British "Secure" Passports Cracked

hard-to-get-a-nickna writes "The Guardian has cracked the so-trumpeted secure British passports after 48 hours of work: 'Three million Britons have been issued with the new hi-tech passport, designed to frustrate terrorists and fraudsters. So why did Steve Boggan and a friendly computer expert find it so easy to break the security codes?'"

Comments

Another DRM?

[sarathmenon]

I don't know why a simple thing as desgining a security algorithm can be so hard. There are a lot of standards and implementations out there. It *just* would have been better if governments started using a public/private key policy to safeguard all the data.

Re:Another DRM?

[Spiked_Three]

Maybe they know something you don't?

Re:Another DRM?

[Decaff]

The security algorithm was good. The problem was they did not keep the keys secure.

Re:Another DRM?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I don't know why a simple thing as desgining a security algorithm can be so hard.

It's not hard at all! The trouble is you see, it's not cheap.

Re:Another DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

The basic problem isn't the algorithm they choose. It's that their goal is incompatible with security.

They wish to establish a world where all people can be instantly identified, correlated with commercial profiles, and tracked wherever they travel.

How can this be done "securely"? It cannot.

Let's assume you get these politicians to understand some basics of encryption and physical security (and good luck with that). So, you now have a system where all people can be instantly identified and tracked by the government. Secure from... what, exactly? Secure from being tracked by unauthorized people?

Who is unauthorized, and why? I certainly have no say in who gets authorized to track me. Thousands or hundreds of thousands of random workers have access to the "authorized" level. This doesn't sound very "secure" to me.

It's like an electrocution collar you get to wear around town, "secure" in the knowledge that its encryption protocol is flawless. The only people who can activate it are from the police department, or friends of police officers, or people who sneak into the police building and use a computer there when nobody's looking. It is secure, and cannot be triggered except from the police station. Yet, in the broader sense of security, the mere fact of the collar's existence around my neck is the absolute opposite of security.

It doesn't really matter how secure they make the algorithms. A system whose purpose is to authoritatively track and identify all individual humans "from above" is insecure, by definition.

Re:Another DRM?

[sarathmenon]

It's not hard at all! The trouble is you see, it's not cheap.

But just look at history. A better choice always takes more time to create, and is more expensive to design and implement, but in the long run it pays off much better. Take Unix, most of RSA's products, etc. There's no short cut to success, there is no overnight solution. Its just that a lot of people with power can't simply realize that common fact.
Well, to whoever said common sense was common ....

Re:Another DRM?

[cheater512]

The problem is they dont keep it simple. Add complexity and the problems start to creep in.

Re:Another DRM?

[itsdapead]

I don't know why a simple thing as desgining a security algorithm can be so hard.

True - provided you're trying to get Alice to talk to Bob! Those two know a thing or two about cryptography by know and can deal with keeping keys secret, using strong passwords etc.

It all gets rather harder if you're dealing with a huge messy system composed of hoardes of busy people who neither understand nor wish to understand the system. And that's just the immigration officers, never mind joe public!

The system that they cracked seems entirely fit for the (obviously intended) purpose of preventing casual sniffing of the RFID information. It makes the perfectly pragmatic assumption that, if the bad hats get physical posession of the passport you're screwed anyway.

They could have used a "secret" key (or something more sophisticated) because every immigration desk in every participating country then needs a secret key to "unlock" the info - and as soon as one of those (inevitably) leaks every passport in a dozen countries would have to be updated or replaced.

The problem is that all any technological change like this can achieve is to make counterfieters work that little bit harder (the article didn't say if the info had been digitally signed - which would really help there and would be totally unrelated to anti-RFID-snooping measures).

Re:Another DRM?

[hey!]

You made a good parallel when you compared this system to DRM. Both systems try to distribute similar content widely, for use by machines it has no direct control or communication with, yet keep that content secure. If it is not impossible to do this without violating best practices of cryptography, it is damned close to imposssible.

However, it turns out they made the same blunder that tyro users of computer systems everywhere do: they chose a key that was easy to guess.

From TFA:

So they are using strong cryptography to prevent conversations between the passport and the reader being eavesdropped, but they are then breaking one of the fundamental principles of encryption by using non-secret information actually published in the passport to create a 'secret key'. That is the equivalent of installing a solid steel front door to your house and then putting the key under the mat.

I think it can be convincingly argued that the reason they did this is that commercial product development is inherently prone to security blunders.

Start from this well known cryptography maxim: any fool can create a system he cannot break into.

The implication is that you need bring in outside people to criticize, even break your product. But that's not how businesses operate. Businesses run on sales; you have to convince buyers to have confidence in your product. Sales can't plant confidence in the customers' minds if they have doubts in their own. That's fine for sales, but what about engineering? Well, you don't start into the development of a product without at least a healthy dose of optimism. Businesses run on optimism. And they protect themselves by denial.

Security problems are very easy to deny. There is no such thing as evidence of security; you can only try to find evidence of insecurity and fail. So how hard and long should you look? Most of the time if things look OK, they're taken to be OK.

I think it's no accident that RSA, one of the best companies in the field, was started by academics. The academic approach isn't better in every case, but it does have a lot more respect for the importance of proving the null hypothesis.

Re:Another DRM?

[Alioth]

That's a big part of the problem. Whose retarded idea was it to use RFID? Wouldn't, say, a smart card chip like the chip & pin card in credit cards have been MUCH better because then you actually need to physically have the passport in your hand to read it - instead of being able to read it through envelopes, clothing and the like with no evidence that it's been read?

Re:Another DRM?

[BeenaBerry]

I suspect it is digitally signed because the article says several times that the data cannot be amended on the copy, only cloned identically.

Re:Another DRM?

[RoboJ1M]

Yeah, sounds like someone in marketing from RFID-Corp got to them ('them' being the politicians)...

J1M.

Re:Another DRM?

[newt0311]

It makes the perfectly pragmatic assumption that, if the bad hats get physical posession of the passport you're screwed anyway.

Bzzt. WRONG. Without the RFID chip, you would have had to make a physical replica of th passport will all the problems of doing to therein. Compared to this, all you have to do now is to take any passport and insert a cracked chip with cloned data inside. since the passport is "known to be secure," the physical contents would probably not be physically checked again and even if they are checked, the check would still not be as rigorous as it would have normally been. This really is a major security hole and a massive waste of money.

Re:Another DRM?

[Yvanhoe]

Maybe the trouble is that it is far too cheap.

Re:Another DRM?

[swillden]

However, it turns out they made the same blunder that tyro users of computer systems everywhere do: they chose a key that was easy to guess.

To be accurate this wasn't so much a tyro "blunder" as it was an engineering tradeoff.

Using a stronger key would have required introducing changes to the basic passport information page that is used by all of the automated passport scanning devices in all of the passport control stations around the world. They used the existing MRZ data to generate the key because it was already there, and they already had scanners to read it, so updating a passport control station to use the new passports became a simple matter of adding the contactless smart card reader.

I suspect they probably didn't put quite enough thought into just how little entropy is in the MRZ once after you know the target's name, though. A quick analysis of the total entropy bits in the MRZ makes it look fine, but if part of the data is known, the regular structure of the rest of it makes the net search space for the attacker rather small.

That weakness could easily be addressed by causing the chip to disable itself down after a small number of failed authentication requests, but that may have lead to higher numbers of chips failing to be readable by legitimate authorities (some will anyway, but obviously they want to keep that number down).

The US solution is a pretty good one. The shielded cover keeps your data safe as long as you keep your passport closed, so you can effectively prevent anyone from getting at your passport data by putting a rubber band around the passport.

Re:Another DRM?

[Tteddo]

Well said!

Re:Another DRM?

[beckerist]

More likely the other way around.

Re:Another DRM?

[Ken D]

There was a specific requirement for a contact-less solution as they were concerned that any contact would potentially wear out after 10 years of frequent travel.

Re:Another DRM?

[hey!]

To be accurate this wasn't so much a tyro "blunder" as it was an engineering tradeoff.

I can't agree that there is a difference. Beginners see their bad password choices as tradeoffs; they are surely aware that a more difficult password would be more secure; however they misjudge the marginal security advantages of a better password.

Otherwise, I generally agree with your analysis. Key management is the achilles heel of systems like this. It's hard to do, therefore they chose to use a trivial system and assumed it would not be a problem.

Some of the obvious nightmare scenarios are probably not practical or are perhaps overblown. Despite this, it's pretty clear the system won't accomplish its goals. If the purpose of the system is to prevent terrorists counterfeiting passports, this particular "tradeoff" leaves the system unable to meet its goals. This happens all the time, why should it be hard to believe in this case?

Perhaps we should consider the possibilty that there is no feasible solution for the money that we are willing to spend. In that case the money would have been better spent elsewhere.

With respect to the US conductive sleeve, it isn't a bad idea in itself, alhtough it is important to remember that a non-grounded conductive cover is not a perfect faraday cage. Also, the sleeve does not protect you from the situation where the passport is out of your immediate posession. Do you carry your passport when you are at work? What happens when the police in Osamastan take your passport into the back room to "check it"?

While I am a frequent quoter of the the prover, "the best is the enemy of the good," I don't think it applies in situations like this. The solution chosen just isn't good enough to do what it is supposed to do. Not only is a not good enough solution a waste of money, it makes a better future solution that much harder to adopt. It also encourages people to rely on it when it should not be relied upon.

Re:Another DRM?

[bogado]

Security is never simple, The problem is that when you are securing a system you must secure the hole system against a planned attack. What this means? This means that is not only a choice of witch cryptographic algorithm you are going to use, this means that to create a secure system you must think about how keys are going to be created, how they are going to be exchanged, what side-channels might exists in the transaction and so on.

Just as an anecdote history, ssh was found to be leaking information about passwords, even if the attacker could not decrypt the data passing in the wire. The attacker would time the packets going out and in. If there were packets coming out the client side and none going in, this would mean that the data in this particular traffic was not being echoed and was probably a password. The timing between each packet leaving the client machine would show to the "bad guy" how "far" (in a sense) apart the consecutive keys were in the key board. With these timings he could plan his brute force attack, to try a much lower number of attempts.

The ssh hackers simply changed the software so it will transmit fake echo when you're in a no-echo situation, a simple fix. But this illustrate how something that most people would never think could turn into a bad problem. Secure systems must be very carefully planed and checked by third parties, the more the better. It aways easy to think about something that you would never break, that doesn't imply that it is secure.

sources:
http://www.crypto.com/papers/jbug-Usenix06-final.p df
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/375/2 (see the question "Did you develop any measure to fight timing based attacks?")

Re:Another DRM?

[itsdapead]

Compared to this, all you have to do now is to take any passport and insert a cracked chip with cloned data inside.

Congratulations - Bad Hat now has a passport on which the electronic photo (and other biometrics) and printed photo don't match. Even if B.H. looks a bit like you, the immigration officer ought to notice that the photos are different and Mr Hat will go straight to Guantanamo (if the official is too overworked/underpaid/thick to notice that then no technology in the world is going to help). Provided that the info on the chip is digitally signed (not encrypted) with a private key sitting in a steel vault somewhere, Bad Hat can't change it - hopefully, he can't even clone it properly.

He'd be far better off using your original passport which (if you recall) he had to physically steal because the 3DES encription had done its (only) intended job of stopping him remotely sniffing the RFID data. Bad hat gets through immigration while you are being strip-searched after presenting the Mickey Mouse passport that he substituted for yours.

Re:Another DRM?

[swillden]

Key management is the achilles heel of systems like this. It's hard to do, therefore they chose to use a trivial system and assumed it would not be a problem.

No, I disagree. Key management is not hard to do in cases like this, and it's not that they chose a trivial system, or that they mistakenly assumed it would not be a problem.

Key management here is easy: The keys (or, rather, the data used to generate the keys) are distributed printed on the inside of the passport. That's a perfectly adequate security model in this case, and there's nothing hard about it.

They didn't choose a trivial system. They chose to use a system that was already in place, for good reasons. That system is in place not because it's trivial, but because it served a pre-existing purpose (and still serves that purpose, actually).

As for the assumption that it's not a problem, I posit that the assumption is valid within the range of the designers' goals (and with the addition of the shielded cover, I posit that it's valid, period). Their error was that they failed to adequately address a wider range of goals which hadn't ever really been their concern before.

Despite this, it's pretty clear the system won't accomplish its goals. If the purpose of the system is to prevent terrorists counterfeiting passports, this particular "tradeoff" leaves the system unable to meet its goals.

The goal is to make it harder for forgers (whether terrorists, dealers in drugs or arms, money launderers, whatever) to forge passports, and this system absolutely meets that goal.

How? While this system does not make it impossible to duplicate a passport, the forger's goal isn't to create a duplicate. The forger's goal is to create a modified version. Your legitimate name and personal information with my photo, for example, so I can pass for you. Or, even more likely, a completely fraudulent passport with entirely fake data -- but with my photo.

Because the data on the chip is digitally signed with strong cryptography, the forger can neither create fake data, nor modify legitimate data. The only think he can do is duplicate known-valid data.

Most of the concerns around these passports are related to privacy, but privacy isn't the state department's goal. Sure, they don't want to create more opportunities for identity theft, but their goal is to reduce or eliminate document forgery. These new passports do that very well.

With respect to the US conductive sleeve, it isn't a bad idea in itself, alhtough it is important to remember that a non-grounded conductive cover is not a perfect faraday cage.

It doesn't need to be perfect, just good enough, and tests show that the shielded covers render the chip deaf and mute. I might be able to dig up a link if you like. It doesn't take much to do that, actually, the chips need fairly high input radiation levels and fairly crisp carrier signals. Attenuate and smear the signal from the reader just a little and the chip can't operate. Keep in mind that the chips are powered via electrical induction, and even a very imperfect Faraday cage dramatically reduces inductive power transfer. They're clocked via regular variations in the induced power, and they actively check for an out-of-spec clock signal. Too fast, too slow, insufficiently sharp level transitions, insufficient level variation, timing irregularities... any of these will trigger logic that shuts down the chip.

Also, the sleeve does not protect you from the situation where the passport is out of your immediate posession. Do you carry your passport when you are at work? What happens when the police in Osamastan take your passport into the back room to "check it"?

Um, if someone has possession of your passport, they have possession of your passport. They don't need to get fancy with RF signals, they can just open the cover and read the printed information directly, and that hasn't changed a bit. If you want a passport that allo

I donno.

[Anonymous Coward]

"So why did Steve Boggan and a friendly computer expert find it so easy to break the security codes?'"

I donno. Why?

Re:I donno.

[x2A]

To get to the other side?

Why?

[DuranDuran]

> So why did Steve Boggan and a friendly computer expert find it so easy to break the security codes?

He helped issue them in the first place? No, just joking.

But seriously, he didn't, did he?

Re:WHY?

[giorgiofr]

... and we have a winner!
Someone please give Red Moose a cookie.

Re:Why?

[burndive]

Even if he had, the techniques used to protect them should be sufficient to protect the data from someone who knows the encryption process. PGP is secure, even if the cracker has access to the source. His argument is that the key is too easy to obtain.

No surprise there then

[AmiMoJo]

Cracking the passports was inevitable, as is the cracking of the ID cards when they come in. Computer security on such a large scale is very, very difficult to get right.

Many large companies have invested huge sums of money into trying to prevent their systems being cracked. Take cable/satellite TV providers for example. Looking at the government`s record on IT projects, it was obviously doomed to failure from the start.

Re:No surprise there then

[baadger]

Computer security on such a large scale is very, very difficult to get right.

They should have called in the experts, Microsoft!

"Sorry sir you can't travel this evening as you haven't run your RFID chip through Passport.NET Live Update recently. We recommend you do this every second Tuesday of the 6 months proceeding travel or you may lose your right to enter your home upon return."

"Sir, do you have the 25 digit customs key for your new passport? It should have been printed on the back of the envelope it came in."

Passenger: "Excuse me, I'm having some problems with Genuine Passport Activation. I paid £66 for this a month ago but when I tried to board the International Express 737 this morning I was told that wasn't genuine."

Re:No surprise there then

[mikerich]

They should have called in the experts, Microsoft!

Okay I know you're joking, but Microsoft have been one of the biggest critics of the UK government's ID card system as providing the ideal conduit for ID theft; so perhaps the Home Office really should have called them in.

Re:No surprise there then

[bobcuspe]

Computer security on such a large scale is very, very difficult to get right. The problem is not that security is difficult to get right. Sometimes it is only a security circus. The motivation is not to improve the security. Another problem is that not everybody that thinks that understands security really do. Is these passports really worth even if they happen to be uncrackable ?

Re:No surprise there then

[Hijacked Public]

I bet had they called in Microsoft and completed the necessary bags-of-cash-handover that follows that kind of thing, Microsoft would have magically switched from critic to proponent.

Re:No surprise there then

[geoffspear]

You don't understand how lobbying works. It's the corporations that need to hand bags of cash to government officials, not the other way around. After the corporation hands the bags of cash to the government official, the official arranges for a contract that pays back the bribe 100-fold, and everyone wins. Well, everyone but the taxpayers.

Re:Great articel

[Knuckles]

Wait for a few minutes and you'll see ;) In the meantime, you might want to read the FAQ

News at 11

[giorgiofr]

Governments fail. Shocking!
Remember, kids: government intervention is good.

Re:News at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, I know this place is infested with raving Libertarians, but surely even you lot can manage to agree that border security is one of the few small areas that a Government has legitimate domain?

Re:News at 11

[DavidShor]

Sure, we could agree on that, as long as they are competent.

Re:News at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's have our trackable ID cards issued by a private company. Great idea there.

Re:News at 11

[networkBoy]

ditto

Re:News at 11

[AK Marc]

Governments fail. Shocking!

Yeah, they should get whoever came up with CSS to make their next encryption scheme. The private enterprises did that one perfectly.

Re:News at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments fail. Shocking!
Remember, kids: government intervention is good.

You're absolutely right, and it's always a black and white issue. For example, just think how much less insider trading would be going on without that useless Securities and Exchange Commission. In fact, maybe we should get rid of all government intervention since it's obviously a complete failure, and never provides any benefit to the majority of the people.

Re:News at 11

[giorgiofr]

In fact, maybe we should get rid of all government intervention since it's obviously a complete failure, and never provides any benefit to anyone.
There, fixed it for you.

Re:News at 11

[DrSkwid]

you assume that someone who believes in liberty believes in borders

Re:News at 11

[sarabob]

well, yes and no.

Have you ever written a CSS-protected dvd? Or simply removed the css protection and played it in a player that will play non-protected dvds? In the case of passports, the readers are more interested in enforcing the protection than the far-eastern DVD player manufacturers (remember that the first dvd players required modding or 'secret' codes before they would play multiregion discs)

Re:News at 11

[marcosdumay]

Oh yes, they do. At least most of them do belive on bordes and market protection.

Re:News at 11

[juan2074]

A true libertarian does not believe in either.

Let's try true free markets, open immigration, and free trade -- unfettered movement of people and goods.

Re:News at 11

[juan2074]

Read what Harry Browne had to say about insider trading.

The SEC does not protect anyone from making stupid financial decisions.

Re:News at 11

[marcosdumay]

Yes, I know. But most people that call themselves libertarians aren't true libertarians.

The id cards... were... to be based on the same

[Colin Smith]

technology. So in a sense, they've already been hacked. The word "DOH" springs to mind.

Re:The id cards... were... to be based on the same

[Anonymous Coward]

DOH = Department of HomelandInsecurity?

Easy to clone

[SomethingOrOther]

Home Office spokesman.
"If you were a criminal, you might as well just steal a passport."

Missing the point dude.
If my passport gets stolen, I report it. It gets cloned, I've no idea somebody is impersonating me, screwing up my life (and others).
Please people, support NO2ID and tell Blair where to shove his flawed ID cards and CCTV cameras.

Re:Easy to clone

[martin]

I heard John Reid on radio on Wed justifying ID-Cards by saying it would stop identity theft..I nearly crashed the car I was so mad.

ID-cards will get 'cloned'/copied eventually too. Technology on it's own isn't a cure-all.

Re:Easy to clone

[Anonymous Coward]

If my passport gets stolen, I report it. It gets cloned, I've no idea somebody is impersonating me, screwing up my life (and others).

But that's exactly the point of this 'cracked' encryption: you *can't* clone the passport just by reading the RFID in someone's coat pocket.

You need to read printed details to get access to the RFID. Sure, you can pick-pocket the passport, read what you need and then clone the RFID - but then you could just pick-pocket an old fashioned passport and spy-camera the page. But I can't pwn your life just by standing next to you on the tube.

RFID's coming whether you tinfoil types like it or not. Why not start a business manufacturing Faraday-cage passport holders or something?

Re:Easy to clone

[Richard W.M. Jones]

But that's exactly the point of this 'cracked' encryption: you *can't* clone the passport just by reading the RFID in someone's coat pocket.

Well this is so, but if you read the FA then you'll see a more plausible attack involving someone who knows your name and address (the postman in that case). Nevertheless it seems the fundamental problem here is that the key on the chip can be brute-forced. A simple change ought to fix that - either have the chip shut down after three incorrect keys have been tried, or (better) have it implement an exponential back-off for each failed attempt.

Rich.

Re:Easy to clone

[protactin]

Please people, support NO2ID and tell Blair where to shove his flawed ID cards and CCTV cameras.

Also, 10 Downing Street have now made it easy for you to petition against the introduction ID cards.

Re:Easy to clone

[Threni]

> It gets cloned, I've no idea somebody is impersonating me, screwing up my life (and others).

You do if each use gets logged.

Re:Easy to clone

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, fair enough, I stopped at the paragraph before that as it happens. So put in measures so the passport can't be read through the envelope, e.g. sealed foil jacket. Of course the postman could just open the letter anyway but hey he already could to read the details from the passport.

Back-off is reasonable except then someone just wanders through Heathrow spamming passports with their 10m-range RFID reader and then nobody flies.

Re:Easy to clone

[ajs318]

Indeed. In order to get an identity card in the first place, you have to prove your identity with something. Whatever that something is, could just as easily be used by someone pretending to be you. Or you could just use that something to prove your identity in the first place, negating the need for the card.

If I had known ten years ago that all this was going to happen, I would have signed up for my electricity, gas, water and telephone services all in different names -- and encouraged everyone I knew to do the same.

Re:Easy to clone

[Cylix]

My suggestion was rather quite simple.

Have it only give the correct answer half of the time.

Then of course, you really wouldn't be sure if it's giving the correct answer at all unless you already knew it.

Re:Easy to clone

[Xzerix]

Just clicked on NO2ID.

Register now! Just give us your full name, and address including postcode!

What else would they like? DNA sample, fingerprints?

Re:Easy to clone

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Back-off is reasonable except then someone just wanders through Heathrow spamming passports with their 10m-range RFID reader and then nobody flies.

That would be funny though :-)

Rich.

Ah, I think there's a knock at the door. Police?

Re:Easy to clone

[mdwh2]

He also misses the point in another way - if it's no different to stealing a passport, then why are we paying 50% more for these new passports that are no better?

Re:Easy to clone

[Calinous]

Even better: read a passport's chip, follow the man until he reaches his car. Make a small accident (your guilt), and let repairs be solved the official way - you will know his name (full name), address, and maybe other info from the exchange of insurance info

Re:Easy to clone

[jackjeff]

Same as before...

I have a paper passport. Some dude overlook my passport details, or follow me home.. He can actually find a lot (name, birthplace, address etc.. ) except my passport number without needing to see the real passport. He forges another passport with these details, you get cloned, and you don't know it... the chip has not changed anything concerning this.

Re:Easy to clone

[PReDiToR]

I'm glad nobody suggested walking round Heathrow with a microwave transmitter, those blow the RFID chips up and the USA won't allow you to enter the country without the RFID.
How many people have to get turned away on one flight before they let everyone through?
Still, tha ... hang on, door ...

Re:Easy to clone

[mpe]

You need to read printed details to get access to the RFID. Sure, you can pick-pocket the passport, read what you need and then clone the RFID - but then you could just pick-pocket an old fashioned passport and spy-camera the page. But I can't pwn your life just by standing next to you on the tube.

The point is that the RFID dosn't actually make a passport harder to duplicate. But it does identify which person is carrying one and which pocket it is in. The result is a decrease in actual security.

Re:Easy to clone

[mpe]

Back-off is reasonable except then someone just wanders through Heathrow spamming passports with their 10m-range RFID reader and then nobody flies.

Or leave RFID jammers on timers around the place. Harder to detect than a bomb and potentially far more disruptive.

Re:Easy to clone

[BeerCat]

Much appreciated link.

The ID card fiasco has all the hallmarks of a project that will suck the UK economy dry. Back when it was "to fight benefit fraud", a £30bn system was to be introduced to save £1.5bn. And that was before any cost overruns.

I sometimes wonder whether politicians should be required to take out indemnity insurance to pay for all their more costly blunders. The only problem would be that they would try and claim it on expenses, rather than face a premium that could easilty run to 300% of their salary (£70,000 premium on a salary that might just reach £24,000 for some independent health care professionals, for example. And that was when it was actually even available)

Re:Easy to clone

[rjstanford]

Ask it four times, and then go with answer it gives twice.

Re:Easy to clone

[BeerCat]

From TFA:

"This doesn't matter," says a Home Office spokesman. "By the time you have accessed the information on the chip, you have already seen it on the passport. What use would my biometric image be to you?

In other words, the Home Office have admitted that there is no point in having the biometric information, as it is duplicated with what is already there, and will be ignored by most people who have already seen the primary information (human nature there). Remind me again why the new biometric stuff is meant to be "better"

Re:Easy to clone

[Marillion]

I would be interested to see if there is a digital certificate included in the data that is validated against each countries master certificate (stored at the reader - not the passport) that ensures the passport was actually produced by that country.

Otherwise, if the passport has all the elements required to validate itself (the article claims it already has all the encryption key information), then it follows anyone could create a self-validating passport. Including whatever bad guys this programme is intentended to prevent from doing so.

Re:Easy to clone

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh grow up. It's to register for membership.

Anyone who modded that 'interesting' should mod themselves as 'dumbass' for not looking to see whether the post really was genuinely 'interesting' or in fact 'pointless'. Though 'funny' might have been almost forgiveable but still a crap joke.

Re:Easy to clone

[Earle Martin]

Why not start a business manufacturing Faraday-cage passport holders or something?

Somebody beat you to it: DIFRWEAR RFID Blocking Passport Case. As a British citizen, I think I'll be getting one of these.

Re:Easy to clone

[Richy_T]

As a British citizen, I think I'll become an American citizen. Though lord knows it's not much better.

Rich

Re:Easy to clone

[Earle Martin]

Actually, I was thinking of moving to Canada.

Re:Easy to clone

[jez9999]

Whilst John Reid is a dickhead for saying that (he's just a dickhead, actually), isn't it true that just copying the card itself isn't enough; you'd need to copy someone's biometric to 'steal' their identity? And copying someone's biometric in a way that can be sensibly used isn't that easy; a glass eye with your iris printed on it? Possible, but tough to do.

How indeed ...

[spellraiser]

I just finished reading the article.

In short, the weakness lies in the fact that although DES3 is used to encrypt the communication between the passport chip and the reader, the key is based upon data that's available on the passport:

By last month, Booth, Laurie and I each had access to a new biometric chipped passport and were ready to begin testing them. Laurie's first port of call was the ICAO's [International Civil Aviation Organisation] website, where the organisation had published specifications for the new travel documents. This is where he learned that the key to opening up the secure chip was contained in the passports themselves - passport number, date of birth and expiry date.
...
The Home Office has adopted a very high encryption technology called 3DES - that is, to a military-level data-encryption standard times three. So they are using strong cryptography to prevent conversations between the passport and the reader being eavesdropped, but they are then breaking one of the fundamental principles of encryption by using non-secret information actually published in the passport to create a 'secret key'. That is the equivalent of installing a solid steel front door to your house and then putting the key under the mat.

Re:How indeed ...

[pe1chl]

This is because the encryption is not supposed to make the content inaccessible.
The reader at the cutoms employee's desk has to be able to read the passport data. It has to know the key.
Instead of installing a super-secret key in all readers around the world (and having to pray that it does not somehow leak out), the designers opted to use a separate key for each passport and have it printed on the passport itself, so that it can be used by the reader.
This is only intended to protect against the "reading in the metro" scenario. Not to protect against reading your own passsport using an RFID reader.

Also, many scenarios written after such discoveries assume that the readability of the data implies it can be modified to commit fraud. This is not true. The data is signed using public-key encryption, and modifications are easily detected by the reader.

Re:How indeed ...

[sauron_of_mordor]

"Instead of installing a super-secret key in all readers around the world (and having to pray that it does not somehow leak out), the designers opted to use a separate key for each passport and have it printed on the passport itself, so that it can be used by the reader." why not both? Why not a sequence of timedomain limited superkeys?

Re:How indeed ...

[xoyoyo]

If you read the TFA you'll find that it doesn't make any claims about being able to modify the data. It does however go on to list the ways an attacker might retrieve the data and make use of it.

To be fair to the system designers it does make the whole system a little more secure in that the data on the chip has to be matched with the paper information. But only a little: if I found someone who looked sufficiently like me AND I could gain access to their passport the system is just a compromised. Arguably moreso as the claimed extra security will lead to an unjustifiable rise in trust.

Considering the following scenario: a crooked hotel clerk (in Europe you usually have to show your passport when checking in) takes your passport "to be photocopied". Using the key information on the passport they clone every passport that comes their way. This way they can build up a stock of passports matching all conceivable faces to be resold. This actually becomes more useful the longer the system is in operation as the ten years of a usual passport's lifespan can make your face change dramatically.

The end result is a system only marginally more secure than before.

Re:How indeed ...

[dumbo11]

"The end result is a system only marginally more secure than before." According to the article they'd need ~ 24 hours to crack each passport (assuming a 5 digit code), so in that respect it's a hugely more secure? IMHO, there are 3 things that are gained: a) a little bit of security. b) the ability to scan passports in/out of a country more quickly. c) a chip in a passport that could be extended to contain other bio-identity information without loads of pointless scare-mongering (fingerprint/iris scan/brain dump/whatever).

Re:How indeed ...

[xoyoyo]

No, the 24 hours the article gives is if you can't see the password but you know some information about the target. If you have access to the actual passport access is instantaneous. Effectively a cloner just does exactly the same as an immigration control officer.

Re:How indeed ...

[dwarfsoft]

So you believe that the key needs to be human readable when you already have a machine readable passport? They could have used a randomized key that was included in the Machine Readable portion down the bottom. It didn't have to be based on personal information at all. That would have made brute-forcing the chip a whole lot more difficult, and therefore required that the theives have physical access to the passport.

Re:How indeed ...

[ajs318]

Physical access to someone's passport is not hard to obtain. Many hotels and campsites insist to see the passports of foreign nationals. All it takes is few bent people in a few tourist resorts, and you can build up a stock of identity information. As a previous poster stated, the more identities you have, the more likely it is that one of them will resemble somebody who wants a false passport.

Re:How indeed ...

[CortoMaltese]

The machine readable zone, specified by ICAO, is widely used, also by countries that aren't rushing into electronic passports. Which means that the contents of the zone are difficult to change. And if you read the specs, you realize there's hardly any space left for adding key entropy. Which is why they started using information that is already there, and of that information, only passport number, date of birth, and expiry date have a check digit.

Basically, what you suggest could've been done, but not within the time frame set by the U.S.

Re:How indeed ...

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was no encryption of the information on the RFID chip, anyone within a certain RFID range would be able to steal it.

By putting the "key", albeit plainly visible as name, date-of-birth and passport-number information, inside the passport, you at least limit access to people who can read the RFID chip *and* physically access the passport.

Re:How indeed ...

[BeenaBerry]

But only a little: if I found someone who looked sufficiently like me AND I could gain access to their passport the system is just a compromised. Arguably moreso as the claimed extra security will lead to an unjustifiable rise in trust.

This is the main point really.. the system doesn't fail, it's still marginally better than paper passports in theory (you can not only copy them pretty easily, but also amend them quite easily unlike these signed digital versions). But in practice, it will be trusted much more because there's a machine involved. That's human nature, unfortunately.

Re:How indeed ...

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

So effectively the UK (including me) have spent money on snake oil because it was mandated by the US?

What seems crazy is not that all of the data used for the key is present in plain text on the passport, but that it is also often used elsewhere (hotels demand passport numbers, etc.) - only the check digits aren't quoted externally. The even crazier thing is that there DOES appear to be room on the second line of machine readable data on UK passports for an extra field (I'm guessing that other countries may store issuing office or something similar here?). Maybe the ICAO specifically exclude other data items?

Having all of the the data in plain text still means that data can be read remotely if you've got access to all the data on the passport, but not using data that is already public and easily obtainable. It's eqivalent to the three digits on the back of a credit card - once you've given information to someone, you haven't any real control over what they do with it, but it's more secure than just trusting the credit card number (mine will be in landfills on five continents, I'm sure).

The interesting question is "in the longer term then what?". Chip and Pin passports, anyone(!)

Re:How indeed ...

[Paradise Pete]

As a previous poster stated, the more identities you have, the more likely it is that one of them will resemble somebody who wants a false passport.

And with the handy biometrics data, you don't even have to flip through them all to find one.

Re:How indeed ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the information on the passport is designed to be machine-read anyway, they probably should have used a very large random key, rather than a combination of not-secure personal data that's human-readable on the passport itself.

Re:How indeed ...

[CortoMaltese]

So effectively the UK (including me) have spent money on snake oil because it was mandated by the US?

Yes and no. I'll make some educated guesses here. (Against /. tradition, I'll base my guesses on facts instead of FUD.)

The governments are trying to make the new passports more difficult to forge than before. This process started long ago, the US has just speeded up the process. Currently, it is indeed possible to clone the chip, but you will still need to come up with an authentic looking passport book, which will have to contain data identical to that in the chip. As the data on the chip is digitally signed, it is really difficult to forge. In this respect, the new passports really are more secure than the ones before.

The personal information printed on the passport and also on the chip is regarded as "less-sensitive", considering that currently the only form of biometric information is your facial image. I don't think the governments really care that much if your information is leaked. The basic access control makes it just slightly more difficult than without it. They just needed to make some compromise between privacy and how much effort it takes to launch the new system. But that's not the point of the new passports, the point is the digital signature of the contents of the passport. (Note that I'm not saying it's okay that there are privacy and cloning issues.)

I do not know about the rest of the world, but when EU member countries start issuing passports with fingerprint or iris images on them, the passports will have substantially stronger security features to restrict access to biometric data. There will be Diffie-Hellman key agreement for session keys and a world wide PKI system for terminal authentication. The passport chips are required to be evaluated by independent labs according to the so called Common Criteria. It will be extremely difficult to crack them, but of course, given enough time and resources, anything can be broken.

Re:How indeed ...

[BeerCat]

For a near 50% increase in price over the old ones (£35 to £62, if I recall), I'd want a bit more than "marginally better than paper passports"

Re:How indeed ...

[starfishsystems]

Finally, a note of wisdom emerges above the usual background noise.

Of course information can be extracted from the passport. That is its purpose, after all. The printed information has this property as well, and it can be forged by purely physical means.

The digital information, on the other hand, is signed by a certificate authority. While it may well be possible to create an exact duplicate of the passport, such duplicates are less valuable than a printed source of identity because they can't be used as the raw material for forgery. As you point out, modifications will not validate against the certificate signature.

As is often the case with security, the main risk is not due to vulnerability of the data but to mistaken inferences about how to apply it. People may simplistically think these passports are "more secure" and therefore treat them more casually. In the worst case, they will accept mere posession of the passport as identity, without validation, during some transaction which is then used to generate a secondary identity.

Governments and computers don't mix

[geoff lane]

The dumb thing is that the personal information is SUPPOSED to be unencrypted - it's part of the spec. Thus, the 3DES (Ha Ha) encryption of the "hello" connection is irrelevant; though if the key really is based on public information it looks like someone really has lost the plot.

In any case, isn't 3DES being phased out because the cost of cracking it has fallen dramatically recently?

Re:Governments and computers don't mix

[tonigonenstein]

sn't 3DES being phased out because the cost of cracking it has fallen dramatically recently?

No. DES is easy to crack, but 3DES is quite secure. Its disadvantage compared to e.g. AES is its inefficiency.

Re:Governments and computers don't mix

[TheBogBrushZone]

In any case, isn't 3DES being phased out because the cost of cracking it has fallen dramatically recently?

DES has been cracked by brute force in a short time for a limited cost but estimates are that DESede (or 3DES or whatever name you prefer) would still require milennia with current methods. The fault lies at the weakest link - the choice of encryption key.

The problem is that with encryption of static data (i.e. in a situation where you can't use something like Diffie-Hellman to negotiate a random key) you need to store the key somewhere and you have lots of options both good and terrible, for example:
1. Derive it from the public information in the data
2. Store it in a database on a secure system to be retrieved when required
3. Use the same key for all data

Option 3 is prone to internal leaks (once your fixed key is out all of the passports are compromised) but option 1 (which was chosen) is prone not only to people leaking how the key is stored but also to crackers just playing around with the data to see what works, especially if you choose something really stupid and obvious like using an MD5 or SHA hash of the passport number (or worse just the raw unmodified number). This applies equally to the Rijndael (or AES) algorithm that is replacing DES or even public-private key encryption if your half-baked developer with his cushy government contract decides the private key should be embedded in the passport.

Re:Governments and computers don't mix

[Anonymous Coward]

No, 3DES (Triple-DES, aka TDES) has not been broken. In fact, NIST says 2-key 3DES (using three 8-byte keys where the first and third ones are identical) is fine until after 2010. 3-key 3DES - using three independent 8-byte keys - is rated to be fine until 2030. (See the table describing this on page 66 of NIST SP800-57 Part 1, which you can find at http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-57/ SP800-57-Part1.pdf) While the end of life is in sight for 3DES, it won't arrive for a while. People often get confused because single-DES, which uses just a single 8-byte key, can be broken now by exhaustive search of the keys until you find the right one.

Re:Governments and computers don't mix

[starfishsystems]

I don't know if it's dumb to assume that the purpose of the passport is to supply information to the reader. That's what passports do.

The purpose of encrypting the session is to prevent man in the middle scenarios in which the data could be forged in transit. It's not intended to prevent extraction of the data or act as a source of validation. It's a symmetric cypher, after all.

Re:Governments and computers don't mix

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason the information is passed in an encrypted fashion is because it's being sent wirelessly. It's purpose is to a) prevent unauthorized activation of the passport and b) prevent snooping on the conversation between authorized readers and the passport. And in this case, authorized means anyone who you show your passport to. And at that point, they can just read the information directly from the passport anyway.

Nothing to see here...

[ericlondaits]

The author of the piece (yeah, TFA) gets his panties in a bunch because the encryption key of the passport (which has the data encrypted with 3DES) is passport number, date of birth and expiration date. Then he says:

So they are using strong cryptography to prevent conversations between the passport and the reader being eavesdropped, but they are then breaking one of the fundamental principles of encryption by using non-secret information actually published in the passport to create a 'secret key'

What fundamental principle of encryption are they breaking? If anything, a fundamental principle of encryption is that there can't be such a thing as a "secret key" if you're either putting it in the passport or if you're deploying it to everybody that needs to scan passports (remember DVD encryption?).

What's important is to have the data in the passport (along with the picture) digitally signed, in order to avoid tampering. The article claims that these passports are indeed signed and they didn't break the signature. Big surprise, since all they did was get a RFID reader and decrypt 3DES with the key right in front of them.

"If you can read the chip, then you can clone it," he says. "You could use this to clone a passport that would exploit the system to illegally enter another country."

Don't see how you can... but anyway an exploit would be a problem with the reading software, not with the passports. And it could be more easily patched after deployment.

The article then presents some more valid points... but these have nothing to do with the basic encryption being broken. FUD mostly, surprise, surprise.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

"If you can read the chip, then you can clone it," he says. "You could use this to clone a passport that would exploit the system to illegally enter another country."

Don't see how you can

Which part are you disputing?

The, "if you can read it you can clone it" part?
Or the, "you could use a cloned passport to exploit the system" part?

I think the first is obviously true.

I think the second only requires a small amount of imagination - clone a passport of someone who looks similar to you and you are good to go, especially since the customs agents will inevitably start relying on the computer to validate people rather than their own judgement.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[ericlondaits]

I think the second only requires a small amount of imagination - clone a passport of someone who looks similar to you and you are good to go, especially since the customs agents will inevitably start relying on the computer to validate people rather than their own judgement.

You wouldn't even need to clone it for that... merely steal it. If agents inevitably start relying on the computer that's where the problem lies. The checking procedure could be designed in order to somehow "force" a visual ID.

There's a lot you can innovate in that direction, which deals more with psychology than encryption. While making un-clonable passports would probably be a lot harder if not impossible.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[archeopterix]

"If you can read the chip, then you can clone it," he says.

Don't see how you can... but anyway an exploit would be a problem with the reading software, not with the passports.

The "read -> clone" implication might be a bit of an overstatement, but if the chip identifies itself (and the passport) to the reader by revealing _all_ of its contents, then the only barrier to cloning is the availability of programmable RFID chips. Cryptographically speaking (*), they could have done better. There exists something called zero knowledge protocols which makes it possible to identify a party without revealing the secret information used for identification, i.e. without helping the potential cloner.

(*)I don't know whether RFID chips are capable of implementing zero knowledge protocols (they require some computing power), but if they can handle 3DES, then the answer is probably yes.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[CortoMaltese]

The encryption and message authentication keys for the so called basic access control, specified by ICAO, are based on the machine readable zone of the passport. It's the funny lines at the bottom of the passport, with a lot of filler characters '<'. Passport number, date of birth, and expiration date are the only fields that have a check digit, which is why they were chosen as the base for the keys. The entropy is not very high, especially because the fields are not random.

The machine readable zone was chosen for key seed, because it is already there, and the readers are already there. I guess the idea is that it's better than nothing. It makes eavesdropping and cloning slightly harder than without. But just slightly. It is indeed possible to do both without very much effort. Forging (i.e. creating a passport with phony information but with a correct digital signature) is another story, very hard.

The EU is going to mandate the use of so called advanced security mechanisms, a.k.a. extended access control, for biometric passports that contain sensitive data, such as fingerprint or iris images. Such passports will have a Diffie-Hellman key exchange for encryption and message authentication, and a PKI based terminal authentication for granting access to sensitive data. The EAC spec is available from German BSI by request.

Oh, and before someone shouts that all RFID tags should burn in hell, I'll just say that the passport chips are contactless, or RFID, smart cards, and have next to nothing to do with RFID tags. The chips can, among other neat things, perform RSA operations using 2K-bit keys in reasonable time. Cracking the actual chip is very difficult.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[mikerich]

I think the second only requires a small amount of imagination - clone a passport of someone who looks similar to you and you are good to go, especially since the customs agents will inevitably start relying on the computer to validate people rather than their own judgement.

Yep - just think how often your credit card signature is actually checked against that on the slip. Over here in the UK we've moved to chip 'n PIN, but a couple of recent trips to America really shocked me - my signature was NEVER checked against that on the card and on several occasions I paid using a terminal where the card was swiped, no PIN needed, no signature.

Passports and ID cards are going to go the same way. The government is telling us the passports/cards are guaranteed unforgeable so the users of the card are going to assume the card is the 'gold standard' for identity. If the card says it is genuine, then let that person through, don't worry about double-checking - the system has to be right doesn't it?

Re:Nothing to see here...

[Anonymous Coward]

What are they going to issue me with when I refuse to have one? Am I disbarred from going abroad because I see this for the useless tech scam it is?

Re:Nothing to see here...

[Anonymous Coward]

A prisoner number and a broom to clean the gulag with, comrade.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[Xugumad]

> The entropy is not very high, especially because the fields are not random.

The entropy is a joke. Expiration date - what's the lifespan of a UK passport (don't have mine to hand, or I'd check)? That's your window for expiration date. Most people will replace passports before they expire, so you can even shorten that window. Not to mention, it's a date, which severely limits the number of valid values. Date of birth? A little harder; if you can see the person, you can get an idea of likely birth years though, and birthdays are not exactly evenly distributed throughout the year. Only passport number is going to hard to figure out, and if they're numbered sequentually (probably are) it's not that hard.

Sure, it's not going to be possible to get it on the first attempt, but it's also not what you'd call secure.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[Venner]

You'll probably find this guy's experience both amusing and utterly appalling. How far can you really go with credit card signatures?
http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/

Re:Nothing to see here...

[denebian devil]

You wouldn't even need to clone it for that... merely steal it. If agents inevitably start relying on the computer that's where the problem lies. The checking procedure could be designed in order to somehow "force" a visual ID.

But if the passport is stolen, then it's possible for the rightful owner to report it as stolen, in which case when that similar looking person tries to use the passport to cross a border, the nice officer doesn't need to bother doing a visual check because the computer would signal the officer that the passport was stolen, starting a whole other set of more detailed investigations.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[CortoMaltese]

The BSI EAC spec I referred to in grandparent actually contains some analysis of the basic access control, and an approximation of the maximum key strength for passports valid for 10 years. It's 56 bits for documents with random numeric passport number, and 73 bits for documents with random alphanumeric passport numbers. But the passport numbers are, as you said, usually sequential.

Even so, the spec goes on to mention that cracking the key still requires more effort than obtaining the less-sensitive information from other sources.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[virtual_mps]

Yep - just think how often your credit card signature is actually checked against that on the slip. Over here in the UK we've moved to chip 'n PIN, but a couple of recent trips to America really shocked me - my signature was NEVER checked against that on the card and on several occasions I paid using a terminal where the card was swiped, no PIN needed, no signature.

And thank god for that--I really don't need to be held up in line because some junior private eye behind the checkout counter thinks he's a handwriting expert because of what he just learned on the latest crime drama. Signatures are a useless element in any security program, because most people can't tell a real signature from a forgery. (In practice, a forger is more likely to have a signature which matches that on the card than a legitimate card holder in a hurry.)

Re:Nothing to see here...

[maxume]

The operator of the terminal is liable for fraudulent charges on that terminal, so in practice it isn't a big deal -- if the store is losing money they can turn it off or start checking signatures, whatever.

I had my local post office refuse my card because it wasn't signed, so it tends to vary a bit.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[eraserewind]

Why would you want to tamper an already perfectly good passport? It's cloning of perfectly good passports that they need to prevent.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[Anonymous Coward]

that there can't be such a thing as a "secret key" if you're either putting it in the passport or if you're deploying it to everybody that needs to scan passports

Well the same is true of the keys used by ATM machines but I don't recall that system ever being cracked. People stole the machines in ram raids, but apparently they still never cracked the bank's transaction network wide open.

Secret keys embedded in hardware that is only used in secure areas of airports with full CCTV and manual security coverage is not really open to the same kind of cracking as, say, the authentication code in the Xing software DVD player. In theory, they are the same. In practice, no way.

And you are assuming there would be only one secret key. Not so - they could have multiply encrypted the data with a hundred private keys and then had each scanner hold 5 of those keys at random. That would be, in practical terms, a strong system - you'd need the codes from the scanners at every airport you wanted to travel through. It would need the next RFID chip up in terms of price, though.

The article points out weaknesses in the scheme which are real and present; how is that FUD?

What's FUD is saying that all theoretically imperfect systems are equivalently bad in practice. It simply isn't true but in any kind of discussion like this on Slashdot someone always pipes up with the same nonsense.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[thebdj]

What fundamental principle of encryption are they breaking? If anything, a fundamental principle of encryption is that there can't be such a thing as a "secret key" if you're either putting it in the passport or if you're deploying it to everybody that needs to scan passports (remember DVD encryption?).

Okay, that you for showing you have no understanding of cryptography. The problem with DVD encryption is that is what a weak cipher. It is built on a 40-bit key (mistake one) and a stream cipher (potential mistake two). This weak encryption method was the real problem with CSS, not some fundamental flaw of cryptography. There are plenty of ways to have a true secret key. A secret key in cryptography is any symmetric key that is meant to be kept, well secret. These keys can be established using DH or by using an RSA keypair. Neither of these have been broken, and would be very secure for establishing keys for the RFID system.

What's important is to have the data in the passport (along with the picture) digitally signed, in order to avoid tampering. The article claims that these passports are indeed signed and they didn't break the signature. Big surprise, since all they did was get a RFID reader and decrypt 3DES with the key right in front of them.

Exactly! The 3DES key, well the two or three DES keys, was right in front of them because it was created from non-secret information stored in the passport. This means the data is publicly available and required no key information to read.

I do not get your claim that this is total FUD. Your "secure" passport can be broken. I believe a good dose of Fear that is doesn't work, Uncertainty that it does work (cause it obviously doesn't), and overall doubt of the system is in order here. There are plenty of ways they could have successfully secured this system. It is a design flaw brought about by the failing to follow the "rules of cryptography" and that is something to be worried about.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[ericlondaits]

I certainly agree that making sure the checks are made is an issue. But the willingness of a store employee to check my personal data shouldn't be the same as a federal agent in a more critical situation.

You could mandate a delay in authorizations (like Firefox does with downloads and extensions) during which the agent could check the face... you could have the agent's screen next to the window where the traveler is, so the photo would appear right next to the face... you could have the software take a picture from the traveler and present the agent with five different traveler photos plus the one from the passport and have him match both, in order to make sure he checks it. And that's just off the top of my head. I believe some good schemes could be devised that tie the automatic check to some task that would encourage or mandate the agent to perform a good visual ID.

I'm sure it's much easier to build a secure process than to build a secure passport.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[finkployd]

You wouldn't even need to clone it for that... merely steal it.

Ah, but then the owner would realize it was missing and report it. This way nobody is the wiser.

If agents inevitably start relying on the computer that's where the problem lies.

If...IF?!!! Are you on crack? OF COURSE they will rely entirely on the computer. That is what computers are for. They never make mistakes, and they never lie. Mark my words, the first couple of people who's passports are cloned by terrorists, criminals, etc. will face significant penalties and it will be even HARDER for them to prove their innocence.

"You claim it was not you, but we tracked your passport which you never reported stolen and you have in your possession. The evidence is incontrovertible."

While making un-clonable passports would probably be a lot harder if not impossible.

True, it is much easier to throw a bunch of money at a problem and act like you made an un-clonable passport, then treat it as such in court.

Finkployd

Re:Nothing to see here...

[ericlondaits]

Okay, that you for showing you have no understanding of cryptography. The problem with DVD encryption is that is what a weak cipher. It is built on a 40-bit key (mistake one) and a stream cipher (potential mistake two). This weak encryption method was the real problem with CSS, not some fundamental flaw of cryptography.

My understanding of cryptography is probably weak... yet I though that CSS was not broken because they cracked the weak cipher, but rather because whoever made the XING software DVD Player forgot to encrypt the decryption key or something like that. And anyway... since you're handing me the ciphertext (CSS encrypted DVD), the decryption key (in the player), and expecting me to use them to generate the plaintext (the digital video) I don't see how the scheme could be actually secure.

Encryption is usually about everybody not having the password... so if every agent in an airport has it, or if every DVD player has it inside, there's no way it can be really secure. You basically want "everybody" to decrypt the data... not a surprise if they're able to.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[Paradise Pete]

if they can handle 3DES, then the answer is probably yes.

all they have to do is verify the key. They don't have to do any heavy lifting.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[Anonymous Coward]

What fundamental principle of encryption are they breaking? If anything, a fundamental principle of encryption is that there can't be such a thing as a "secret key" if you're either putting it in the passport or if you're deploying it to everybody that needs to scan passports (remember DVD encryption?).
 
Huh, you have worked with encryption haven't you? You are supposed to use a "secret key" in 3DES encrypted communication, it's a fairly standard procedure. It's also completely useless if the "secret key" is public information as that is really the only thing protecting it. A key should have been generated using other information or even more complex to have some math depending on date or something as the key, but if the key is public, than you have eliminated the point of the 3DES encryption. This is completely standard practice on firewalls for VPN's, as you seem to not know about this deployment here is a link http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/vpndevc/ps2 030/products_configuration_example09186a008055bd85 .shtml#maintask1 and look at the pre-shared key. On top of that there is a method for deploying keys to users and having them not now what the key is, I've done it many times myself.
 
What I am actually not getting is why the hell is there 3DES on these if the info is already easily available? the 3DES implementation seems pointless at best and with the key being public info, I wouldn't even call it cracking to get the info, it's plain old decrypting with the method the maker of the card designed.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[Alioth]

Why not use a credit-card style chip instead of something that's remotely readable in the first instance? Using an RF smart card seems like a completely retarded idea where the trivial expedient of using a chip where you MUST have physical contact is probably much cheaper (and by default, much more secure even with a trivial key!)

Re:Nothing to see here...

[swillden]

The checking procedure could be designed in order to somehow "force" a visual ID.

Dunno about "force", but the image on the passport chip is sufficiently high quality that it can be displayed fairly large on the passport agent's screen. It's easier to compare a face to a 4"x3" photo on the screen than to a 1.5"x1" photo printed in the passport.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[CortoMaltese]

There are a number of reasons why contactless/RFID smart card chips are used instead of contact chips. In decreasing order of importance:

1. The standard protocols for contact cards (ISO 7816) have significantly lower communication speeds than the protocols for contactless cards (ISO 14443). Reading the facial image from the chip is the single most time consuming operation during the session. Once fingerprint/iris images come along in the future, this matters even more.
2. There are no standardized locations for contacts in passport form factor. Which means there are no readers available off the shelf.
3. Not all countries use a hard polycarbonate data sheet for embedding the chip. It's technically difficult to have the contacts on the soft covers of the passport book.
4. In heavy use, the contact readers have failures due to dirt, etc.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[thebdj]

yet I though that CSS was not broken because they cracked the weak cipher, but rather because whoever made the XING software DVD Player forgot to encrypt the decryption key or something like that.

I am not sure what initial method was used to break CSS; however, CSS was found to be somewhat receptable to brute force attacks, which is a good sign of crypto weakness. The reason for its weakness is due in some part (or completely) to the US export restrictions on strong cryptography.

Encryption is usually about everybody not having the password

Gah! Passwords are the evil anti-cryptography. The problem with a password is they are usually poorly designed and typically susceptible to the dumbest of attacks - the dictionary attack.

so if every agent in an airport has it, or if every DVD player has it inside, there's no way it can be really secure. You basically want "everybody" to decrypt the data... not a surprise if they're able to.

My understanding from the article was that the key is unique to each passport. Each passport's key is then either directly provided to the reader or established using the three values in question. This could be fixed using several different methods designed for establishing key values. They could have used Diffie-Hellman key agreement to establish the secret symmetric key. This key value would then be used for encryption. I suppose the only flaw here would be the RFID passport would need a space to store the established key.

You could also generate and store a key value that was generated using an RNG. Each station could then generate RSA key pairs and transmit a public key to the RFID, which would encrypt its symmetric key and transmit it back to the reader. The reader would then use its private key to decrypt the symmetric key. You could then generate different key pairs for each time a card is read. Again, I suppose a problem develops with where to store the public key.

There are plenty of ways to keep the secret key from being known. In this case, a bad choice was made in choosing how the key value is derived.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[ady1]

I totally agree. However doesn't it make the encryption useless? What's the whole point? essentially if a reader can read (and clone) the RFID then how is it secure than the previous one anyway?

What I think they should've done was to put the private key on the passport (unreadable once written) and public key in their database. Now what the the RFID should transmit is the date of birth, name and other info encrypted by the private key in the RFID itself which can be verified by the public key that they already have. Since the private key is unreadable but is used to encrypt the public information so it could be easily verified.

Or is it what they are already doing?

Re:Nothing to see here...

[ericlondaits]

Yes, what you just described is mostly what digital signatures are all about AFAIK... and they're already doing it. No need to include the private key with the data when you do this... the private key can be held at a "highly secret location" by a "trusted party".

Re:Nothing to see here...

[hippopede]

FUD? This is what the passport's issuing authority says:

"Can I see what is on the chip? The data held on the chip can only be viewed by specialised readers. There are specialised readers (eReaders) available at each of the 7 IPS regional offices. ...

"Is the Biometric Passport secure? The new biometric passport has many new security features including a chip. The new design will be harder to forge, the new security features will show if the passport is genuine or that it has been tampered with and the facial biometrics on the chip will help link the passport holder to the document. The data on the chip (your photo and personal information as printed on page 31 of the passport) will be protected against skimming (and "eavesdropping") by an advanced digital encryption technique."

We now know that this is not true, or is overstating the case.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[ericlondaits]

So the government is making a big deal out of their non-encryption and the Guardian is making a big deal out of their non-cracking.

What I see here is that both are feeding the general public complete garbage... which has nothing to do with the real discussion on whether these passports are secure enough or not.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[Ed_1024]

If agents inevitably start relying on the computer that's where the problem lies.

Exactly. If you've ever swapped bar codes around for the supermarket checkout, you'll see the truth there. Bar of soap 29.99 BEEP Bottle of champagne 0.99 BEEP Bread 39.99 BEEP...

Re:Nothing to see here...

[nathanh]

yet I though that CSS was not broken because they cracked the weak cipher, but rather because whoever made the XING software DVD Player forgot to encrypt the decryption key or something like that.

That was one of the original hacks. Another hack was a graphics driver that scraped the framebuffer in realtime. But the hack everybody uses these days is DeCSS; it brute forces the 40 bit key. The whole process takes a few seconds on any modern machine. The CSS encryption is far too weak.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[myowntrueself]

Thank you, that was so hilarious I read the whole thing, including part 2, all the way to the end.

I must try this out for myself.

My own signature is pretty outrageous. When I have to sign in the tiny narrow space on the back of a credit card or something, I put a couple of strips of masking tape to either side to give me some more room (my sig is quite wriggly).

Re:Nothing to see here...

[myowntrueself]

The CSS encryption is far too weak

Basing encryption on something as commonplace as Cascading Style Sheets is just *asking* for trouble.

WHY?

[Red Moose]

Why was it easy to crack the passports? Because they never had anything to do with security, dumbass. Like all other contracts, the purpose was to make money by taking it from the population that gave it up in taxes.

The world, QED.

fake passports in 911?

[testadicazzo]

from the article:

irst it is necessary to explain why the new passports were introduced, and how they work.After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre, in which fake passports were used, the US decided it wanted foreign citizens who presented themselves

Is this true? I had the impression that the 911 terrorists had valid ID, but I haven't read the 911 commssion report...

Can somone point me to some information confirming or disproving this assertion?

Re:fake passports in 911?

[Anonymous Coward]

For many years, the authorities in the USA got more and more irritated by the fact that it was so easy to commit all kinds of fraud in a free country.
But it was very difficult to tighten the grip on the citizens and visitors. After all, it was a free country. In the cold-war years, they were pointing fingers at "the enemy" and explaining that citizens were "not free" there. They were being tracked.

But when the cold war was over, the authorities really wanted to limit this freedom. They were waiting for an opportunity to do so. 9/11 was the big opportunity.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[myspys]

Is this true? I had the impression that the 911 terrorists had valid ID, but I haven't read the 911 commssion report...

oh, you mean one of these terrorists http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm ?

Re:fake passports in 911?

[Anonymous Coward]

at h ttp://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/27/inv.suspects/ is a list of hijackers, it notes of having had valid forms of id ordered for many of the suspects.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[jetxee]

Thank you for information! This was what I wanted to know.

There is always at least one legal workaround for any legal obstacle.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[mellowinottawa]

No, none of them used invalid identification, each and every one had completely valid passports from their home countries and completely valid US visas in them.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[will_die]

Kind of true.
The hijackers, all but one, used authentice state issued identification in order to hide thier nationalities. However they did use fake passports to obtain that autentic ID.
The one who did not used this actual passport, again authentic.
It should be noted that a passport was not needed for the flights they were on(all internal to the US) but they needed some form of ID to prove who they were when at check in.
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Not es.htm

Re:fake passports in 911?

[Rayin]

You know, making vague, warrantless, unevidenced accusations about "the authorities" (who are "the authorities"? The CIA? The NSA? The FBI? The executive branch? Congress? The House of Representatives? The local police station? The PTA?) attempting to "limit ... freedom" is a pretty standard indicator of delusional paranoia.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[tocs]

Why do I keep seeing the word terrorist?
Wouldn't "criminal" be more pertinent (terrorist are criminals after all)?
In some ways the bit at the top about using an airline boarding pass to buy an airline ticket in my name worries me more. After all I might actually have to pay for those tickets.

The whole RFID in passports seems to me to be a combination of a bunch of bureaucrats wanting to "do something" about security and a bunch of salesmen with "the answer". I do not mind a little security theater but I would like to get the feeling that there is someone out there who is doing some actual security.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[oliverthered]

All of them. Large companies are almost becomming part of "the authorities" too, and they all seem to want to limit our freedome, just look at the RIAA, Microsoft, Sony, Car manufactureres, those people who don't want us to skip adverts (FOX?) etc....

Re:fake passports in 911?

[Jtheletter]

I do not mind a little security theater but I would like to get the feeling that there is someone out there who is doing some actual security.

That's the problem with security theather, once it looks like you're doing something about the problem, you don't need to try anymore. If enough of the sheeple (even elected leaders and "experts" can fall under this category) think that what is in place is good enough then it becomes near impossible to get true flaws fixed. It becomes compounded when the theater starts making arrests, no matter how asinine, because then the 'actors' point to those arrests to say "See? It works!"

Why do I keep seeing the word terrorist?
Because that's the magic password. People aren't scared stupid (literally it seems) by criminals, but call a criminal a terrorist, even when it doesn't apply, and people will trust anything you say so long as you protect them from the boogeyman terrorist. In the case of this article I would warrant that the security researchers are using the word terrorist because it's something the government can understand. Kind of a fight fire with fire approach. If they say that terrorists can break the passports and gain acess to the info then the government has a much harder time ignoring the issue because of the bad PR.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[finity]

I hate those people who want to limit my freedoms to do whatever I want! I can't drive down the street at 100 MPH and run over someone? What the heck! I can't go down to Best Buy and jack an album right off the shelf? ARGH!!! This place is so unfair!

Seriously, having a free country never meant that you could do whatever the heck you please. Just because people don't understand the information age (important people) doesn't mean they're out to get us and our freedoms. It just means that they're old. We'll get it right one of these days.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their goal isn't to "limit freedom". Their goal is to make their jobs easier. That is accomplished by limiting freedom.

No, there is no big sweeping conspiracy. There ARE a lot of incompetent people in charge who realize how much easier their jobs would be if they didn't have to worry about protecting people's rights.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, having privacy is the same as murdering people. Great analogy there.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[pimpimpim]

Indeed. Read this story for some amazing details on how the faulty visum system gave them a visum even against all laws and regulations that existed before 9/11.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[mpe]

I had the impression that the 911 terrorists had valid ID, but I haven't read the 911 commssion report...

Several of the alleged hijackers turned up alive and well. The US authorities didn't exatcly mention this because it didn't really square with their Bin Laden Conspiracy Theory. But like many other supporters of daft conspiracy theories the Neocons didn't want the facts to get in the way of their claims.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[mpe]

No, none of them used invalid identification, each and every one had completely valid passports from their home countries and completely valid US visas in them.

Actually we know for a fact that several of the alleged hijackers were not even on the planes. Since they turned up alive after the event. In effect we know very little about the identities, even numbers of actual terrorists.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[mpe]

I do not mind a little security theater but I would like to get the feeling that there is someone out there who is doing some actual security.

At best "security theater" makes no difference to actually security. In practice it is most likely to weaken actually security, if only by wasting limited resources.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[mpe]

That's the problem with security theather, once it looks like you're doing something about the problem, you don't need to try anymore. If enough of the sheeple (even elected leaders and "experts" can fall under this category) think that what is in place is good enough then it becomes near impossible to get true flaws fixed. It becomes compounded when the theater starts making arrests, no matter how asinine, because then the 'actors' point to those arrests to say "See? It works!"

Also if it "fails" these same people will tend to claim that more of the same is needed. i.e. more snooping, curtailment of civil liberties, etc. (Of course if what is being done is actually reducing security a positive feedback loop is established.)

Re:fake passports in 911?

[rnelsonee]

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf On page 3 it says that one of the hijackers did not have any ID - it didn't say whether or not the others were valid. On page 169 though, it appears that they did have an organization affiliated with Al-Queda that did facilitate the production of fake IDs. Other sources: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5594385/ Say that "many" of the hijackers used fake IDs.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[Anonymous Coward]

The passports were stolen or fake. 9/11 was a false flag, Reichstag Fire style event.

http://guardian.150m.com/september-eleven/hijacker s-alive.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2001/09/23/widen23.xml

Re:fake passports in 911?

[Ben Hutchings]

Several people with names matching those of the suspects are alive. So what?

Re:fake passports in 911?

[cicho]

So what? They didn't just have matching names, they recognized themselves in the pictures released by thr FBI. That was in September 2001. Since then no official body has bothered to even strike out their names from the official list of hijackers, and the 9-11 Commission Report has perpetuated the falsehood. So even though (some of) the hijackers' identities have been disproved in major media such as the BBC, the US government still claims those names are correct, and has waged two wars as a consequence, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives so far.

So what, indeed.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[Ben Hutchings]

Whether or not the FBI got the right names or photos - I don't believe they claim to have the ID presented on the day, do they? - this seems to have little bearing on the question of whether OBL, the Taleban or Iraq had anything to do with the attacks. Now, if you're arguing that the so-called War On Terror is wrong, or that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks, I'm in complete agreement with you. If you're saying OBL had nothing to do with them, I'm not convinced. I hope you're not suggesting that they were part of some government conspiracy, because it would be far too hard to organise such a thing without someone talking.

Re:fake passports in 911?

[oliverthered]

Did you miss DRM, Windows Genuine Advantage (that prevents you running IE 7 under wine), The patriot act, the DMCA etc....

Re:fake passports in 911?

[werewolf1031]

There ARE a lot of incompetent people in charge who realize how much easier their jobs would be if they didn't have to worry about protecting people's rights.

Funny, and here all this time I thought that was Job Numero Uno for public officials in the U.S.

Oh, wait...

But no, this is great news

[Colin Smith]

It means you can get away with all sorts of stuff and then claim "It wasn't me mate", someone must have cloned my passport.

We do have some complete fuckwits in charge. Of course, we do have some complete fuckwits voting for them, so it kind of balances out. Someone care to suggest an improvement on democracy?

Re:But no, this is great news

[Shemmie]

Democracy works. We just need to thin the population down a little. I suggest a set of tests, and then firing squads.

Re:But no, this is great news

[ResidntGeek]

Someone care to suggest an improvement on democracy?

Democracy's not the root problem. It's the scale. Nothing will work well on a scale this large. There are too many competing interests among a population of millions to satisfy anyone fully, much less everyone.

Of course, that's not even close the complete problem. No major wars for two generations, service economies, mass-media conglomeration, and plain stupidity and/or apathy by the public all contribute to the current problems. But democracy (indeed, most politcal systems) does work on a small scale. Decentralized government is the way to fix the world, and because of military needs, it'll never happen.

Re:But no, this is great news

[Threni]

> I suggest a set of tests, and then firing squads.

If you skip the tests and move straight on to the firing squad you'll at least get rid of all the unlucky people - and let's face it, it's them who knock things over and break them, crash their cars etc...

Re:But no, this is great news

[shmlco]

Fine, but I get to design the tests....

Re:But no, this is great news

[Khuffie]

Abolish parties. Each man runs on his own.

Oh, and anyone who wants to run for president should be automatically disqualified.

Re:But no, this is great news

[Alioth]

You may think that a non party political system is a panacea - it isn't - it winds up being worse than a dictatorship because you just don't know who you're going to end up having in government or what their policies will be after each general election. I live somewhere where nearly all the candidates are independents, and there's no real party political system. Our election is next Thursday. I have NO IDEA what sort of government we'll have after Thursday. Not a clue. I don't even know who will be Chief Minister. We elect our members of parliament and then they decide.

When the government does form, it's all political horse trading and who's done favours to who because there is no party system binding one side or other together. They all collectively hush up scandal, and if one minister disagrees with government policy the Chief Minister sacks them. All that then happens is the Government typically just copies what the UK government does.

A party political system might suck, but it's the best we've come up with - a rabble of independents is much, much worse.

Re:But no, this is great news

[RoboJ1M]

Yes but we voted for them to get rid of the Tories, remember?

So now we have to vote LibDem to get rid of Nu Labour.

Um...

J1M.

Re:But no, this is great news

[Sponge Bath]

... and I call dibs on being in the firing squad! Weeee!

Re:But no, this is great news

[Anonymous Coward]

i read the replies to parent. some of them are funny. but seriously, think real life. if your car goes bad and you have three people (two neighborhood kids and a veteran technician), who would you listen to? why can't we do the same thing for choosing reps? smarter people's votes would weigh more than Joe Sixpack's. and you know what problems i see in it getting implemented? there are 50 idiots for every intelligent dude and they won't give up their 'right' in favor of something intelligent happening.

these are not my ideas. this modification of democracy is termed Geniocracy

Re:But no, this is great news

[mpe]

You may think that a non party political system is a panacea - it isn't - it winds up being worse than a dictatorship because you just don't know who you're going to end up having in government or what their policies will be after each general election.

Often you don't know what the policies of a government will be. Once the election's over there is nothing ensuring that the winner actually has to do what they claimed in their manifesto (and only that).

Re:But no, this is great news

[Captain Zep]

>It means you can get away with all sorts of stuff and then claim "It wasn't me mate", someone must have cloned my passport.

Only if the Government accepts that the system is not secure.

That's the real scary thing - if they refuse to accept that it isn't secure and just insist that it is (remember - as a politician, repeating something makes it true), and someone does copy your passport, you're going to have a hell of a time trying to sort the mess out.

I've never been able to understand why, despite endless experiences of computer systems being unreliable, insecure, and generally crappily designed, people still believe that computer systems are also infallible.

Z.

Re:But no, this is great news

[alib001]

You want more bureaucracy? In all but a few cases, power corrupts. I'll vote for more politicians when the existing lot grow consciences. In the mean time it'd be sensible to have a trigger in place that recognizes the system is broken and forces reform if a certain percentage of people don't vote (or foul their ballot etc.).

I don't think you should so readily dismiss the electorate as stupid or apathetic. Who do you vote for when nobody on the ticket shares your moral values, let alone your ideals? Yes, theoretically you can initiate change in a democratic system yourself but the "first past the post" system ensures that you won't be in a position to do anything important for decades, and probably not even then.

I'm not apathetic; I care about what's done on my behalf so I'm not going to vote for a lesser evil.

Re:But no, this is great news

[ResidntGeek]

Hell no, I don't want more bureaucracy. That's precisely the reason no government works well on a large scale - a hierarchy like the US government grows with the square of its governed population.

And I'm sorry you disagree, but most of the electorate _is_ stupid and/or apathetic. If they saw the problems and cared they'd do something about it, whether voting third-party, openly inciting revolution, or planting EMP bombs near the computers of the NYSE. But some of them don't see the problems, because like people throughout history, they're mostly incapable of seeing past the non-issues politicians throw at them as vital. The rest don't care, because it's been two generations since anyone openly tried to take away human rights on a large scale, and people who listen to what their grandparents have to say about politics are just lame. Lack of lameness is much more important than free speech to most people.

Re:But no, this is great news

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up; poster works for Diebold.

Re:But no, this is great news

[Anonymous Coward]

We do have some complete fuckwits in charge. Of course, we do have some complete fuckwits voting for them, so it kind of balances out.

Are you sure you live in England, and not the USofA?

Re:But no, this is great news

[alib001]

How can you blame the electorate for rejecting the process if you acknowledge that the process itself is dissembling? It's in the interest of those in power to hold your very views on the electorate because, providing they appeal slightly more than their opponents come voting time, they retain power!

I won't accept the electorate is stupid or apathetic. They may be uninformed, beguiled, and leaderless, and born of the machinations of the current political systems geared to keep them this way. But how can you better a society without the will to engage the people? If you see them as stupid I think you should redouble your efforts in making them understand. If you see them as apathetic, try to understand why this would be so. It's too easy to dismiss them en masse.

If you arrived at your viewpoint from rational reasoning, why couldn't others? If you don't engage them when the opportunity arises are you not apathetic yourself? If you think you're more informed and intelligent do you not have a responsibility to educate? It's a daunting task but: we must be the change we wish to see in the world.

Re:But no, this is great news

[ResidntGeek]

How can you blame the electorate for rejecting the process if you acknowledge that the process itself is dissembling?

It's not the process they're apathetic about. It's the results. I myself am apathetic about the process, because the outcome doesn't much matter. But I do care about what goes on in Washington, because it affects me. A lot of people don't.

I won't accept the electorate is stupid or apathetic. They may be uninformed, beguiled, and leaderless, and born of the machinations of the current political systems geared to keep them this way. But how can you better a society without the will to engage the people? If you see them as stupid I think you should redouble your efforts in making them understand. If you see them as apathetic, try to understand why this would be so. It's too easy to dismiss them en masse.

I've tried to make people understand. Lord, how I've tried. But I can think of very few people who came to understand any of the problems with the current system after a rational discussion or explanation. It is insanely frustrating to explain that gay marriage is not a real issue when iraqbodycount.org reports 40,000 Iraqi civilians dead, and is accused of sugarcoating the numbers, and to hear "but I don't want those queers marrying... family values are important, if we let gay people screw up marriage it'll hurt America!" Or to explain to a militant Democrat that both parties are the same, and that Democrats won't fix anything, only to hear "yeah, I know John Kerry said he'll repeal Bush's tax cuts and give them to the middle class, but at least then the deficit helps the middle class. How bad can a large national debt be?" Or to explain exactly why the plurality voting system and Electoral College locks out third parties and leads to a lack of real issues in public discourse, only to hear a derisive "so what should we use, a WEIGHTED VOTING SYSTEM???" from someone who'd just spent a week learning about weighted voting systems in math class.

As for myself, I'm not apathetic, but I've given up hope of convincing most people. I am hoping beyond hope that the Democrats fuck things up beyond belief between now and 2012. I'm confident Hilary will be elected in 2008, and I think if she and Congress start implementing censorship, socialistic health care, fascist environmental laws, and strict gun control laws, they'll pss off a whole lot of people. With a hell of a lot of luck, enough people might realize neither party will represent them, and start listening. Then I will redouble my efforts to convince people. But until something happens, and possibly not until the oil crisis, people just won't listen.

If you arrived at your viewpoint from rational reasoning, why couldn't others?

Oh, they could. They most definitely could. Wouldn't it be nice if people put down their beer, turned off the TV, and thought rationally for a while? But it rarely happens.

If you don't engage them when the opportunity arises are you not apathetic yourself?

No, it means I don't believe engaging them will change anything - just anger them.

If you think you're more informed and intelligent do you not have a responsibility to educate?

Of course - if they want to be educated. Very few people do.

Re:But no, this is great news

[alib001]

It's definitely worth picking your battles. Unfortunately, there are many people out there with fixed opinions hardened by beliefs, not reason. If the stiffest challenge to their positions are the straw man arguments fed to them by their cheerleaders, then discussions at the individual level to promote thought and introspection (on both sides) are all the more important. But it can be intensely frustrating! So, whilst it's important not to acquiesce, it is worthwhile focusing effort where it will be the most effective.

The article is missing one word.

[Big Nothing]

FTA: "Remember, information - such as a new picture - cannot be added to a cloned chip."

I believe the missing word is "yet".

As usual, it leaks

[TrueKonrads]

As usual, the RFID passport leaks information and is easy to clone.
I don't want to sound trollish, but the major force behind biometric passports worldwide is Homeland Security in USA: "You want visa free entrance to US? Make biometric passports!". Honestly, this is plain bullying.
Besides, if the border guard thinks the passport is "secure", then he'll spend less time thinking about that person and just rely on the big "OK" that pops on his screen when he swipes the thing instead of evaluating the person with his brain and guts.
TFA mentions brute-force protection. For a thing, like credit card, that can be replaced within 3-5 days, it's ok, but for a passport, that some joker "brute-forced" and now it is locked, it is really tragic, especially if You are away from home and this is Your only ID.
I think that the ID should be un-trivial to counterfeit. It should deter "common" people from tampering with it for some small, petty crimes. For well funded operations, obtaining a real passport isn't a problem - bribe the migration official and he issues You one on whatever name.
My slightly watered point is - ID should be used for "some" identification. Trust is a human thing and not machine solvable.
Heck, Your motherboard may be bugged right now by some weird conspiracy and no matter what security measures You take, such as bug sweeps or cable checks, You're screwed already since CIA and NSA and Mossad altered the CPU. It's a human thing.

Re:As usual, it leaks

[will_die]

I don't want to sound trollish, but the major force behind biometric passports worldwide is Homeland Security in USA: "You want visa free entrance to US? Make biometric passports!".
Not really the plans for the electronic passport started in the 1990 by the UN's ICAO, the first set of written/approved plans came in early 2002, it was agreed to by the member of ICAO in 2004. In the agreement they said they would implement and require its use. The US got the members to move up the time table, and implement it, not really being strong armed about it.
Now before the RFI system you did have the machine readable bar code. This was implmented in the early 80s, then around 1986 28 countries standarded on the ICAO format and opened up thier borders to fellow members with no visa. In 2004 the US did start requiring(along with a few other countries) that they would only accept the passport of fellow members of the visa waiver program that had the bar code in them, so thoses people with passports around 25 years old would need to get new passports.

The US is not completly free of the bulllying, in thier passports they are making the encryption harder then the one used by the ICAO and used in these UK passports and because of that some contries are having to purchase different equipment then originally planned.

Re:As usual, it leaks

[maxume]

The attack that bothers me is that, when traveling, you are walking around with a symbol of wealth that can be detected at a distance. As long as the attacker can energize the RFID chip, he know you have it, he doesn't have to read it or even talk to it.

Re:As usual, it leaks

[vidarh]

In 2004 the US did start requiring(along with a few other countries) that they would only accept the passport of fellow members of the visa waiver program that had the bar code in them, so thoses people with passports around 25 years old would need to get new passports.

Not true. My last passport from 1998 did not meet the US requirements for machine readable passports, and so last year I had to get a new passport to get into the US on the visa waiver program. I'm Norwegian, and it's only a couple of years ago Norway started issuing machine readable passports, and it was as a direct result of the US decision.

Re:As usual, it leaks

[will_die]

Norway was one of the wierd ones. While in western Europe it did not follow the UN ICAO passport rules. It did have to switch over to machine readable format in order to sign off on the Schengen Agreement.

The UK is not a democracy

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

We don't have a democracy, in either the pure form (which is an unworkable ideal anyway) or the popular interpretation (which is much more sensible approach in practice).

Blair has an absolute majority of MPs in Parliament, which effectively means he can force through almost anything. That doesn't mean an absolute majority of the electorate support him. Remember, Labour lost the popular vote in England at the last general election, and even with the support of MPs from our neighbour countries to prop them up, they still only received around 1/3 of the overall popular vote.

Blair and co have gone about forcing laws through and creating legacies, but the simple fact is that they have no mandate to bring in the kinds of sweeping change they are championing, unless at the very least they also have support from the other main parties who brought in other people's votes. Clearly in many of these so-called anti-terrorism matters, they do not.

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[Ngwenya]

Blair has an absolute majority of MPs in Parliament, which effectively means he can force through almost anything.

Thankfully not anything, as the fiasco over the 90-day detention showed. What a stiff-necked dickhead he looked like after that. I guess it happens to all PM's eventually. They get quite convinced that anything is theirs for the demanding by virtue of their office. Maybe the Americans have got something in the two-term limit for PotUS.

Blair and co have gone about forcing laws through and creating legacies, but the simple fact is that they have no mandate to bring in the kinds of sweeping change they are championing, unless at the very least they also have support from the other main parties who brought in other people's votes. Clearly in many of these so-called anti-terrorism matters, they do not.

Sadly, none of this is confined to the current government. I'm old enough to remember when the Thatcher government introduced the Poll Tax for Scotland alone, using purely English Tory votes to force the stupid idea on an unwilling Scotland. It all went pear-shaped when it was introduced onto an equally unwilling England the next year, but it does go to show that introducing unpopular legislation without any shred of popular mandate is a time-hallowed tradition in the UK. In the end, liberty and such like find a way through, but a lot of damage can be done in the meantime.

Do you think PR would make a sufficiently significant change to stop ill-conceived legislation from being forced through? One thing I would love to see is for the (reformed) House of Lords to have the power to block a bill for one Parliamentary session. If the government feels that strongly about the legislation, it can call an election and have the bill passed on the back of popular mandate. Alternatively, it can wait and introduce it after the lifetime of the current Parliament. But if the HoL vetoes a bill which has been explicitly mentioned in the government's manifesto, then they must pass it. A sort of updated Salisbury Convention.

--Ng

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[alib001]

Small point: 'Absolute majority' is generally defined as a system that takes into account the total number of potential voters (i.e. those who abstained or were absent are included) in the number required for a majority. In the UK, governments are elected by a simple majority, the "first past the post" system and bills are passed based on counts of those who actually voted.

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[wodon]

Erm, I was convinced we were a Monarchy actually.

Wait a second, I'll go check.

Yup, definitely a Monarchy.

Admittedly the PM has most of the power, but only as long as the queen lets him....

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the power that the PM has of ROYAL ASCENT that's the scariest. The Queen has theoretical power, but it's all in the hands of the PM. PARLIAMENT should be in charge, not the fucking PM.

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Yes, that's how I intended the term to be used. Blair did not receive the backing of more than 50% of the electorate (nor even more than 50% of those who voted, for that matter) yet he has an outright majority of MPs, and can therefore force a win on any vote as long as he doesn't suffer a rebellion.

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[mlk]

Add a Vote Ron (Re Open Nominations) and force people to vote.

(I'd also like to see a reform of the HoLs Basically have a number of "virtual" lords of vote based on the results of (none-compulsory) referendums, the number of the virtual lords should be based on the percentage of the population that vote).

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[Fr. Teddy]

Besides the point - he has an absolute majority in parliament. It doesn't matter that FPTP and what is used in the House don't need that.

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[alib001]

No, it's not. As I explained in my earlier post: 'absolute majority' has an understood, specific meaning. As neither the elections nor the votes on bills use this system, saying Blair has an absolute majority would actually be besides the point as the government doesn't need an absolute majority to win a vote, or to be elected into power in the first place. 'Absolute majority' doesn't just mean "there's more of them", which is apparently how you're trying to use it.

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I think you're missing my original point. An absolute majority in Parliament doesn't mean you win a vote. It means you can force winning a vote (unless you get caught out by rebels in your own party) regardless of what any opposition parties want to do and how many more people voted for them collectively than for your party.

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[myowntrueself]

re your sig:

Throughout human history, the greatest threat to life and liberty has been not terrorism, but the power of the state.

Hah!

The power of the state *is* terrorism!

Eg the cold war; the threat of nuclear war was a threat of terrorism perpetuated by the governments of both sides colluding against their own people.

The only power the state wields is wielded through threat of violence against the people.

(yeah I am an anti-statist; the nation state is an affront to our humanity. There are no nations, there are no states. There are only human beings).

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[alib001]

For the last time: I think there's a difference between 'simple majority' and 'absolute majority', that the former means "more votes" and the latter means "more than half the votes of the total number eligible to vote". The quotation marks denote a use-mention distinction. I think the UK parliament uses a simple majority, not an absolute majority system. I would ask, if you think 'absolute majority' means simply more, what you think 'relative majority' means, but, perplexingly, you're still talking about how votes are won.

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Please read my posts again. I am well aware of what an absolute majority is, and the difference between that and a simple majority. At no point have I defined an absolute majority incorrectly.

But you are still missing my point. If you have an absolute majority of the MPs in Parliament, then (in the absence of a rebellion) you can always force a simple majority in any given vote. That means you can always guarantee winning any vote that's not so controversial that your own party vote against you. It renders all other MPs irrelevant, except on the rare occasions that your own party won't follow your lead. That kind of power simply isn't justified by gaining the support of only 1/3 of those who voted in a general election, a mere 22% of the overall electorate, when around twice as many people voted for for those parties whose MPs are rendered irrelevant.

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[alib001]

If you have an absolute majority of the MPs in Parliament, then (in the absence of a rebellion) you can always force a simple majority in any given vote.

Here's where this fails: the absolute majority is dependent on a sufficient number of MPs a) voting in the first place b) toeing the party line. In a) you have neglected to consider what happens if a number of MPs are unable to vote (e.g. taken ill, out of the country). In a close vote, MPs who are ill are dragged in and ministers abroad do fly back to vote. In b) you beg the question.

I appreciate your views about a simple majority system not necessarily securing a mandate; I don't disagree. Which is why I said this was a small point. I think you're unintentionally using terms that imply an outcome, as evidenced by the conclusions you build using this terminology not being entirely true.

Re:The UK is not a democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a Constitutional Monarchy, and the monarch is so constrained by legislation and tradition of constitutional weight that she has no real political power.

If she were to attempt to exercise her "theoretical" powers on her own initiative, it would be a three way race to force her off the throne. The Prime Minister would certainly demand it, Parliament (both Houses) likewise, and the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (and lesser courts) would rule any unadvised act of the monarch to be ultra vires. The monarch would be obliged to relinquish the throne on the advice of the Prime Minister, an Act of Parliament could force the monarch off the throne (or even end the Monarchy outright), and the courts now have a number of delcaratory powers which nullify unlawful behaviour by any member of the Executive, including the Queen.

The only question is whether the general public would be the fourth party in the race, or whether it would be somewhere between neutral and on the monarch's side. Unlikely, even with the unpopularity of the current PM.

You are only one member of the general public. I have trouble thinking of realistic scenarios in which I would not be on the side of demanding an abdication should the Queen ignore or act against the advice of her Prime Minsiter, even though I despise T.Bliar and want him out of power as soon as possible.

And this leads me to say

[Tainek]

And Again, We the british Public ask, what exactly have we gained from being forced to pay over our hard earned cash for these cards?

um, if you can copy the data

[Colin Smith]

You can clone the passport, as the article says the facial biometric is a joke, 20-25% false positives or negatives. Which leaves just the photo, a bit of makeup, coloured contacts, hair dye. So essentially the new passport is no better than the old one but gives people the warm fuzzy feeling that all is right with the world because the computer says so.

Re:um, if you can copy the data

[Ben Hutchings]

It says the facial biometric is a joke, but that's based on a study of untrained people looking at low-resolution pictures and doesn't seem entirely applicable to the situation of trained border-control people looking at quite good digital images.

Trivially simple fix : add a signed fingerprint

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

That would enable very cheap readers to authenticate passports and holders, and no option to fake it.

Even if people were to succeed in faking it, a criminal (let's not go down the terrorist route for once) wouldn't be able to erase his old identity from the books without deep inside help, which would probably be noticed by too many people.

Re:Trivially simple fix : add a signed fingerprint

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Also the passport would be useless to anyone else in case of theft.

Re:Trivially simple fix : add a signed fingerprint

[operato]

have you not been watching movies? it's really simple to fake fingerprints!

Re:Trivially simple fix : add a signed fingerprint

[tehcyder]

have you not been watching movies? it's really simple to fake fingerprints!

Yeah, you get someone to drink from a wine glass, then lift the prints off with sellotape and superglue them to your own fingertips. Or something.

Re:Trivially simple fix : add a signed fingerprint

[mpe]

Even if people were to succeed in faking it, a criminal (let's not go down the terrorist route for once) wouldn't be able to erase his old identity from the books without deep inside help, which would probably be noticed by too many people.

Police and spooks will want the ability to implant in-obvious false identities. Unless such a system is specifically designed to be highly resistant to "insiders" it's only a matter of time before infiltration by both criminals and foreign "intelligence".

Re:Trivially simple fix : add a signed fingerprint

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You DO remember that movies belong in the "fiction" department, right ? To say the very least ... it's not very easy. Definitely not to actually change a fingerprint.

First, it's not very easy to do it now, second an additional test that would easily defeat any approach like this would be a liveness test for the tissue on the scanner. Good luck emulating that.

Re:Trivially simple fix : add a signed fingerprint

[operato]

hmmm... you must not understand the concept of being sarcastic but hey at least you grasped the concept of what i was on about. ;)

"This doesn't matter" spin

[dpbsmith]

Oh, how I hate this kind of spin: "This doesn't matter," says a Home Office spokesman. "By the time you have accessed the information on the chip, you have already seen it on the passport."

It matters a great deal because what they said couldn't be done can be done.

It transpired a couple of years ago that some models of the expensive Kryptonite bicycle lock could be opened with a BIC pen. The Kryptonite company could have spun this by saying "This doesn't matter, because the security expert who demonstrated this didn't really steal the bicycle, and bicycle owners actually keep their valuables in their safe deposit boxes."

What the Kryptonite company really did was acknowledge that this was a serious problem and recalled all the locks.

Would that the UK government addressed the security problem instead of the PR problem.

Re:"This doesn't matter" spin

[LordKronos]

It matters a great deal because what they said couldn't be done can be done.

Well, until a cloned passport successfully makes it through one of their scanners, we don't know that it can be done. One possibility (though it's probably giving them too much credit to have thought of this) is that the passports actually contain 2 sets of data: one that is readable using all of the known key (as discussed in the article), and a second set that is only readable via a secret key. The purpose of the known key it to provide passport forgers with a red herring. They think "aha...I'm much smarter than them. They thought they had this secure, but they've screwed up, and now I've got the data". Then they clone it, try to get through customs with it, and...the forgery is detected. So now...how did it fail? Did they screw up during the cloning? Who knows?

Its easy to crack a system when you can brute force it in private. It's a lot more difficult when you've got one attempt with someone standing there watching.

Again, I doubt this is the case, but it's a possibility.

Re:"This doesn't matter" spin

[mivok]

Actually, what the home office spokesman said sounds pretty sensible. The electronic part doesn't have to be more secure than the paper part.
As I understand it, the chip currently contains no more information than what is printed. If you can physically read the passport by looking at it (or taking a picture or whatever), then you have all the information needed to clone the passport without looking at the RFID chip. If you haven't seen the paper part of the passport, then you don't have the key and can't read the RFID part (unless you can crack the encryption without knowing the key). I don't see the problem here.

Of course, if the RFID chip has more information on it than what is displayed on the paper part (fingerprints for example), then there is a problem. As somebody else commented however, when that starts happening, they're going to mandate authentication of the person/machine querying the information using public key cryptography.

two things

[tonigonenstein]

1. I don't understand why they use RFID. If you are not supposed to read it from further than two centimeters then why not use a contact chip (smartcard) ? It would be as practical to read and you would be sure that no one could read it without your knowledge. 2. The argument in the article that goes "if you can read it you can clone it" it completely bogus and make them sound like idiots. Have they never heard of challenge-request authentication ? The basic idea is that the reader authenticates the chip to ensure it is not a forged one. To do this you have a shared secret in both the chip and the reader. The reader then sends a random challenge to the chip, which encrypts it with the secret and send the result back. The reader does the same operation and compares the result. If it matches it considers that the chip knows the secret and is thus original.

The key idea then is that the chip never sends the secret directly, so a cloner could never guess it, even if it could issue an unlimited number of challenges to the original chip. And without the secret, it cannot produce a clone that would authenticate.

So in short to clone the chip you need more than the chip, you need to compromise the manufacturer of the system to get the secret.

Re:two things

[backwardMechanic]

But as I understand the article, the UK passport does not include any sort of challenge-response authentication - that's part of the problem.

Re:two things

[CortoMaltese]

1. They do use a smart card chip, it's just contactless, or RFID if you will. It's not a dumb RFID tag. The most time consuming operation at the border control is reading the face image from the chip. The protocols available in contact chips have almost an order of magnitude slower communication speeds than in the protocols for contactless chips. It matters.

2. In the case of basic access control, as specified by ICAO, being able to read the chip means that you are able to clone the chip. It's a weakness in the protocol. Basically the big secret is printed on the passport (passport number, date of birth, expiration date), so it's not difficult to obtain. And even if you don't have physical access to the passport, the key entropy is low, which helps eavesdropping considerably. You don't have to compromise the manufacturer or anything. The big challenge is coming up with a passport book that passes as a real one.

Re:two things

[guy-in-corner]

To do this you have a shared secret in both the chip and the reader. The reader then sends a random challenge to the chip, which encrypts it with the secret and send the result back.

Firstly, I want to see mutual authentication, so that my chip doesn't give up its contents to just any reader.

Secondly, there's going to be several million chips and several thousand readers -- one at each passport control desk at every airport in the world, probably. How am I supposed to trust these? If more than one person knows it, it's not a secret any more, as the saying goes.

Your suggested solution either requires that every reader know every chip's secret (neither scalable nor secure) or that every chip use the same secret (scalable, but not even vaguely secure).

Re:two things

[Alioth]

WTF? In 1994, I worked on a smart card demo (using the smart card chips we now see in credit cards) for a benefits card to replace the paper-based system. Storing a mugshot on the card was not a problem, and reading it was a sub-second operation. In 1994!

Re:two things

[swillden]

Firstly, I want to see mutual authentication, so that my chip doesn't give up its contents to just any reader.

You don't need mutual authentication for that, you need the reader to authenticate to the chip, which is what they implemented. The chip doesn't give up anything until it receives a proper authentication from the reader, using the authentication key derived from the MRZ data printed inside the passport. Unfortunately, although the MRZ data does contain sufficient entropy for the purpose, part of the data is easily obtainable, leaving the rest easy to brute force.

Re:two things

[CortoMaltese]

In 1994, what was the size of the EEPROM on the chip you used? 8 KiB? 16 KiB? What portion of that was used for the mugshot? The contact protocols have not evolved since, so the bps is still the same. EEPROM and picture size are not the same.

Hasn't anyone learned...

[lantastik]

...from the entertainment industry?

Here I will attempt to abuse a completely overused cliche:

Production value of a typical Hollywood theatrical blockbuster: ~$150M
DVD distribution production costs: ~$7M
Developing an "unbreakable" security algorithm: ~$1.5M

Having some PERL monkee write a few lines code to make you look foolish: Priceless

s''$/=\2048;while(){G=29;R=142;if((@a=unqT="C*", _)[20]&48){D=89;_=unqb24,qT,@ b=map{ord qB8,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV,qb2 5,_;H=73;O=$b[4]>8^(P=(E=255)&(Q>>12^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))> 8^(E&(F=(S=O>>14&7^O) ^S*8^S>=8 )+=P+(~F&E))for@a[128..$#a]}print+qT,@a}';s/[D-HO- U_]/\$$&/g;s/q/pack+/g;eval

Some things money can't buy, for everything else, there are retards to spend frivolously on the next big "THING".

Re:Hasn't anyone learned...

[Anonymous Coward]

Having some PERL monkee write a few lines code to make you look foolish: Priceless

s''$/=\2048;while(){G=29;R=142;if((@a=unqT="C*", _)[20]&48){D=89;_=unqb24,qT,@ b=map{ord qB8,unqb8,qT,_^$a[--D]}@INC;s/...$/1$&/;Q=unqV,qb2 5,_;H=73;O=$b[4]>8^(P=(E=255)&(Q>>12^Q>>4^Q/8^Q))> 8^(E&(F=(S=O>>14&7^O) ^S*8^S>=8 )+=P+(~F&E))for@a[128..$#a]}print+qT,@a}';s/[D-HO- U_]/\$$&/g;s/q/pack+/g;eval

As usual, a well-written terse PERL script is indistinguishable from line noise. Just an observation.

Question session:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Are you a politician or solicitor?"
"Yes"
BANG

Re:And this leads me to say

[SEMW]

A very pretty, pre-customised, credit-card-sized drinks coaster!

CRACKERS!!

[RedOregon]

So how long will it be before someone calls for their arrest and they get thrown in jail?

Journal written by...

[eraserewind]

Hadn't seen articles posted from someone's Slashdot journal to the front page before. Is this a new trend or just a random occurrence?

The one thing they get right and /. missreports!

[bWareiWare.co.uk]

How much happier would /. be it they based the security of the nation on a system that assumed you could make it imposible to copy digital data?

For once the experts got it right and realised the chips would always be copyable - and concentraited on making them unmodifiable!

The encription was only to stop people skiming your passpord whilst it is in your pocket (think Tin Foil Hat), and this has certanly not been broken. By using a unique key for each passport and not doing a centerilised lookup for each read makes this a very very secure system.

Why they used a contactless system in the first place, and what they will do when the signing is cracked are totaly diffrent matters.

People, people, people

[ajs318]

Have we learned nothing?

The article states that if you can see the human-readable part of the passport, or even just take a good guess at the details, you can extract the rest of the data from the RFID chip -- and clone it. Encryption is used to ensure that nobody can eavesdrop on a transaction once initiated, but that doesn't help the fact that every transaction is presumed legitimate -- and the very nature of RFID means that you aren't always able to know that a transaction is taking place. If there isn't a human being checking passports, just a machine -- and one day, that is exactly how it will be -- one of those cloned RFID chips will be enough to get you past it.

Attempting to automate people out of the loop is asking for trouble, because we can always know what tests a machine is performing and falsify the results. Criminals are not stupid -- and smart people can often be bought. If the anticipated returns are high enough, you can be sure that someone will put up the stake. Security through obscurity is worse than no security, because it leads people to believe that their details are safe when they are not.

By the way, if you want to see how easy it is to commit identity theft, start here.

Re:People, people, people

[Budenny]

The problem you will have if you clone an existing passport and use it is the same problem you have if you clone an existing credit card and use it. Patterns of use are a giveaway. In fact, what you would really like as law enforcement is for it to be very easy for a resourceful and determined group to clone, but impossible for anyone to alter. That way at every use you would pick up the patterns. You would rapidly know whether a passport was being used fraudulently. You would then have options for surveillance or detention at will. The criminal would simply see that his passport appeared to work flawlessly.

If you are worried about terrorists in particular using cloned passports, this is exactly what you want. If a retired bank manager, John Jones of Tunbridge Wells, suddenly starts flying to the Sudan and Pakistan, you know you are onto something....

Re:People, people, people

[CCFreak2K]

Does this not remind you of Minority Report? The guy gets his eyes replaced and bam, he's a different person because the only things identifying him are eye scanners.

Re:People, people, people

[Ben Hutchings]

If there isn't a human being checking passports, just a machine -- and one day, that is exactly how it will be -- one of those cloned RFID chips will be enough to get you past it.

That's not the idea at all. The information on the passport is digitised so that it can be digitally signed and verified. The encryption on this information is only supposed to stop people from reading it if they don't already have physical access to the passport. The article hints at some flaws in this, but I think they're somewhat exaggerated.

Not just British passports; US and other EU too

[Yer Mum]

All RFID passports are compatible and follow the same standard, meaning that all passports issued with RFID in the US and EU have the same flaw.

mod parent up

[jetxee]

It would be also really interesting to know if 9/11 attackers had valid of forged ID documents.

Re:Great articel

[geoff_smith82]

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/03/131 4207

Not Cracked, same FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this cracked?

The passport functioned as designed. The only thing the key is designed to prevent is remote surreptitious downloading of the data from the chip. If you hand someone the passport, what sort of privacy do you expect?

Call me when they can successfully ALTER the chip data and create a valid digital signature. Merely copying the data won't help.

Re:Not Cracked, same FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Saw Lukas explain this:

1. Clone someone else's passport
2. Write this to a new rfid smartcard
3. Un-rfid your passport in a microwave oven
4. Slip the smartcard into passport

Now when passport is placed on reader, customs guy sees cloned passport

Re:Not Cracked, same FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Microwave passport and fry "tamperproof chip", insert new chip with faked data (we know what to write and how to encrypt it right? And if you don't want to buy the new RFID chip that can be rewritten, maybe one can be removed from the label on your new shirt (for "green terrorists" that believe in reuse rather than recycle). Cost, well there's the time involved.

Of course terrorists may all be mentally retarded and incapable of this level of cunning....

Re:Not Cracked, same FUD

[vidarh]

You still need to create a valid digital signature, which is the tricky part.

Call the Arisians!

[itsdapead]

What we really need is some super-advanced alien race to make contact and hand us a totally infallible identification symbol. It might also help cut down on the problem if it made any potential identity thief drop dead on the spot.

The instant telepathic communication feature would annoy the hell out of the cellphone companies, but might make cinemas a bit quieter (shame about all that writhing polychromatic light from people's wrists reflecting off the screen).

Trouble is, we'd probably be dragged into some silly cosmic "war on terror" as a result.

Re:Call the Arisians!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good idea, but the Arisian suppliers don't deliver. Telepathically Verifiable ID and personal appearance to collect is the only way you get one. And there's no parking within a kiloparsec of the offices.

hey dude! want to dupe my passport?

[operato]

person A: hey i just the new "biometric" passport.
person B: cool!

person A sits down beside B

person A: want a duplicate copy of it?
person B: no thank you i've already got it.

Re:Great articel

[Knuckles]

What are you trying to tell me with this link?

I Told You

[segedunum]

See. I told you no one beats the British Government for incompetence for very long:

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=206936&cid= 16872562

Clueless

[delt0r]

This reporter is clueless. I stoped reading when he/she said that 3DES is "military encryption times 3". DES was a civ cyper by desgin and was "broken" a long time ago due to weak keys and such a small key space. 3DES was quick fix and is still used and is still OK in some situations. But it is not military standard (I think AES is however).

As others above have stated, this is not "cracked" either and they are unable to change the data on the chip. Futhermore they need to read the inside page of the passport to "sniff" for the chip data. I would be happier however, with a contact card rather than contanctless....

Whats wrong with some kind of PKI?

[jonwil]

Basicly, the machines owned by the various governments would encrypt the data with a key belonging to that government (e.g. the UK has a machine) and then the machines at the airports (if the airports are fancy enough to be able to read the machine readable part of the passport) use a matching public key.
As only the government would have the private part of the key, only the government can encrypt data that the processing machines can read (and for those who say the keys will be stolen, look at things like the RSA signing key for XBOX 1 binaries, that hasnt been stolen, brute forced or otherwise obtained yet.

Re:Whats wrong with some kind of PKI?

[itsdapead]

Basicly, the machines owned by the various governments would encrypt the data with a key belonging to that government (e.g. the UK has a machine) and then the machines at the airports (if the airports are fancy enough to be able to read the machine readable part of the passport) use a matching public key.

Why bother? As I understand it, most - if not all - of the information is also printed on the passport. (Heck, I'm pretty sure that even my non-biometric passport has my fingerprints and DNA all over it!) so if you have the passport you have the info. Plus, some people might like the idea that they can buy a reader and find out what data the guv'ment have really stored on their own passport!

OTOH if the passports don't use a PKI system similar to the one you've described to digitally sign the electronic information - and thus make it very difficult for a third party to create new or doctored passports - then something is rotten. However, nothing in TFA contradicts the idea that the data is digitally signed. The system they're claiming to have "cracked" sounds like a perfectly adequate way of stopping anybody casually snooping the RFID tag without having physical posession of the passport. Yes, you could get lucky and find out those items of information some other way, but you'd still need to identify and jostle the person you'd researched to scan their chip.

Re:Whats wrong with some kind of PKI?

[robosmurf]

They already do this. The information IS digitally signed, which is why you can't modify the data.

What the article is reporting on is that this doesn't stop you CLONING the data.

Just as with with the XBOX binaries the digital signature doesn't do anything to stop you copying the data. It is only other security systems (special disks on the xbox, the physical object for passports) that stop you doing this.

The problem with the passports is that the encryption on the link is an unchanging encryption with a key that is not particularly secure. Once you have the key, then you can read the data and clone the chip.

The passports could have been designed more securely. For instance, it could work exactly like SSL encrypted web sites. The passport could have a unique secret private key, and a public key signed by the government. This wouldn't stop anyone reading the data but it would stop them cloning it, as the private key never leaves the chip.

Unfortunately, doing SSL encryption would require a significant amount of processing power in the passport chip. This would be much more expensive.

Basically, the government has traded off security for cost, and chosen a cheaper, less secure version.

Re:Whats wrong with some kind of PKI?

[jackjeff]

Unfortunately, doing SSL encryption would require a significant amount of processing power in the passport chip. This would be much more expensive.

Basically, the government has traded off security for cost, and chosen a cheaper, less secure version.

Yes.. but it's still an improvement over the "paper only" version.

This time you have to look for someone who looks like the you, access his passport, and clone the RFID.

The alternative would be to wait a couple of years for the price of RFID technology to cost less and support SSL-Like protocols. In the meanwhile we would stick to paper.... An incremental approach makes sense.

So What?

[Luscious868]

The question isn't whether it's crackable. You're never going to be able to make a 100% secure passport or any other type of identification for that matter. If you get a smart enough group of people together with the proper resources they will be able to crack it. The question is whether or not the technology in question is a cost effective improvement over it's predecessor.

A brief analysis

[mjc82]

The RFID chip makes it much more difficult to alter a stolen passport e.g. by replacing the picture, BUT if you have the resources to clone ALL of the security features and print your own passport, you can conceivably clone the passport without even having to see it. However, on top of the marginally increased cost of manufacturing cloned passports due to the inclusion of an RFID chip (and the possible scenario of having to perform the brute force attack) it is now necessary that the bearer of the fake passport resembles the image of the person stored with the data on the RFID chip. A question that remains unanswered is whether it is possible to create an entirely fake passport including an RFID chip with the "correct" fictional info and picture. If it was previously possible to do this, as I must assume it was, and the inclusion of the RFID chip does not make it "impossible" within current technical limitations, then nothing has been gained.

My non expert analysis of the situation is that the entire system of passport control (whether they be conventional, machine readable, RFID, etc.) depends on the ability of the people chekcing the passports. It is up to them to confirm whether the person presenting the passport is actually the person depicted in the picture as well as confirm the authenticity of the document itself. All these security features, or rather ANY security features that might be added will only serve to make it more difficult and expensive to acquire a fake passport that "works". These new security measures may not guarantee 100% the validity of the passport but it is a move in the right direction and better than nothing changing at all. Given the relatively strict time constraints placed by the US government I have to say that in my mind this particular technology is adequate for the time being. I must admit I have not seen or heard an alternative which might feasibly have been implemented within the same time frame on such a large scale. Do I believe that it is possible for a system to be devised that automatically confirms identity with 100% certainty? Possibly. Do I want that sort of security, no! The better these automatic systems become the easier they can be abused by people who are more concerned by their own pockets rather than my safety & privacy.

As a side note, the article refers to a study where supermarket checkout cashiers were shown to fair badly at the task of matching faces to photos, however I would like to believe that those working in passport control have not only been specifically trained for this task but are also naturally better at it.

The jist of the article is that they don't believe the security added by the RFID chip is worth what was paid for it not that it is inherently making the situation any worse.

Re:A brief analysis

[vidarh]

Most times when I go through passport control, they barely glance at my face. I also have my hair differently, and now wears glasses. My passport is less than a year old, yet I already look reasonably different. There's no way they'll be good judges about whether it matches me 8-9 years from now.

And the gist of the article is that there's no good reason to have RFID on the passport. Most of the issues concerns the fact that it is remotely readable. Had the same information been embedded either in a way that required contact, or using a protocol that required a key that wasn't easily brute forced, it would have been another matter.

Re:A brief analysis

[starfishsystems]

it is now necessary that the bearer of the fake passport resembles the image of the person stored with the data on the RFID chip. A question that remains unanswered is whether it is possible to create an entirely fake passport including an RFID chip with the "correct" fictional info and picture.

This question is of course the essential one which digital identity is intended to address. The digital information on the passport is signed with the private key of a certificate authority. The corresponding public key, which is widely available, can be used to validate this information. If the information is altered, it will no longer validate.

Pointless

[hotdiggitydawg]

From TFA:

The Home Office thinks not. It correctly points out that the information sucked out of the chip is only the same as that which appears on the page, readable with the human eye. And to obtain the key in the first place, you would need to have access to the passport to read (with the naked eye) its number, expiry date and the date of birth of its holder.

"This doesn't matter," says a Home Office spokesman. "By the time you have accessed the information on the chip, you have already seen it on the passport. What use would my biometric image be to you? And even if you had the information, you would still have to counterfeit the new passport - and it has lots of new security features. If you were a criminal, you might as well just steal a passport."

OK... so "the information sucked out of the chip is only the same as that which appears on the page", and "By the time you have accessed the information on the chip, you have already seen it on the passport.".

• The only information you can get out of the chip is already printed in the passport
• In legitimate circumstances, contact is still required to obtain the key to read the RFID chip
• In illegitimate circumstances, anyone can get the key with a bit of detective work and/or social engineering
• Most passports are already machine-readable (optically) anyway, regardless of whether they are chipped or not

Anyone care to enlighten me what the fucking point is of even having a chip in the first place?

Re:Pointless

[jackjeff]

Anyone care to enlighten me what the fucking point is of even having a chip in the first place?

To the chip is attached a digital signature that proves that the content provided both by the chip and the passport are guenine. It means you can"t change the photo for instance, or the name or anything... Forging the signature can be made next to impossible if you don't have access to the private key and if the key in question is correctly kept secret.

Now we could have done this without a chip, like with some nice barcode somewhere on the passport. But there's money at stake. It's easier to make politician cash more money on that "revolutionary" RFID technology than some old fashioned bar code...

Re:Pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of the chip is not that it makes forgery impossible, just that it makes it significantly harder, such that it requires special equipment, expense, and skills. The hope is that the increased expense of the chip (including chips, readers, training, and a less-engaged security staff) outweighs the cost of the crimes thwarted due to the criminals not being able to get false identification. Since it's hard to estimate the cost of crimes that don't happen, it's hard to say whether the chips are worth it.

You are right that the article makes it sound like RFID equipment and knowledge is widespread enough not to significantly impede a determined criminal. Until the keys for writing new passport chips are cracked, though, a forger would have to gather many more passports to find one that matches their customer.

FUD

[slb]

It has not been cracked !

As usual the journalist is confusing everything. What these bozos have done is just read the content of the RFID chip exactly in the same way a custom officer would have done: using the key which is *printed* on the passport !

Basically this chip do what it has been designed for: improve the difficulty to create fake passports.

Now of course you have always some neo-luddites like those who are spreading FUD in order to sway opinions who will never read the details of the article and just remember the passports have been "cracked"

Pityfull ....

Re:FUD

[vidarh]

How exactly has it made it harder to create fake passports? The article mentions a simple scenario where this would allow a bad guy to fake passports they haven't even seen by brute forcing parts of the key. Even disregarding that, it simplifies the aspect of getting an _accurate_ copy of the information on the passport in seconds - ideal for people like hotel clerks who have regular access to passports for short periods of time.

So they have to clone a RFID chip. Want to bet about how cheap tools to do that will be shortly?

Re:FUD

[slb]

> How exactly has it made it harder to create fake passports?

Because the biometric information stored in the chip is digitally signed ! In order to create a fake passport, the counterfeiter would have to obtain the private key used to sign those.

This is not something "impossible" to do, but certainly harder than fake a simple paper passport.

Notice that in the article, the author mention the fact that you could "clone" a passport, not create a fake one: And what the heck will you do with the cloned passport, since you're obviously not the same person on the photo ?

Re:FUD

[tsanth]

> And what the heck will you do with the cloned passport, since you're obviously not the same person on the photo ?

There exists a person Bob who is not obviously not the same person as Jim, who happens to look very similar to Bob. Bob simply needs to get Very Lucky.

References:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650206136,00 .html
Bertillon measurements regarding Will and William West at the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, between 1903 and 1909.

19'' color screen vs 1 inch black/white print

[Nowhere.Men]

It is more difficult to look like someone else in color on a screen at a reasonable size than on a 1 inch b/w passport picture.

So you can clone the passport of you twin but the one of your other brother would not do.

It is not exactly the same info on the chip than on the passport.

Re:19'' color screen vs 1 inch black/white print

[newt0311]

Am I the only one thinking of the posiblity of just making slight alterations to the data when you cloned the passport, say changing the biometrics?

Re:19'' color screen vs 1 inch black/white print

[Oktober Sunset]

The idea that border guards would only let you through if your passport photo is identical to you is totally flawed, peoples faces do not stay the same over 10 year, sometimes they down stay the same over 1 year. My passport photo looks absolutely nothing like me, yet I have never been questioned about it or anything, the most I've ever had was once a Finnish border guard took an extra 20 second to check my photo at a quiet border crossing. If border guards insisted that everyone's photo matched perfectly, some people would never get anywhere unless they got a new passport every year.

wait! that's illegal!

[theplasma]

The article mentions: "(We did not clone any of our passport chips on the assumption that to do so would be illegal.)"

But still, if MPAA can say that "After the DMCA, they (=MPAA) simply argue that "circumvention" of the CSS encryption on DVDs is forbidden by the DMCA, fair use or not."[1] then breaking the encryption of ICAO should be illegal as well! You are not allowed to prove them wrong!

SUE THEM I SAY! :P

[1] Ref: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005010.php

Re:logging

[zmollusc]

Yeah, right, like you will have access to the logs! You probably won't even be able to get anyone to admit the logs exist. Especially from your cell in gitmo.

Good

[kahei]

Besides, if the border guard thinks the passport is "secure", then he'll spend less time thinking about that person and just rely on the big "OK" that pops on his screen when he swipes the thing instead of evaluating the person with his brain and guts.


Good. I've been evaluated by the 'brain and guts' of a few immigration officials in my life and I haven't acquired much faith in the process. Better a flawed electronic system than a guy who just won't let you in because he doesn't like the way you look.

Enlighten me

[ccarr.com]

Why would a criminal need to crack the encryption on a passport's RFID chip? An encrypted DVD can be copied bit-by-encrypted-bit to another DVD and get played on any DVD player without the copying process needing to decrypt anything. If the encrypted information on the RFID contains nothing that isn't printed on the passport, what's the point?

Re:Enlighten me

[vidarh]

First of all you don't need to "crack the encryption" - it's standard 3DES apparently. You do have to establish an encrypted connection to the RFID chip, but if you RTFA you'll see the key is all info that is in the passport.

The reason to get the info is that you need to recreate / clone the RFID chip to be able to use the forget passport, and that info has a digital signature, so you can't just put whatever you want on the RFID chip.

Re:Great articel

[Knuckles]

Redundant? Offtopic I can see ...

I could make a guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

As you point out, the information on the chip is only a digital copy of the information printed on the passport, including your photograph. I would assume then, that seeing as the info on the chip cannot be altered (yet) the point of the chip is to prevent somebody stealing a passport and replacing the photo printed on the passport with their own, since the RFID reader will display the original photo to the customs officer. It's a two-tier system. The encryption system isn't designed to prevent the contents of the chip being read by somebody who already has physical access to the passport, it's designed to prevent somebody from eavesdropping on the communication between the chip and the reader, or somebody with their own reader from remotely interrogating the chip without the need to access the passport.

Re:And this leads me to say

[teslar]

The option to flee from the Island? :)

Suitable shielding?

[Midnight Thunder]

Is there any suitable shielding for a passport? I was thinking of making a small pouch with something that would prevent my passport from being sniffed. Would an anti-static bag do the job?

Re:Suitable shielding?

[Shadyman]

Aluminum foil, when wrapped around an RFID tag (or passport) makes it impermeable to the readers. Just think, a tinfoil hat for your passport! You'll look just like twins!

deja vu, nothing new, happened in Holland too

[Abstract]

This is the same situation as in Holland. The new Dutch passport also contains RFID technology and security experts cracked the system even before it was released. See this article.

Weak encryption keys are the part of the problem.

Anyway, this project cost some millions euros, and solves nothing. It only creates new problems making identity theft much easier to accomplice.

Bullshit.

[jotaeleemeese]

If people can't be arsed to vote ot to stand to the current political class in elections, there is no excuse, specialy one as lame as the one you are ejaculating.

The problem with the UK system is that if you hate the war in Iraq lets say, you have to balnce out that against many other decision taken by this government.

Also since the government is highly centralized you don't have the option to vote one way for local matters and a different way for national ones. YOu have to take it all or dump it all, no half measures.

But it is still a democracy. The people in the UK have the power to change the system itself and to kick out inept politicians, as they have done in the past.

Re:Bullshit.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Of course it's not a democracy. In a strict "one man, one vote" definition, a democracy should always act as the majority wish on any specific subject. But in practice, this only works in the presence of a completely informed and rational population, which you can never realistically achieve (regardless of good will) because of the sheer scale of what's involved.

Hence we commonly use the word "democracy" informally, to mean a government that acts according to the overall principles and intents of the population, yet without holding a referendum on each specific subject, and we elect representatives whose views are supposed to reflect those of the population to do the detail work. But Blair's Labour government isn't even that kind of democracy, as plenty of surveys show when you look at the government's position on controversial subjects such as Iraq or civil liberties vs. the general population's preferences.

Re:Bullshit.

[kestasjk]

We don't have a democracy, in either the pure form (which is an unworkable ideal anyway) or the popular interpretation (which is much more sensible approach in practice).

(Emphasis mine)

The GP is referring to your point that the UK is not a democracy in any sense of the word because Labour has the most MPs, as the GP said the public can still vote them out, so it's still a democracy (I shouldn't have to clarify which version of democracy I'm talking about).
In your response you just say that it's not a democracy in the sense that everyone doesn't vote on every policy, which has nothing to do with your argument that the UK is not a democracy in any sense.

Re:Bullshit.

[BalkanBoy]

> But in practice, this only works in the presence of a completely informed and rational population, which you can never realistically achieve (regardless of good will) because of the sheer scale
> of what's involved.

I've debated this with so many people, I can't even recall how many times it has come up. Coming from ex-Yugoslavia, and having lived in the USA for 14 years now (just got my citizenship recently earlier this year), I can appreciate the differences between dictatorships/monism and the system in place in the USA, UK, and other developed countries.

However, if there is one stark, glaring issue with democracy is the fact that people vote like sheep. They tend to believe the 2 major parties each time they trip over each other's promises, thinking next time around it will be different if we elect the "other" one. Sort of like believing that the invasion of Iraq is nearing an end because now the Democrats are in power, when it was those same Democrats that declared the war on Iraq 3 or so years ago when the US invaded. So, if it is truly in the interest of the American public that they pull out of Iraq, should they not have checked the voting record of the Democrats, Republicans and everyone else a few years ago (it's available for those that want to look at it), and voted for candidates that are NOT sponsored by either the Dems or the GOP?

This points to a lack of informed opinion. If I am going to vote for someone to represent my views, should I not find a candidate that represents my views clearly and unambigiously, and vote for that candidate? Then if they fail to deliver, out the door they go in the next election, but at least you know you voted with your mind, not whimsically or superficially based on irrelevant or half-truthful factors?

That's the only problem with democracy - people are not liquid enough in their choices - they vote because they figured if their dad voted republican or democrat all their life, so should they - well you are WRONG! You ain't your dad, and your dad's times ain't your times - therefore your views and opinions should be representative of the current context, and not based on past circumstances.

This is why I think a college degree should be the required minimum before participating in an election. So the next response to this is that you'd be curtailing the rights of many taxpayers/citizens who do not have college degrees to vote? Yeah, so what's your point? If they could not care less to think through their choices or voted automatically because someone told them so for someone, then they do not deserve to vote. Minimum education should be required. IT just so happens that people who are diligent enough to work through a college degree might actually read what it says on the voting pamphlets mailed out to us before every election and decide on a candidate who truly represents them, and not some wordy slickster.

G'day.

Re:Bullshit.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The GP is referring to your point that the UK is not a democracy in any sense of the word because Labour has the most MPs, as the GP said the public can still vote them out, so it's still a democracy

But you make my point for me... At the past general election, for example, the public did vote overwhelmingly for parties that didn't support ID cards at a time when it was a high profile issue. And yet, our current administration is forcing legislation through Parliament to introduce them and the associated database, and pretty openly and arrogantly saying that their intent is to have the whole thing so entrenched by the time of the next general election no other party that takes over will be able to repeal the legislation. If you can't get them out when they only have 22% of the electorate's support (or the support of around 1/3 of those who voted, if you prefer) and they can still dictate policy at that point then "you can vote them out" is clearly an overstatement.

If this were designed by Slashdot

[Prototerm]

Then it would be perfectly secure, because nobody would bother to read the chip, just pontificate endlessly on what they *believed* was on it.

Help me out here...

[PilotDvr]

The ICAO spec http://www.icao.int/mrtd/download/documents/Biomet rics%20deployment%20of%20Machine%20Readable%20Trav el%20Documents%202004.pdf is pretty vague, but the one thing that confuses me is the capacity for storing datafiles on an RFID chip. ICAO recommends at least 15-20KB (notice the big B as in Bytes) for recognizable images and 30KB for fingerprint bio templates...I would guess that iris bio templates are probably about the same. When I search for RFID tags, the highest capacity ones I can find a 64Kb (notice the small b as in bits.) Does this compute? Next, I am amusing that the passport number, birthdate, and expiry date make up the public key and that the software on the other side of the transaction (the RFID reader) would contain the private key (or at least have the ability to pass the encrpyted data off to the issuing state for decryption) and so, is the article's premise even valid?

Completely Offtopic

[tehcyder]

But what is the "Experimental Threading" thing about? And why is in an even fucking smaller and more illegible font?

Re:And this leads me to say

[sarble]

Oi! Less of the 'hard-earned'... ;)

Benevolent dictator!

[rajafarian]

Someone care to suggest an improvement on democracy?

... or Enlightened despot.

There's gotta be someone who won't get corrupted by power... Anyone know of any? Alexander the Great?

Re:And this leads me to say

[rilister]

Do you want the actual answer?

The US was going to cancel the visa-waiver scheme to nations that DID NOT include biometric information on passports by Oct 26th 2006. So the UK government had to choose between choking up US-UK travel for millions of people or rushing a minimal-requirements biometric ID scheme in. Not a happy scenario.

Given the economic consequences of making *every single passenger* travelling from the UK to the US apply for a visa, it didn't have much choice. Telling them to 'stick it' is fun, but not that practical.

RFID is bogus

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people are talking about the encryption of these tags but I think something should be said of the tags themselves. RFID is a backwards technology being hyped up by texas instruments since they havent done anything new since the integrated circuit, its been hyped up for soemthing like 15 years and thanks to WalMarts (no joke) push is only recently seeing the light of day. Its really crappy technology and anyone can test this out...go get a portable radio and turn it to any radio station and walk around your house/outside, through doors, around other devices......reliable signal huh? Imagine this sort of thing holding your important information. BS technology and most anyone who has done r&d into rfid knows, its good for opening your gym locker and thats about it.

Re:And this leads me to say

[Millenniumman]

Does a completely unhackable ink print of a fingerprint not qualify as biometric information?

Why 3 Million?

[Killer Eye]

It's silly that they've already rolled out as many as 3 million. It would make sense, when using a brand new thing, to be a little more cautious (e.g. 98% of the applicants receive old passports for now, 2% get the nifty new technology). Only after a transition period, when the new technology is proven, would they ramp up adoption. Now that a flaw has been found, the government is responsible for millions of problems instead of, say, a few hundred.

Re:And this leads me to say

[mpe]

The US was going to cancel the visa-waiver scheme to nations that DID NOT include biometric information on passports by Oct 26th 2006. So the UK government had to choose between choking up US-UK travel for millions of people or rushing a minimal-requirements biometric ID scheme in.

Thing is that the majority of UK citizens travelling abroad are likely to be going to somewhere other than the US. Requiring those who did to get a visa would have mostly impacted the US. Especially if it resulted in people either going elsewhere or staying home.

Given the economic consequences of making *every single passenger* travelling from the UK to the US apply for a visa, it didn't have much choice.

Economic consequences primarily for the US you really don't think that the visa-waiver scheme was altruistic...

Telling them to 'stick it' is fun, but not that practical.

But having everyone who needed a passport having to pay twice as much for one is? Including people who'd still need a visa anyway!

Re:And this leads me to say

[rilister]

yep. dead right.

Re:Microsoft was against it because...

[greenbird]

The only reason Microsoft came out against it is because they didn't go with the Microsoft solution.

[OT] Bike locks

[MichaelSmith]

I bought a cheap combo lock for a bike I use on the weekends. Most of the mass is in the cable which is about 10mm thick. It must have a breaking strain of 1E4kg at least.

The lock bit between the ends of the cable is made of plastic and could be broken with a rock, so I don't rely on that lock too much.

Not so easy to clone

[Len]

If my passport gets stolen, I report it. It gets cloned, I've no idea somebody is impersonating me, screwing up my life (and others).

But if someone clones your passport, he gets a passport with your biometrics encoded on the chip - your face and maybe a fingerprint. That's not going to work for impersonation, unless he clones your face and fingers too. Which isn't so easy. (The chip data is digitally signed so it's hard to alter.)

Two different things

[Len]

You're talking about two different beasts. An RFID tag is just supposed to contain an ID number for tracking purposes. It's dirt cheap, so you can attach one to every item in Walmart.

The chips in smartcards and e-passports are a lot more sophisticated. They hold 64 kilobytes of data typically, and they have a processor that can do encryption and stuff. Some of them even run Java.

Yes it is

[Shadowlore]

We don't have a democracy, in either the pure form (which is an unworkable ideal anyway) or the popular interpretation (which is much more sensible approach in practice).

Blair has an absolute majority of MPs in Parliament, which effectively means he can force through almost anything. That doesn't mean an absolute majority of the electorate support him.

And that doesn't mean you don't have a democracy. Just because there exists a majority in a representative body does not mean you don't have a democracy (or republic). The terms Democracy, Republic, and combinations thereof are systems descriptions. They define how it is done, not the result.

What you are describing fits the description of democracy quite well: Tyranny of the majority; two wolves and a lamb voting on dinner.

Re:Yes it is

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

What you are describing fits the description of democracy quite well: Tyranny of the majority; two wolves and a lamb voting on dinner.

No, because in our country both wolves voted to eat lamb, but the lamb still had wolf stew.

What he said.

[Len]

What he said.

Passports are supposed to be easy to read! Airports have to read thousands per hour, without making the lineups any more horrendous than they already are.

The purpose of the encryption is to ensure that it can only be read when you open it up and put it on a passport scanner, and not when you walk past Kevin Mitnick.

It may depend on to *who's* security we refer...

[Kazoo the Clown]

The basic problem isn't the algorithm they choose. It's that their goal is incompatible with security.

They wish to establish a world where all people can be instantly identified, correlated with commercial profiles, and tracked wherever they travel.

How can this be done "securely"? It cannot.

It may depend on what the definition of "security" is. Who's security, in particular.

Tracking the populace in order to make it easier for government to identify terrorists or other miscreants can enhance security for government even if at the same time it represents a new exposure for individuals. Sure, the government is made up of individuals, but if you are in control of the primary tracking systems, it may mitigate the insecurity of your own personal ID tag-- and government entities could exempt themselves from the requirement of carrying such a tagged ID, or automatically erase any recorded history of their own IDs movements.

A government would like to have the ability to analyze "who was where when this happened?" Certainly useful in identifying who was associating with what terrorists after an event occurs-- allowing some significant traceback if there is a past record of people's movements.

Then you have to ask, what value would this information have to someone else-- could tracking specific individuals help in committing bank fraud, or simple robbery (hey-- look who's out of the country right now-- good time to break in)? Quite possibly-- but you then have to ask, does the government individual who is in charge of the ID system care all that much if their own personal security isn't affected?

And of course, by this argument, it is government which represents the biggest security threat to individuals...

The UK is a Constitutional Monarchy...

[Keill]

not a 'democracy'....

Sounds OK to me...

[TwistedSpring]

Looks like The Guardian is smearing its FUD around again. As far as I can tell they have managed to do what the passport was designed for. Firstly, the key is on the inside of the passport for a good reason. It's not there to stop anyone reading the data, it's there to stop everyone reading it. You need to be in possession of the passport to read the key and gain access to the data on it, which is better than having (as someone else said) a "master key" that can read any passport. Nobody can steal your identity by holding a RFID reader next to you on the Tube since the data is encrypted with a key that can only be found by someone in possession of your passport. The postman scenario suggested by the article is quite unlikely and if this is the best way of finding the key they can come up with it's a pretty sorry attempt.

Also, the data that you could actually read is printed on the passport anyway, so if someone stole it they wouldn't need to crack it and read the data to steal your identity. They already stole it by stealing your passport.

It's also good that the data is stored on the passport rather than in a centralised database that could be compromised with catastrophic implications.

It sounds like the passport will allow check in to be more secure and quicker. The 20% error rate in the face recognition is high, but this can be reduced by scanning a set number of times to eliminate any false results. I would be more worried that they're using face recognition in place of a more proven biometric such as a fingerprint.

I would say that this new system presents a more technical hurdle for forgers. They may be able to overcome it in time, but without any ability to rewrite the contents of a passport (at least none yet shown) it seems likely that they would have to create their own RFIDs. I'm sure that forgeries will be produced given time, but right now I don't see this as anything to get worked up about. People fear computers, especially the general public, and they're right to fear government computer projects because they're usually both expensive and flawed due to excessive compromise, but we who read slashdot should be able to look at this with a degree of balance and question any articles printed in the mainstream media that weigh in heavily on one side of a debate.

Re:Sounds OK to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA.
Or at least SkimTFA.

Re:Another DRM? (probably OT)

[bram]

Wouldn't it be simple to know when an RFID is read by encasing it in a "passive reading device" which will be activated as soon as someone actually requests data from the RFID?

As far as I understoond an RFID broadcasts its data by getting power from the active reader, so the passive reader might pick that up?

Next trick -- same thing for US passports...

[milette]

US Passports are supposed to implement exactly the same technology. Currently, all diplomatic passports already have this feature. All new US passports are, or will very shortly be, getting them. Break out the tinfoil passport condoms! :)