Slashdot Mirror
E-Passport Cloned In Five Minutes
Last month a panel of EU experts warned that the e-Passport's security is "poorly conceived", and in fact a week later a British newspaper demonstrated a crack. Now another researcher has shown how to
clone a European e-Passport in under 5 minutes. A UK Home Office spokesman dismissed it all, saying "It is hard to see why anyone would want to access the information on the chip."
UYFB and RTFA.
"RFID chips can be read at a short distance and tracked without their owner's knowledge, while the key to unlocking the passport's chip consists of details actually printed on the passport itself."
"It is almost like writing your pin number on the back of your cashpoint card."
"The basic access control mechanism works based on information like the number of the passport, the name of the passport holder, the date of birth and then other data which are simply readable by anyone who looks on the passport," said Professor Kai Rannenberg of Frankfurt University.
Do you want all the info on your passport's personal details page readable by absolutely everyone you walk by?
If someone walks by you while it is in your pocket, they can't read off the pertinent information physically written on it in order to decode the encrypted RFID data. I'm sure given enough CPU time it could eventually be cracked without that data, but there are other much easier ways of doing identity theft.
Is it lousy security? Yes. Is someone likely to be able to steal your identity by waking by you when it is in your pocket? No.
> I do not for a second believe that it has anything to do with national id card proposals.
Correct. So why do you mention it?
...these aren't my real teeth.