Disabling the RFID in the New U.S. Passports

slashchuck writes "Along with the usual Jargonwatch and Wired/Tired articles, the January issue of Wired offers a drastic method for taking care of that RFID chip in your passport. They say it's legal ... if a bit blunt. From the article: 'The best approach? Hammer time. Hitting the chip with a blunt, hard object should disable it. A nonworking RFID doesn't invalidate the passport, so you can still use it.' "

Comments

No Hurry

[JusticeISaid]

Great idea! Anything else I can do to slow down my passage through Immigration and Customs after a long flight? I'm always looking for ideas.

Re:No Hurry

[Qzukk]

Yeah, because stopping you, scanning your passport, then letting you on through was SO much faster than stopping you, sliding your passport through a stripe reader, and letting you through.

Re:No Hurry

[rlp]

It has already been demonstrated that the faraday cage effect of the shielding is negated if the passport is only open a centimeter or so, as could easily happen with a passport carried in a handbag, or pretty much anywhere there is not much pressure to hold it closed.

Or you could put a rubber band around the passport to keep it closed.

Re:No Hurry

[iron-kurton]

Here's an idea: not giving up your civil liberties for the sake of convenience and national security (to be distinguished from ACTUAL security). What's really funny about your statement is that 5 years ago, people like you were in front of news cameras at the airline check-in saying "we don't mind waiting in line if it makes us more secure." Now, 5 years later, even after we have all established that airport security is a joke, instead of coming up with a more efficient screening method, we spent our resources developing YET another new technology full of holes.

My point is, your anger at the poster and the method of destroying the chips is a bit misdirected -- if you really want to spend less time at security checkpoints and Immigration and Customs, you should lobby for improving the methods currently in place. Besides, like someone who replied to your post already said, there really is no speed improvement in putting your passport through a barcode reader or waving it in front of an RFID reader. However, there is a relative security difference, and given the choice, I would take the former.

They do NOT say it's legal

[torstenvl]

FTFA: "But be careful - tampering with a passport is punishable by 25 years in prison."

Also, only TFA works. The other links are bogus.

It's like wearing a big name tag...

[paladinwannabe2]

That broadcasts your information. This makes it so much easier to stalk people you've just met! Of course, if I was a criminal I'd just use this to make a list of people going on a nice long overseas flight... plenty of time to stop by their house and help myself to a few things.

Freedom vs. Safety

[TrisexualPuppy]

Great idea! Anything else I can do to slow down my passage through Immigration and Customs after a long flight? I'm always looking for ideas.

Hey, actually, it is a great idea. If you're the kind of person who likes to protect his rights and privacy, this is an excellent way to go. Not only do you get to destroy the RFID, but you can still use the passports that are being released from here on out and are the only way to get in or out of the country. This means that we have an option to keep passports as they used to be, a little less like cattle ear tags.

For me, cue the Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture final movement. Cannons sounding in the background, I'll be smashing my RFID with a 12-pound copper mallet the next time that I have to renew.

Taking bets...

[Junior J. Junior III]

How long until they make hammer possession a felony?

Re:Great idea!

[JFitzsimmons]

The goal of adding RFID to a passport was to add another layer of security to the passport. This may sound a little strange at first, but there is some logic to it. The RFID chip contains the same information as the printed passport, including a digitized version of the picture, AND a cryptographic hash. The desired outcome is that it is difficult to forge BOTH parts of the passport simultaneously. Ideally, the person would only be able to pass if both portions of their passport matched and the hash was valid. Although it may be a result, being able to just wave people on through after scanning the RFID portion of the passport was not a goal.

Practically, since passports are still valid without RFID, this measure is almost useless, and opens up tons of privacy problems as already stated. I don't think that ranged communication should have been a major feature of a passport, which makes me wonder why the government chose RFID over any other tagging technology, such as smartcards. Smartcards could perform the same or perhaps even better task as the RFID tags currently are, except they would be more secure simply by the virtue that they require physical contact with the reader.