.

The obvious application

[Opportunist]

Connect a bomb with an RFID reader and wait for the "right" signal...

Too expensive? Oh c'moooon, those babies are BUILT where they would potentially be used that way, you save big time on shipping costs!

Re:The obvious application

[necro2607]

That was exactly the first thing I thought of when I heard about this push for RFID tags in passports..

How about our soldiers in Iraq (or any other future potentially hostile location)? A group of them walking along a patrol route when *BOOM* landmine blows away the entire group, even though local citizens have been walking back and forth over this same mine for weeks. The mine simply detected a US/Canadian/British RFID identification of some kind or another.

Re:The obvious application

[Opportunist]

I'm just waiting for the bright idea to put them into dog tags.

Yeah well. Not good.

[botzi]

And even if they can't, carrying around a little transmitter saying 'I'm an American! I'm an American!' isn't a fun and safe thing to do in all parts of the world."

So, the issue, you consider is that the transmitter is giving away your nationality and NOT that it's a....I dunno. a BLOODY TRANSMITTER?( worst case scenaria, and I'm really going off the top of my head here, how about professional passport thieves:"Hey, there is a city building with 24 passports in there, let's see which suits are empty at the moment, and do some damage."(I'd think anybody smart enough to detect the signal would be smart enough to block it afterwards)). I'd be appalled if other countries follow suit, I fear that they will. Let's just hope that there is enough damage done the moment they try to use RFID's so the launch fails.

Re:Yeah well. Not good.

[deetsay]

"Hey, there is a city building with 24 passports in there, let's see which suits are empty at the moment, and do some damage."

Wouldn't it be easier to detect cell phones? Probably more people carry them around too...

Re:Yeah well. Not good.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an easy way to spot the Americans too. We're the ones standing in line beside pay phones because our mobiles don't work anywhere outside the US and Canada...

Re:Yeah well. Not good.

[Dracophile]

I'd be appalled if other countries follow suit...

Like Australia, you mean?

Can you imagine the terrorism weapons?

[KDN]

A bomb in a cafe that only goes off when there are over a certain number of americans in range. Or, if you can tell, when a certain number of american military are within range. Or a diplomat.

The most workable solution?

[erroneus]

There are devices that shield RFID signals right? How about the state department design the passport in such a way that it prevents reading of the passport unless it's open. The cover should be shielded. If not, they should recommend keeping the passport in a shielded bag at all times unless it is being presented.

Either way, people can protect themselves whether it is in the design or not.

Re:The most workable solution?

[nickyj]

Wish I had mod points to mod you up. It's exactly what I was thinking. I would put the passport in a shielding to prevent unwanted scanning of the RFID. Kinda like my EZ-pass for my car. It has a shielded bag I can put it in so that it can't be detected through a toll if I so choose.

And I wouldn't worry too much about being pinpointed as being an American from my RFID in my passport as much as the accent/appearance/ignorance-of-the-region-visited will show that you're American (this applies to most, not all).

Re:The most workable solution?

[Ian Peon]

That's exactly what they're doing.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/08/rfid _passport_s_1.html

The new design also includes a thin radio shield in the cover, protecting the chip when the passport is closed.

The UK's already got them...

[Goth Biker Babe]

In the last couple of months our passports have been upgraded to include RFID chips. In fact I renewed mine early to try and get one without one but they were rather quick of the mark upgrading. At least I got in before the interviews and biometrics. Like others here I have been thinking along the lines of a tin foil cover. You can get passport wallets which protect a passport from damage. May be one can be modified to protect it from snooping too...

Re:The UK's already got them...

[gol]

aha! a fellow pissed off UK-citizen...
i'll travel with my new passport for the first time soon. the only thing i'm worried about is what i'm going to say to the guy at the security gate when he wants an explanation of why i am carrying my passport around smothered in tin-foil.
they might view it as a bit suspicious...

Why RFID and not smart cards?

[BeBoxer]

I just do not understand the insistance/fascination with RFID in this case. Think about the situation when these RFID's are supposed to be used. You are entering a country via immigration, and you hand your passport to the immigration agent. There is no need and no benefit to involving a radio. The agent could just as easily slip your passport into a reader which uses actual metal contacts as wave it over the RFID scanner. It would probably cost less, and would have none of the security concerns (valid or not) that the RFID chips have.

I can only think of two possibilities. One is just good old fashioned corruption. It's no secret that the GOP has pretty much put a 'For Sale' sign out front of the Capital, so it may just be a way to send a bunch of money to a valuable 'doner'. Or they have some requirement which needs RFID, but is being kept secret.

I suppose they could almost completely automate letting US citizens back into the country. Will I be able to use my RFID passport to scan in to the country just like I do with my work badge to get into the machine room or co-lo? I can see benefits for having an express lane at immigration for citizens with RFID passports so we don't have to wait behind all the riff-raff :-) Just walk up to the gate, wave your passport at it, and 'beep', you're back in the country.

Re:Why RFID and not smart cards?

[quacking duck]

I suppose they could almost completely automate letting US citizens back into the country. Will I be able to use my RFID passport to scan in to the country just like I do with my work badge to get into the machine room or co-lo? I can see benefits for having an express lane at immigration for citizens with RFID passports so we don't have to wait behind all the riff-raff :-) Just walk up to the gate, wave your passport at it, and 'beep', you're back in the country.

Agree with the rest of your post that these should've been smart-card technology, but on this point-- you have to remember you're passing through customs, as well as immigration. They want to know if you've been on a foreign farm in the last couple of weeks, whether you're carrying more than $10,000 into the country, whether you need to pay duties on out-of-country purchases, etc. None of this can be determined just by walking an RFID detector.

Re:Why RFID and not smart cards?

[lelitsch]

I wouldn't call it corruption, but Smart Cards have always been much more popular in Europe and Asia than in the US. Almost every non-US phone or payment card uses Smart Cards, as do health insurance cards in countries like Germany. So it's probably fair to assume that non-US manufacturers have more Smart Card experience than US companies. For RFID, the field is much more open, although ironically Wikipedia states that RFID technology was invented by or for the KGB.

Re:Why RFID and not smart cards?

[InsaneGeek]

On corruption, probably the reverse would be true, what is the cost of smart cards vs passive RFID? RFID is significantly less expensive than a smart card (pennies per passport).

Re:Why RFID and not smart cards?

[Phillup]

I just do not understand the insistance/fascination with RFID in this case.

Because smart cards were invented in the 70s and the patent has expired. Thus not putting money into the pocket of your "constituents*" as fast as a patented technology would.

So... they aren't the ones that did the lobbying.

When it comes to politics... "why" is always easy.

Just follow the money.

*constituent: the people that bribed you

Lined with tinfoil

[krell]

"Why not just have the case lined with tin-foil or a thin metal sheet of some kind"

I just tuck the passport under my tinfoil beany. No need to craft an extra shield.

How to tell if a foreigner is American...

[T_ConX]

-Trys WAY too hard to look Canadian.

They almost like to pretend that Canadaians are as nuts about displaying the flag as an American Super Patriot... when most Canadian travellers just have a small flag stitched on their backback. Subtle, but commands respect.

-Wonders out loud why no-one here speaks English.

I love playing with tourists who pull me aside and ask me if I speak English. I normally reply in Japanese or French... Japanese is more likely to throw them off.

-They get first class treatment... NO QUESTION!

Goes straight to the front of the line, gets speedy service at a restraunt... they deserve it! Odds are their country liberated, or bombed the crap out off, or supplied arms to, or supplied arms to the enemy of, this nation, so they should be treated like the President of the United States. If they want to meet the mayor of this town... they will!

-Completely unfamiliar with local laws and customs.

If a cow stands in the middle of the road in India, the locals will just wait, patiently, for it to pass. Americans sometimes fail to get this...

Re:How to tell if a foreigner is American...

[neonprimetime]

If a cow stands in the middle of the road in India, the locals will just wait, patiently, for it to pass. Americans sometimes fail to get this...

'Round my parts ya'all should know that this happens quite often. Ya'all just need to get out da truck and pull da tail, and they all will start a runnin'. Simple as a sweet cherry pie made by my momma.

Re:How to tell if a foreigner is American...

[Surt]

They almost like to pretend that Canadaians are as nuts about displaying the flag as an American Super Patriot... when most Canadian travellers just have a small flag stitched on their backback. Subtle, but commands respect.

That cracked me up, thanks, Eh.

At first i thought your post was serious, then I caught on to what you were going on aboot.

Change T-shirts

[slowbad]

When I travel, mine say:

God Bless AUSTRALIA
God Bless AFRICA
God Bless AMERICA,N
God Bless AMERICA,S
God Bless ASIA
God Bless ANTARCTICA

I did run into penguin-haters on my last trip to Europe.

somewhat a good idea

[Kunta Kinte]

So if I wrap my RFID laden passport in tinfoil I am safe right? right?

When I bought my pre-paid toll transmitter, one of the things it came with was a very small plastic bag that you can put the transmitter in. This is in case you were at a toll but wanted to pay cash for some reason. The bag looks like a small ziplock bag with a silver tint.

I can see someone selling those at passport sizes on the internet as 'passport holders'.

easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Buy a 1000W microwave
2. Place RFID Passport in said mircowave
3. ??????
4. Profit!

Re:easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Buy a 1000W microwave
2. Place RFID Passport in said mircowave
3. ??????
4. Profit!

I thought that only worked with Barbie Dolls and Cute Kittens?

real cause... Re:yeah

[leuk_he]

Maybe Americans should focus on the real reason they are not liked everywhere instead of worrying about some RFID thread. The real problem is not their identification but the reason they are not liked. WOnder what that reason is......

Re:real cause... Re:yeah

[rawdot]

The real problem is not their identification but the reason they are not liked.

Another problem is people who generalize about individuals based on their nationality.

Knowing that someone is a United States' citizen should not be the basis for inferring that that individual supports the U.S. government's current administration or its policies, foreign or domestic.

Should I assume any Italian supports Berlusconi? That any German is a member of the CDU? That Tony Blair is every Brit's personal spokesmodel? That any Chinese is a fervent Communist?

I believe we all generalize and stereotype to help us maintain a tractably sized model of our environment. But to act on those stereotypes when interacting with individuals is unsophisticated and unfortunate.

Cheers,
Richard

Re:real cause... Re:yeah

[scheming daemons]

Latest polls in America show Bush with an approval rating of 36%.

That means 64% of us don't like the guy. 3/4 of that 64% NEVER liked the guy, the rest of them have since come to the conclusion that they fucked up when they voted for him.

You hate Americans because of Bush? I got news for you bub... Most Americans don't care for him either.

You're twice as likely to meet an American who shares your disdain for chimp-boy as you are likely to run into one who is pro-Bush.

Keep that in mind when you're cultivating your stereotypes...

Re:real cause... Re:yeah

[leuk_he]

I really was not talking about Bush. The bad attitude goes deeper. I could come up with a whole list of things ameca did wrong it its foreign policy the last 50 years. A lot of the bad attitude against US is from before Bush.

Passport Souffle

[SpeedBump0619]

I'm thinking that my microwave will do some serious damage to any RFID transmitter built into your passport. Has anyone tried this yet?

Come On Slashdot!

[Snyper1000]

I can't believe the comments here. It seems most people posted in a knee-jerk reaction believeing what a "Futurist" has said. Seriously people, I thought we as a community were smarter than this. 1. Waaaaaaaaaay too many posts going something like "I'll make a shield for it. Problem solved" Didn't you read, it will have a built in shield! It only reads when opened. Duh, our governemnt officials may be dumb, but they aren't that dumb. I also realize many people on here posted this already, but I simply cannot believe how many posts I saw to this effect! 2. Barcodes....No they aren't as efficient as RFID. How long does it take to scan your items at a grocery store? Now imagine every item is an impatient person waiting to get out of an airport. Sure its faster than the old way, but its still by far much slower than an automatic read by RFID. 3. OMG OMG We're walking around with a target on us!!!!!!! Again, See #1, and even if #1 wern't true, do you carry your passport everywhere? How many of you have ever even traveled abroad?! Again, I realize some people pointed this out already, but just like in #1 the number of people who posted things to this effect was simply insane! 4. You all knee-jerked to the comments of a "Futurist". Seriously, I thought there couldn't be a title any more sweet than meteorologist...getting paid to be wrong most of the time. But this Futurist thing takes the cake. I'm sure there are some self proclaimed Futurists out there with backgrounds in science, but the ones who seem to get famous are the idiodic alarmists. I watched part of Discovery/TLC/History Channels (Not sure which one) program about how we will all be wiped out. My favorite one was this moron who says One day computer programs will suddenly bceome aware that they are aware and then take over. I couldn't take it anymore. I shut it off. The entire program was filled with this kind of dribble from those who have no idea what they are talking about. Yet give them a title like Futurist, and suddenly they are getting attention from networks that normally have programming based on science, and people believeing it! I figured the /. community would be smarter than this... Some come on people, wake up, and think before you open your mouths, or begin to type on your keyboard. Failure to do so will likely end in you looking like an idiot...

Is it really going to be easier??

[gstegman]

Is RFID seriously going to make identifying Americans abroad THAT much easier? I mean I think that the fanny-packs, cameras, American Flag jumpsuits, and USA #1 trucker hats do a pretty good job of that on their own.

Only if you're RFID

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you RFID?

You should be RFID.

You should be VERY RFID

Time for a big brother to the duct tape wallet?

[uqbar]

http://www.rpi-polymath.com/ducttape/RFIDWallet.ph p

I salute you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just one more justification... For my new lead lined briefcase. Who cares if it weighs 125 pounds.

It's a brave person who's willing to give Superman probable cause.

Why in the passport

[dsvick]

Why not just get one implanted at birth and then you wouldn't to worry about the one in your passport. Umm, wait, nevermind.....

Re:Why in the passport

[Phillup]

Actually, that isn't a bad idea.

Problem is that the kooks start screaming something about 666... whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.

(as if the whole 666 thing referred to a particular country with an almost insignificant portion of the planets population)

Not really a security concern.

[MCraigW]

Austrailia, New Zealand and Singapore already have RFID passports. The information that can be obtained from the chip is encrypted, and will only be readable using the public-key which is encoded in a machine readable format inside the passport http://www.dfat.gov.au/dept/passports/. Doesn't seem like there is a security vulnerability.

People fear what they don't understand.

Re:Not really a security concern.

[Wizard Drongo]

No, people fear what their government doesn't understand.

Just because the Aussie government went the encrypted & secure route doesn't mean the US Govt will. Hell, the yanks are worse at government IT than our British Government (oh they of the massive all-singing all dancing ID Card/National DNA/Crime/Social Security/Mass Transit Database hell..delayed again this week!!!)

Re:Not really a security concern.

[MCraigW]

Just because the Aussie government went the encrypted & secure route doesn't mean the US Govt will.

From the article (RTFA): Even if the skimmed data is encrypted -- as e-Passport information would be...

There was a Slashdot discussion of this subject about a year ago. The plan is now, and has always been, to encrypt the data on the US RFID enabled passports. Here is another brief article discussing it: http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/anmviewer.as p?a=394&print=no

So now the conspiracy theorists are concerned that given possession the passport and lots of time and computing power someone could crack the encryption... and read the encrypted information from the RFID chip -- which is the same information that is plainly printed in the passport.

safety != security

[Anonymous Coward]

Safety concerns are over whether you get a paper cut from your passport.

Security concerns are whether other people can access or tamper with your RFID chip.

The two are separate concerns, and here, the second one applies.

Re:I don't think it would be that much of a proble

[RedShoeRider]

Yes, they do.

And from lots of experience, you have to be *right* on top of it for the reader to scan the tag. Usually they're either between the shoulders or by one of the hips. But if it's injected incorrectly or migrates, you literally have to rub the wand over the animal like you're combing it to find the damn thing. Take a beagle, for instance. If the chip is on its hip and you're scanning its ribs (all of 6" away), it won't pick it up.

So while we can argue the need of having RFID tags in passports in the first place, picking them up at a distance? Not going to happen without enough wattage to cook a chicken.

Useful bit of info for terrorists to know

[WillAffleckUW]

All US embassy personnel carry passports on them that beam out "I'm an American, my name is John Smith, I am 5'11", with brown hair and green eyes and was born in Auckland, TX".

I'm sure nobody will think to use this against us ... right ...

Re:Useful bit of info for terrorists to know

[Norwich]

Actually they do not need to list your eye colour or features. I have just got my new (UK) passport and the bumph that comes with it explains that my photo is encoded on the chip, along with all the other information that the passport carries. Assuming any person is able to decrypt this information (surely only a matter of time) then they will be able to easily pick you out in a room of hundereds of people; or just keep your picture for later without having to go through the inconvenient process of taking it with a camera.

Re:Useful bit of info for terrorists to know

[WillAffleckUW]

yes, they don't need to list it, but they probably broadcast it. All a trained terrorist needs to do is walk among the people near a US embassy and record all the RFIDs, then take the recordings back to crack in his home base, using his Linux/BSD cracking machines.

another thing they can do is record the signals, take a spycam pic, then make fake passports with RFID to get thru when they do an ultra-high value target, thus obviating security (diplomatic passports usually don't get scrutinized as closely, especially if embassy people).

assuming they're not smart doesn't work people - they are smart, trained, and know exactly what they're doing.

From what I know

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is the US visit program or the same thing as far as I know it is something like this

When crossign the border your car goes through a checkpoint at the begining of the lane for the customs officer.

at this checkpoint your Passport is polled

The ID is then run aginst the custom officers database queing up all the data for you and everyone with a passport rfid in the car

when it's your turn to see the actual human inspector/offical he has your info and whatever relevant database info already searched for and on his screen, as oppssed to him doing the search while you wait after you physically hand them the passports.

Of course assuming its only an ID number thats getting read and that its encrypted its still pretty easy to get your number duplicated, still would be easiest to have the physical passport but now you can steal it a little more easily? IS not holding more secure information just pulling up the same old information faster for speedier in and out at US customs.

American test

[virtualtodd]

A simple terrorist test to determine if an American tourist is pretending to be Canadian. Ask him the capital of Canada. If he says Toronto or Alberta.....

New accessory line

[AMDfreak]

I am now introducing my new line of Tin Foil Passport Wallets. Pre-order now and get a matching hat!

The Haters and the Hated

[SuperKendall]

Too bad the people doing the most agressive hating don't really care if you are Canadian or European...

Profiling potential victims by nationality is as silly as profiling the perpetrators. Your illusons do not hold up well in the real world.

barcode alignment

[ignorant_newbie]

> The whole *point* of RFID was to replace barcodes because on assembly
> line like systems the barcodes must be aligned properly with a laser that reads them.

right. which is why the barcode reader at albertsons lets me orient the barcode anywhere within 2/3 of a sphere and can still read it with no issues.

They are planning to do so already

[SuperKendall]

They plan to distribute the passports with a shielded sleeve to go around them. I can't remember where I read that though, sorry. I read about the RFID passports some time ago...

RFID passive only

[SuperKendall]

RFID chips require a reader field to transmit information, they do not actually transmit when not being read. If you pull up outside a building in a van there is no way you are going to know how many RFID chips are inside, they would have to be within a few feet of you even with very powerful equipment.

endangering civilians

[Anonymous Coward]

Using RFID for passports is not only stupid but completely irresponsible. It would put anyone in danger, especially traveling abroad. It doesn't take alot of brains to imagine the worst how this can be exploited by terrorists and rogue forces. Hopefully our government will recognize and stop this crazy proposal in time.

Re:endangering civilians

[MCraigW]

Using RFID for passports is not only stupid but completely irresponsible. It would put anyone in danger, especially traveling abroad. It doesn't take alot of brains to imagine the worst how this can be exploited by terrorists and rogue forces. Hopefully our government will recognize and stop this crazy proposal in time.

As I stated in an earlier post, Austrailia, New Zealand and Singapore already have RFID passports. The information that can be obtained from the chip is encrypted, and will only be readable using the public-key which is encoded in a machine readable format inside the passport http://www.dfat.gov.au/dept/passports/. The plan in the U.S. is the to do the same thing, as well as putting a metal lining in the cover of the passport so that the RFID cannot be read when the passport is closed. See http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/anmviewer.as p?a=394&print=no

Re:endangering civilians

[Phillup]

As I stated in an earlier post, Austrailia, New Zealand and Singapore already have RFID passports.

When was the last time these countries put an imbecile in charge who then tried to exert his will on other countries because he talked to God?

Does a large majority of the world have something against these countries?

How is it even the same when the citizens in these countries can't hold a candle to the arogance displayed by the common U.S. citizen? (starting with calling themselves "american" conveniently forgetting the 75 percent of the landmass not in their own country)

If nothing else, the U.S. should not do it because they will be endangering citizens from the other countries that use RFID if their passports can't be destinguished from a U.S. passport.

Re:endangering civilians

[Jherek Carnelian]

The information that can be obtained from the chip is encrypted

Not ALL of the information that can be obtained will be encrypted. How do you "encrypt" its presence?

and will only be readable using the public-key which is encoded in a machine readable format inside the passport

Great - so the official use will require some sort of physical scanning device to read the machine-readable format (i.e. 2-D bar-code) - thus negating any value that RFIDs might provide. While you are reading the public-key, why can't they just read another bar-code with the actual information in it too? Pork for the RFID manufacturers?

The plan in the U.S. is the to do the same thing, as well as putting a metal lining in the cover of the passport so that the RFID cannot be read when the passport is closed.

That shielding will hardly be a perfect faraday cage. Put enough EM juice in the air and you will make that little RIFD sing.

Re:endangering civilians

[Anonymous Coward]

No public key encryption is used for protection. The secret (symetric) keys are derived from teh data on bottom of your passport. The public key protection is used to protect the data in the chip against alterations (it's singed so you cannot amke copies or alter yhour biometric data).

Re:endangering civilians

[Dracophile]

The information that can be obtained from the chip is encrypted...

Yeah, and they'll never break that crypto.

Re:endangering civilians

[TempeTerra]

As I stated in an earlier post, Austrailia, New Zealand and Singapore already have RFID passports.

As a NZer, my understanding is that we only have RFID due to the US government leaning on us (this happens unfortunately regularly). I can't find a reference off the top of my head, but I remember when they were introduced and I recall that the chips were only going to be used to gain access to the US (but of course they'll be active all the time :( ).

Having seen a couple of posts like this with similar wording, it would be easy to assume that the listed countries are using RFID because it's useful in some way, but as far as I know it's not. I'll definitely be keeping my non-chipped passport until it exprires.

As I say, I can't find a reference for this so I would be glad to be supported or contradicted if anyone has more info.

Re:endangering civilians

[MCraigW]

Apparently you didn't read my comment before you replied, or maybe you just don't have a good grasp of the language.

Here's the text you need to re-read:

"as well as putting a metal lining in the cover of the passport so that the RFID cannot be read when the passport is closed".

So when you state "the U.S. should not do it because they will be endangering citizens from the other countries that use RFID if their passports can't be destinguished from a U.S. passport", you are wrong, as U.S. passports will be indistinguishable from all other passports that are not RFID enabled, as they presently are, and distinguishable from other RFID passports in that the other ones can be "read" even when closed. Nobody will be any more "endangered" than they are now.

Oh, and feel free to call yourself an "American" if you live on North, South, or Central America.

Re:endangering civilians

[MCraigW]

Not ALL of the information that can be obtained will be encrypted. How do you "encrypt" its presence?

Uhh.. by covering it with tin-foil, you know, like you have in your beanie.

Great - so the official use will require some sort of physical scanning device to read the machine-readable format (i.e. 2-D bar-code) - thus negating any value that RFIDs might provide. While you are reading the public-key, why can't they just read another bar-code with the actual information in it too? Pork for the RFID manufacturers?

Because the bar-code necessary to encode your photograph would be rather large. And because the information that is in machine readable format isn't a bar-code.

That shielding will hardly be a perfect faraday cage. Put enough EM juice in the air and you will make that little RIFD sing.

Oh really? So you've obtained prototypes and tested them? Well then, I stand corrected.

Re:endangering civilians

[MCraigW]

Yeah, and they'll never break that crypto.

What would be the point? By the time they can do this, the individual the information applies to will be long gone.

Re:endangering civilians

[MCraigW]

it would be easy to assume that the listed countries are using RFID because it's useful in some way, but as far as I know it's not.

It is more difficult to forge a counterfit RFID enabled passport. Also, when you are going through an RFID equiped entry point, they don't have to type in all your information, thus speeding up the process.

Can already spot a foreigner a mile away

[HermanAB]

In most parts of the world, an American stands out like a red flashing beacon in crowd. You don't need RFID to spot them. First off, they are a head and shoulders taller than most people (except in Germany!), secondly they dress funny and thirdly they are loud mouthed. Sorry, no offence intended, but that is just how it is. In order to blend in, in a foreign country, you have to live there for a few years.

Re:Can already spot a foreigner a mile away

[MCraigW]

they are a head and shoulders taller than most people (except in Germany!), secondly they dress funny and thirdly they are loud mouthed

Ahhh... racist stereotypes. I suppose you think that all the Polish are stupid, that all the British have bad teeth, that all Irish are drunken potato eaters, that all Germans are Nazis, etc. The US has more than 220,000,000 people of a variety of races living it, and they all have their own statures and personalities which vary greatly.

come on,we're not all that stupid!

[/dev/trash]

Everyone knows it's Alaska.

Malaysia has had it for years!

[Anonymous Coward]

For information, Malaysia has had RFID passports since the late 1990s and it is the first country to implement it. I have carried one for years. It's very easy to use and all we do at the airport is to go through an automated turnstile, place the passport in a small caddy, it get's scanned, it identifies you on a small LCD panel and then you are let through. Very fast and easy. No long queues.

Profit

[zaphod_es]

Ooh, an expanding international market! A patent on a lead lined passport case would be a nice little earner with a tinfoil version for cheapskates. Could call it iFoil

Yeah, right

[YrWrstNtmr]

It is only European (and sometimes Canadian) tourism the one we (in Mexico) call "tourism with culture" that gets a bit away from Cancun to see the Mayan ruins

Of course. All Americans can be painted with the same broad brush. Never ever venturing outside of the touristy spots featured on the Price is Right. (Even though my father was exploring those same Mayan ruins 20 years ago.)
And ALL Europeans aspire to the cultured spots of the world. For instance, I give you Benidorm.

A Dangerously stupid idea.

[Irvu]

Let's consider what RFID is for. It is a means of broadcasting information over radio frequencies. For scanning packages in a depot that's all well and good but what about passports. At present the State Department's plan is to replace the existing bar codes on passports with RFID tags. Why?

You will still need to stand in line in order to present your documents, so this will not save time. RFID chips can be faked so false passports can still be made. Indeed seeing as hoe people will (incorrectly) believe the chips it seems that identitiy theves using fake passports may have an easier time.

The only logical uses for this is passive monitoring and funding. Passive monitoring would occur via sensors in Airport Floors, that would enable passport holders to be logged as they move about the terminal. You laugh but the feds have already begun requiring all non-us citizens to carry their passports when they fly within the U.S. and have pushed for national ID databases. Why not a requirement that you keep your rfid passport on you at all times? As is noted in the article these things can be read from 160 feet awayby special equipment. Why not? Keep in mind many of the same people in the STate department once pushed to outlaw crypo in the U.S. unless they held the keys.

Ahh you say but the feds are putting a "read-proof" screen on the passport to prevent this from happening. Perhaps so. And we will leave aside for the moment the amounts of our money they are paying to develop said screen just so they can justify the RFID tags. By the way, did anyone see any actual security benefits of RFID listed in the article or did they just claim that they exist? In any case, how likely is it that said magic screen will actually be tamper proof? If it isn't then it is nothing more than a security blanket. If it is then perhaps the scanning won't happen but only if noone can defeat it. I for one am not betting on the screen.

But suppose the screen does work. In that event there is only one actual benefit of this, large amounts of money is being given to the RFID makers. In that event it is simply a waste of tax dollars.

In either case it is a dangerously stupid idea. Now is the time to contact your Congressional Rep and your Senator to tell them that it is a dangerously stupid idea. If they hear it, it may stop. If not it will roll forward and we'll be left whining on /.

etc so that we can be tracked even when we aren't in the check-out line.

Re:A Dangerously stupid idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are an incredible amount of assumptions about the workings of RFID here, and a whole lot of conclusions based on those assumptions. Wouldn't it be better to base our conclusions on actual facts about RFID.

First, there are active and passive RFID tags, so any assumption on that should be based on knowledge of what State is planning to use.
Second, the range of an RFID tag can be severely restricted. DOD uses RFID extensively, and has tested this extensively. As can be understood some military applications of RFID require that the signal not be reflected any distance. Some RFID tags basically need to be held in contact with the reader in order to successfully transmit their information. Again, the question is what is State planning on using.

If State is using zero-range passive RFID transmitters in passports, then the chance of then giving out our information through the RFID tag is substantially lower than the chance of giving out our information by having a passport swiped out of a pocket or bag.

Not to mention the fact that once they do stick their RFID reader inside your pocket, they will also need to break the encryption. Only took a few minutes to break PGP right...

Anyone know what kind of tags they will be using or what kind of encryption? If we knew that we could actually discuss the risk.

I agree not much of a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont put the RFID in the Passport put the Passport in the RFID and put it in the Human.

P.S. Mandatory Neturing should only be applied to Animals though.

And if all that doesn't work,

[jpellino]

... they send this biiiiiiiiiiiig white ball after you.

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!"

Any Londoner has access to a public RFID tester!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just in case you live in London or happen to travel through it - there is a whole network of RFID readers installed that everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) has free access to.

If you don't really want to make it visible that you've nuked your RFID by using the microwave method you'd obviously do it at a level of power that wouldn't turn the thing into a visible crisp (i.e. you have plausible deniability of your involvement in the chip malfunction) - but how would you know you've been succesful?

Simple:

(1) take the functioning passport into a Tube station (London Underground for those new there ;-).

(2) hold the passport against the Oyster card reader. The machine will complain about an unregistered card, or in any case acknowledge that something RFID-enabled was near the reader (this, by the way, is also why you should keep the Oyster travel card separate - the system is unable to separate simultaneous responses so two cards present at the same time will confuse it). Keep this in mind the next time you want to check for RFIDs and don't have a tester handy :-)

(3) Go forth and nuketh the darn thing. Or use a hammer, but I think doing that in the Tube station could get you arrested for carrying an offensive weapon (no, there's a different law for mouths :-).

(4) repeat (2) to see if you've zapped it properly. If the reader doesn't acknowledge your passport the evil deed has been done!

There is a certain degree of irony in having a public/private funded system helping in negating the effects of a public/private funded waste of money (the background of the ID Card project would be farcical if it hadn't resulted in such a vaste waste of taxpayer's money).

They could, of course, change the software, but that would prove that the RFID numbers aren't quite as random as advertised...

just put it in an aluminum case

[halfelven]

I'm pretty sure there will be some kind of aluminum cases that one could purchase on-line, just big enough to hold an RFID passport.
Problem solved.

An other reason why want to push this.

[Parandor]

It took me a while to figure it out, but when you think about it, it's so obvious:

Corporations are the driving force behind this.

Why would corporations want this?
Answer: Make money by reducing their expenses.

How?
Answer: How many corporations already use RFiD tags? At 25$ a piece? They can save a lot of money on these tags (and replacements) by simply requiring that all employee have their passport.

It's not only about how the governement use this thechnology nor about how it can be pirated. It's also about how third parties can use this. ( like your employer, or your video club. )

Re:An other reason why want to push this.

[Lugae]

I highly doubt that passports are going to use active tags, which, yes, cost about $25. They will probably use passive tags which are $0.25 or so.

Easy Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

These new passports will begin to be issued in late August. NOW is the time to apply for your non-RFID passport that will be valid for 10 years.

It's not like the thing is running Linux

[jfengel]

An RFID chip is really, really, really simple. So simple it doesn't have any power on board; it just uses the power of the radio you beam at it. And so simple it costs less than a penny to make. You're never going to get a fingerprint reader on one.

Um... I don't think it works that way...

[Pitr]

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong but... doesn't the RFID chip simply give a serial number to a computer that the computer checks against an existing database? Worst case, it would be your social security number or something, but still, that's all the information someone could get.

"Uh oh, someone might see my passport number is '123456789'! Quick, everybody freak out!"

And even if that's not the case, as everyone's pointed out, the passport needs to be open anyway, and the range is really small, and the equipment is really expensive. This whole problem is just a tempest in a teapot.

And what happens when it FAILS while you are away?

[misterhypno]

Okay, you have the new RFID Passport. You go on vacation, on business, or whatever, to someplace slightly dangerous, like Egypt. During the trip, for some reason, the RFID chip fails. You fly home and, when the Passport agent scans your Passport, it comes up as a fake.

You are now in for several HOURS of being grilled as a possible terrorist trying to enter the United States illegally, may be subject to a full body cavity search and may not even be allowed re-entry BACK into the country! The statute is clear - if you attempt to enter the United States with a forged passport document, you will be turned away and returned to your port of departure or may be subject to arrest and prosecution.

Isn't that a wonderful thought?

My question for the Passport people is: What safeguards have they put in place to protect us from this kind of thing happening?

Lee Darrow, C,H,
Chicago, IL

an inflated sense of your importance, eh?

[Quadraginta]

I can only reach the conclusion that rfid passports are being pushed as a way for the government to ultimately track people in general.

What makes you think government gives a damn about tracking people in general? Why would it? What's in it for them? Maybe you've been reading too many X-Men comics, wherein bad guys want to rule the world and monitor every soul in it just to...uh, well, rule the world. Some kind of hard-wired genetic urge, I guess.

Actual politicians and real civil servants care about Joe Citizen in only two ways: first and foremost, they want to know that he's paying his taxes, so government salaries can continue to be paid. Not very coincidentally, you'll notice that the government already keeps very careful track of your income through your Social Security account and numerous requirements on employers. That way they can collect your taxes right from your employer before you even see the money, and they can nail you easily if you wiggle out of a few dollars here and there through artful accounting. The IRS enjoys intrusive powers of inspection into your wallet that the State or Justice Departments, or NSA, can only dream of.

Secondly, of course, politicians and civil servants care that you vote the right way -- to re-elect the incumbent, and to expand government programs that require the employment of civil servants. Does this involve trying to track your movements? Hardly. Of what use would that be? The useful trick would be something like making it harder for grassroots organizations of citizens to financially support challengers to the incumbent, by...oh, let's say, limiting the amount of money each individual could contribute to the cause of electing somebody, setting up onerous requirements that political contributions be reported to the Federal Government, limiting the amount of money a challenger can spend advertising his challenge, or even requiring that independent groups trying to help out a challenger can't coordinate strategy with the candidate....all of which should sound kinda familiar.

As always, they can usually count on the "watchdogs" of citizen privacy and independence barking fiercely at distracting shadows (NSA data-mining, RFID chips in passports) while the true threats of citizen disenfranchisement (McCain-Feingold, requiring SSNs and tax withholding to work at all) slide silently into place.

Hello, my name is Bob...

[spindleguy]

I am a self aware explosive device. I am currently sitting in a lovely park in the center of..well it doesn't really matter does it? I am programmed to detonate only when I recieve...hold please..RFID information coming in..I have to go now. bye.

the problem that it's "dangerous" to be american

[schweini]

most EU countries offer RFID passports too, nowadays - yet i hace yet to hear somebody being worried about that particular 'danger', since europeans actually seem to be welcomed in a lot of countries (i heard somewhere that a EU passport costs a lot more than a USA passport on the black market, partly because of this). my question is: why is there a relativly rampant anti-americanism everywhere? it can't be jealousy, since the EU is as well off or better off than the USA, and 'freedom' and 'liberty' still seem to have actual meanings outside of the US. so could somebody please explain to me how the US goverment OFFICIALLY justifies this glaringly bad work of their "PR department"? wouldn't simply being a BIT nicer with everybody else have a better ROI for american citizens than this never-ending fear-monging, and new (dis/u)topian, billion-dollar anti-terror gadgests?

sorry if that came out a bot trollish, but i really wonder why the american public doesn't realize how absurd it is to be so worried that people abroad might figure out that your american..

Great new fashion possibilities!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can accessorize my tinfoil hat with a matching tinfoil pocketbook!

Unlike car tires ....

[bizitch]

Passports fit nicely into microwave ovens! Problem solved.

's funny

[phorm]

Well, I'm a Canadian, and a few years ago I took a trip down to Australia to visit some friends. One thing I noticed while I was down there, is that while frequenting the bars, etc, people were in fact a fair bit friendlier when they found out I was Canadian (no maple leafs sewn onto my clothes or other physical identifiers were present). Quite often in a conversation somebody would suddenly state "Oh, you're a Canadian" and suddenly they would be much friendlier to me.

On the other hand, I've seen plenty enough of arrogant and rather ignorant Canadians here at home, so if we still have a reputation for being friendly/nice/polite abroad I suppose it's because we're keeping our supply of jerks this side of the border... not because we lack in ignorant people in general.

Link here

[Anonymous Coward]

Go here for instructions on getting a passport.

War on Tourism?

[Laserwulf]

...because if you let Americans inconspicuously travel around the world, the tourists have already one.

Re:the problem that it's "dangerous" to be america

[Jerry Rivers]

Fear of being discovered to be from the U.S. has been going on for years in a different form, where some will actually stick a Canadian flag on their luggage while travelling in Europe and elsewhere.

America is a rich and powerful country. This seriously irks many people who wish they were also rich and powerful, so they too can impose their culture and values on the rest of the world. Of course it doesn't help when some bellicose Yanks act like a bull in a china shop when they travel, but you rarely see complaints about this sort of behaviour of people from places other than the U.S.. It's just that if you are American you are help to a very high standard in the eyes of many because your country is so omnipresent and influential. That's the price of power I guess.

So, if passports advertise your nationality as American then that's really just tough luck. Press your governement to join the most of the rest of the world and allow dual/multiple citizenship so you can travel under a different flag, or stay the hell away from places where Americans are in danger. This may eventually mean you can't travel outside the U.S. however.

Does not have to be read at great distance.

[tocs]

Try to imagine that there might be situation, while you are traveling, when you would not be standing in the middle of an empty room. Imaging being in a hotel room and putting the passport on a desk. Imagine having the passport in a pocket and sitting in a seat on a train. leaning on a railing standing in line with other people around In short try to imaging how you might get a RFID antenna close to a RFID tag and you might be able to see how the tag might be detected or read.

say what?

[Quadraginta]

Ah...your point is a little too subtle for me to grasp, sorry.

Re:say what?

[maxume]

All analogies are bad analogies. Or so.

Anyway, I'm not opposed to measures that make passports harder to forge or misuse on principal, but I don't think it really occomplishes anything. I don't have a number, but if I had to guess, the U.S. has what, like 7,000 miles of border? I'm not sure that making passports better accomplishes anything more than the 50 mile(or whatever it is) "zero-tolerance" zone in Texas where they actually detain illegal crossers, it is really only a solution for that 50 mile zone, either side of the zone is slightly worse off.

Basically, hopefully it is worth teh $$$.

Re:say what?

[Quadraginta]

Mmmm, well, you have about 2 square meters of surface area, but in order to prevent drowning when under water you only need to protect a few critical square inches -- your mouth and nose. The moral being: not all lengths of boundary are equal. Some parts of any border are far more important than others.

While the US border is certainly long, in practise this means little, since almost everybody crosses it at a major airport, through those long Border Patrol lines. So if you secure the airports, you've actually done quite a lot to secure the borders.

Can nasty people still sneak across the Sonoran desert like illegals from Mexico? Or wade through mosquito-infested swamps along the Minnesota border? Or walk across the North Dakota border and hike 50 miles through badlands to the nearest highway? Sure. But all of these things are nontrivially harder than just flying into Miami International on Air Qatar with a bogus passport, and that means there's one more noxious obstacle in their path. Have to bring not only your bomb materials, but also a compass, GPS, good hiking shoes, several liters of water, bug spray...as I said originally, national defense is a layered kind of thing, like computer network defense. You throw obstacles in the bad guys' tracks. No one silver bullet is going to perfectly secure the border, but a half-dozen rusty old steel ones might do quite a good job.

I don't think it really occomplishes anything.

You might be right. But you're arguing from pure theory (unless you're a border agent incognito). The State Department is arguing at least in part from actual experience. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt, give it a try, and see what happens? It's not like it would be hard to reverse if it proves worthless, or could do some weird permanent damage to the Republic.

RFID Bomb

[Anonymous Coward]

What will stop someone developing a bomb that only goes off if a certain number of tags are in close range, for example if there are 4 amercians near by detonate bomb.

Maybe it was flattery

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Me: Good morning.
Ticket taker: Good morning. Are you British?
Me: No, American.
Ticket taker: You're too polite to be an American.

I decided to take it as a compliment.

Not that a single data point proves anything.

This is great for foreign intelligence agencies

[Anonymous Coward]

I can just see the Russians building a satellite or some huge antenna in a cave that can monitor the movements of US passports. As for not being able to detect them from far away, sure, without special equipment you can't, but with a big enough antenna....

Boost the Signal, Kenneth!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Boost the Signal, Kenneth!!!

Correction...

[SonicSpike]

...both the Dems and the Reps have a "for sale" sign out.

They are both each just as corrupt as the other. There are only 3 major 3rd parties which are not sell-outs and stand firm on principles: the Libertarians, the Constitutionalists, and the Greens.

Not Needed

[mattwarden]

carrying around a little transmitter saying 'I'm an American! I'm an American!' isn't a fun and safe thing to do in all parts of the world.

I might get modded funny, but I'm being serious. I've traveled to various parts of the world, and believe me we don't need an extra transmitter. I haven't been able to pinpoint what it is, but the locals always know I and anyone with me are Americans.

I may have just opened myself up to a lot of jokes...

That's what held them up.

[bmasel]

The chipped passports were originally to have been issued last October. Undersecretary of State Frank Moss, in a rare display of common sense, came to the 2005 Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy to hear out the critics. Travel writer Ed Hasbrouk (his writeup andblog item on his recent TSA runnin) raised the spectre of the chips serving to trigger explosives. Moss got it, and delayed the rollout until shielding could be added to the design.

photo Moss shows his prototype to John Gilmore, as Hasbrouk and I look on.

disabling RFID chips

[Anonymous Coward]

The simplest thing to do is to run the document containing an RFID chip through your microwave oven, set on high, for a second or two. Of course, you will then have to deal with officials who are suspicious of your disfunctional documents....