Slashdot Mirror
RFID Passports Cloned Without Opening the Package
Jeremy writes to tell us that using some simple deduction, a security consultant discovered how to clone a passport as it's being mailed to its recipient, without ever opening the package. "But the key in this first generation of biometric passport is relatively easy to identify/crack. It is not random, but consists of passport number, the passport holder's date of birth and the passport expiry date. The Mail found it relatively easy to identify the holder's date of birth, while the expiry date is 10 years from the issue date, which for a newly-delivered passport would clearly fall within a few days. The passport number consists of a number of predictable elements, including an identifier for the issuing office, so effectively a significant part of the key can be reconstructed from the envelope and its address label."
10 seconds in the microwave sounds about right!
we make it harder for the terrorists to get passports (ha, yeah right) but make it really easy for them to dup them!
That way, we can insist there are no terrorists, only home grown bad guys, and we can spend a few billion more dollars on less lethal weapons, killing our own citizens in the name of the greater good!
????
Profit!
It was the game show with the Whammies that stole your money. As I recall, there was a guy who watched the show long enough that he figured out a pattern that would let him win every time. He played for like three days, and won a crazy amount of money. The show went of the air, but I remember reading that the programmers who created the game board offered to make it 'true random' for another $600, and the network refused to pay it.
This article reminds me of that story.
I guess they should have considered mailing them inside a sealed aluminum foil pouch inside the envelope. Not that something like that would stop all of the other vulnerabilities, however.
From the Daily Mail article: "More significantly, we had the details which would allow a fraudster, people trafficker or illegal immigrant* to set up a new life in Britain. The criminal could open a bank account, claim state benefits and undertake a myriad financial and legal transactions in someone else's name. "
So basically, exactly what goes on now, except for the new false sense of security. Great!
* I knew they'd bring this up
One of the primary problems with RFID is that it is "wireless" in nature. It is also designed to be "simplistic" for the simple case of economic savings.
While it is a great technology for information such as Barcode scanning and inventory tracking, its use in biometrics, identification and access controls is less secure. Transmitting significant and irrevocable information in an RFID pulse is irresponsible.
Where a barcode is ubiquitous and the concept of "stealing" it is silly, and even where the ID number of a "proxmity card" employee ID badge is easily revocable, information stored on a passport, such as biometrics, permanent identification numbers and the like are not revocable.
If you have such a passport, it is advisable that you either fry the RFID chip (i am not responsible for the legal issues surrounding it) or you store your passport in a metal safe, where RF cannot pass. There are already bags on the market with an integrated faraday cage, it is not entirely practical to keep your RFID identity perpetually in this bag while traveling (not to mention the headache at the airport screening area with a metal-laced bag).
In short, this new RFID identity system is one of the most ill-advised and potentially dangerous (vulnerable to easy identity theft) systems in recent history, and is simply ASKING for people to duplicate it, while providing no benefit other than the government control ("papers please") that it demands.
Stewed
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
I know the average /.'er will be up in arms about how insecure the new passport is but it's simply not one of the design goals.
The primary goal is to have a document that's harder (it's never impossible) to forge and easier to collect and process entry/exits. That's it. End of story.
It's not a silver bullet. Treating it as such is demanding something you won't ever get.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I received one of the new U.S. Passports - the day I handed in my application happened to be the first day of the change, and I had my order expedited, so I have one of the first new passports.
There's no "chip:" the electronic storage is embedded in the photo page of the passport, among a series of wires covered with laminate. The Department of State says the cover of the new passports prevents RFID scanning when closed, which probably explains why the cover is a different thickness and flexibility than the previous passports.
Funny thing, though: the passport itself was opened flat in the shipping envelope from the passport center. So, presumably, it could be read. I wonder what sort of security the USDoS is using on these things?
The article has nothing to do with U.S. passports, since the Brits are using a different RFID mechanism. So, no help there. I wonder how many people read the article summary (which fails to mention this detail - it probably should, since this is a rather U.S.-centric website) without RTFA and are busy microwaving their new U.S. passports?
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
Wow! I did not know that there were any oblivious morons left in the wild.
What number is on your ear tag? OH! are you one of the rare untagged morons? Where is my camera! National Geographic is gonna pay for a photo of a untagged wild moron!
hey, come back! this camera won't steal your soul....... dammit.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...that's Adam Laurie! The godlike genius of Shepherd's Bush! Seriously though... he's something of a geek hero to me. Dunno why (apart from respect for a fellow-survivor of Bush) -- lots of other people write code and do research, but he just seems like such a nice chap with it.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Yes.
A distinction without a difference. An organisation (and it doesn't matter if this is a terrorist group or a run-of-the-mill little mafia type operation) coöpts a few postal employees. Not particularly hard to do. Those employees use a relatively inexpensive piece of equipment to scan the passports that pass through their hands. This is nearly instantaneous, and non-invasive, so good luck noticing that. The passports go right along to their intended recipients with no delay, and no one's the wiser. Yet the organisation now has all the information needed to create forged passports with valid data, which will raise no flags when used and allow their operatives to assume the identity of the citizen. All the supposed security benefits of the plan are gone, in fact, it's worse than old-style passports from a standpoint of security.
Depends on how good your receiver is. Just because customs will be using an el cheapo setup that needs to be within ten inches to read the signal doesn't mean that no one will be able to construct a better reader. You think that's a *minor* issue? That someone could steal your identity, or detonate a bomb, based on that information without even having to set hands on your passport? Sounds pretty major to me.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
That said, it looks like some of these passports are out there already. Secondly, I haven't come across a definitive statement or timeline from DHS as to when RFID passpots will be abandonded.
As a software developer in the RFID industry and trying to effectively merge open source and RFID I always hear these kinds of things from our clients, slashdotters, family and random people on the street. RFID is insecure, it's the end of the world, we are all going to be puppets, you wouldn't believe the kind of responses I get during thanksgiving.
And what I tell everyone is RFID is not the end-all technology to solve every identification need. Also there is no one kind of tag so it is silly to say that RFID in and of itself is insecure.
The truth is that tags can be secure or they can be cheap but very rarely both. It is impossible to be able to have them both with the current economies of scale. The ones used in the passport are most definitely not the high-end tags with memory and cryptographic capabilities. There are some active tags that can do public/private key validation but they also cost a fortune. The governments are going to go with the cheapest version.
They know full well it is going to be cracked. It is not a big deal as it is not that hard to steal or copy the current passport anyways so they have not really digressed. This was meant to be a pilot (that somehow went into production) to check how efficient it could be and also serve as a vehicle for making further enhancements and putting more data.
As other slashdotters have pointed out it is still impossible to actually modify the information on the tags. When this is possible then that is really newsworthy because now people can actually change other people's information and wreak havoc.
But until then there are far easier and cheaper ways to find out someone's Social Security and date of birth on the web.
Software Defined RFID - The Rifidi Emulator
Actually, it does matter. The passport readers do not require the passport inspector to actually open up the passport. This allows the fake passport to be "real" with a added RFID device as long as the operator doesn't look inside. And since this is a technology used to speed up transactions through checkpoints, inspectors will not be opening many passports from now on. Thus, it is a huge deal.
Additionally, a normal reader may only be able to read it from 4 inches or so, but a scoped antenna could potentially extend the distance to a few feet to even a few hundred feet. Be scared about this technology, I am.
I recently got a new credit card with it, I immediately destroyed the card and chip inside, and requested a new card without the chip, as there have been attacks on this too. Be scared...
Here's the how-to on forging a new passport:
1. Create a falsified passport jacket capable of holding a chip and antenna.
2. You embed the _right_ chip with the _right_ number encoded (oh yeah, you need to encode the chip) AND the _right_ antenna required for the chip in your garage into the faked passport jacket.
3. Create secure paper used in passport.
4. You'll need to work up all of the print security features.
It's not trivial, it's not a silver bullet it's not a fake ID you used to buy beer in college. Stop expecting more from the new passport than the design requirements fulfill.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
RFID = Ready For Immediate Duplication?
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
... you have to do it yourself.
If you want something done really wrong (and very expensive) — have the government to do it.
It boggles the mind, that despite continuous and numerous reports of various government screw-ups, the majority of fellow Slashdotters still seem to favor things like "Municipal WiFi"...
Oh, yeah, "local government" is supposed to be better than federal... But is it really? Not in my experience...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Our federal government doesn't care about security. If we were secure, they would be out a lot of jobs. It all makes sense once you realize how they work.
Bush's administration isn't the first subversive government we've had, but they are one of the nastiest.
I could be wrong, but I believe some of the information stored on the rfid ( or linked in a database of some kind) chips is biometric. Ie ( finger print information, retinal scan). So you'd have to beat that level of security as well. Not impossible, but not a walk in the park.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I'm a libertarian so now I feel justified in supporting open borders. Having enough money to live in a gated community and owning machine guns is a private matter.
I, on the other hand, characterize myself as a "Law 'n Order Anarchist" (or "Law 'n Order Minarchist" on even-numbered days). That means I think we should get rid of all (or all but the minimum necessary) of the laws - but believe it must be done in the right ORDER or it makes things worse rather than better.
(Actually, I'm more of a "Constitutional Law 'n Order Anarchist/Minarchist" Let's get there by legal means, such as repeals and amendments.)
A prime example of this order-dependence is the immigration barriers. Open borders would be nice. But you have to remove the cancerous overgrowth of the social services first. Otherwise you get an inrush of people who put a far larger load on the services than any taxes on them cover, while depressing wages and breaking unions. A double pick of the workers' pocket - for the dubious "benefit" of giving employers a break on wages. The mass of workers gets hit twice - once in the paycheck, again in taxes. A perfect, though indirect, example of "corporate welfare".
Then the citizens retaliate in elections. Libertarians, with their track record of going after any piece of their agenda without regard for the consequences of the order, become further marginalized. Naturalizing the incoming won't help Libertarians either: The bulk of their votes will go for more benefits for themselves.
Your situation is another example: To do what you want you need to get rid of the laws that make owning a machine gun or using it for home defense nearly impossible before you retreat to your fortress neighborhood and open the borders. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If there are no borders, then there is effectively no government. This is one of my big problems with the Libertarians. Taking away borders would, in theory, lead to anarchy. In practice, any anarchy gives rise to power centers since nature abhors a power vacuum just as much as it abhors a physical vacuum. In the past, this vacuum was filled by feudal systems that coalesced into nation states. In the present, the porosity of borders combined with the mobility and rapid communications of technological society, allows multinational corporations to fill the void. If you support this particular bit of Libertarian ideology, you indirectly support rule by multinational corporations. I know I'll get heated rebuttals on this from Libertarians. The counter-arguments will probably end up sounding a lot like the GPL zealots who argue that their ideal of freedom is more important than having a video driver that works. If we lose control of the borders, we may all end up so poor that we find ourselves dreaming of the day we can afford to buy a PC from WorldMart that runs GNU/Linux at 640 by 480.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I know I'm not. I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool free marketeer (or rather I am, but there's no such thing as a truly free market), but a long held belief of theirs is that government produces NOTHING. I don't necessarily agree with that statement 100%, but these new passports are emblematic of what the government is getting into the business of. They are getting into the business of providing security, and, quite frankly, they are not very good at it.
Of all the things I can think of that the government ought to produce for its citizens (efficiency, level playing fields, regulated markets, affordable health care) this garbage - fake security - isn't on the list.
This also works for any implanted chip/scanner/biometric data tracker/etc.
Just hit the thing with a stungun for a second. This also will fry a computer motherboard instantly by just touching the case with the arc.(not that I've done this - lol - just to show how effectively it nukes anything with a microchip in it)
What you are advocating is a card approach which is not compatible with legacy passport systems still in use. The old ways die hard in gov't.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Of course, this depends on what the meaning of "is" is.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The issue with RFID passports would be if they could be /forged/... it doesn't matter if they can be duplicated.
Not true.
There's a lot to be said for not bothering to forge passports anyway - sooner or later customs at most first-world countries will probably link up, so the passport number can be checked instantly against a database to make sure the details match up. The only way a "forged" passport will work then is if it's not forged at all, but rather made with the collusion of someone at the passport office.
However, if you can duplicate a passport, you can pretend to be someone else. Someone who (you hope) has no criminal record and is not even vaguely interesting to the authorities. With access to a crooked person in authority, you can confirm this. Without such access, you simply make a few flights and see if you get stopped. The only way I can see around this is if government starts tracking where everyone is, and if the passport handed over at customs belongs to someone you know for a fact was a thousand miles away only ten minutes ago, you know something fishy's going on. But we're a long way from having that level of technology - and while I absolutely hate the sound of it, I wouldn't be even remotely surprised if someone in government is mulling it over right now.
I cannot believe this was voted insightful.
A copy of 'biometric' passport information has no value in a security context. If a copy of a passport is created using the biometric information then, obviously, that biometric information will not match the passport holder which will mean he/she will be identified as carrying a forged passport. If the biometrics are changed the digest of the passport information will be invalid and so, again, he/she will be identified as carrying a forged passport.
This is really only an issue because someone can get your personal information (for use in, for example, financial identity fraud) without having to actually open any of your mail.
]{
Muni wi-fi is good. Just like freeways.
It gives a lot more power to the people then private corp. would do.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm a libertarian so now I feel justified in supporting open borders. Having enough money to live in a gated community and owning machine guns is a private matter.
You call yourself a libertarian and you can't see the internal inconsistency in that position?
Sigh, what happened to the good old days when libertarians were people who had read and understood Ayn Rand? Our borders are our gated community, how else keep out people who are opposed to the libertarian ethic? (I.e., who want to take things from us by force or fraud.)
-- Alastair
This is so funny (in a sarcastic kind of way),
we keep readin about RFID tags being breached for this, or for that, that the content can be read if you do this, hacked if you do that.
LOL.
How many holes in your armor do you need before you understand that its not bulletproof ?
Its like those electronic voting machines. As far as my knowledge goes, there is yet to exist a tamper proof machine for safe e-Voting. Why are they still going this way how many millions are they gonna spend before they realize it costs less to go the good ole paper ballot way.
Sometimes, simpler is better.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
A copy of 'biometric' passport information has no value in a security context. If a copy of a passport is created using the biometric information then, obviously, that biometric information will not match the passport holder which will mean he/she will be identified as carrying a forged passport. If the biometrics are changed the digest of the passport information will be invalid and so, again, he/she will be identified as carrying a forged passport.
This is really only an issue because someone can get your personal information (for use in, for example, financial identity fraud) without having to actually open any of your mail.
]{
...slashdot already covered the exact same story about four months ago.
is there any difference that I have failed to notice?
01110000 01010111 01101110 00110011 01100100
this happen in England.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Is the chip required to get through customs? If not, the procedures is more like:
1. Read and crack data without being detected(this is perhaps easier than stealing a traditional passport).
2. Forge now even more legitimate passport using cracked data.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
http://www.immuneid.com/ [immuneid.com] Immune ID works in a very simple, safe and practical way. With Immune ID on documents, credit cards and credentials, the identification device on them will always remain deactivated unless the user activates them through physical touch. Without human contact, any reading and/or writing attempt will fail. Thus, your information is protected from harmful use. The user will also have a visual and/or audio confirmation included in the device*. Immune ID is an innovative protection system for all electronic documents using technologies such as RFID, Rubee, Smart Dots, EAS, etc.: passports, credit cards, driving licenses, access cards, etc. Immune ID eliminates the risk of having all your important and personal information broadcasted on public air, at the reach of anyone who may want to duplicate, steal, modify or use it in dangerous and harmful ways. Immune ID is the best solution for those who want to ensure themselves a safer and protected life.
if it was so hard to forge a passport then they wouldnt need the extra security they claim the rfid chip gives. but guess what, passports are already being forged.
the rfid chip contains photo biometrics certainly (not a high res picture either, theres only a tiny amount of storage space), but fingerprints arent included yet in many cases (and were never mandated by ICAO) it also doesnt include your signature.
so somebody that looks a bit like you, enough to pass casual observation (we all know computer face matching is very unreliable, people are even worse at it), can have a passport with your details on and their own choice of signature, which world+dog will assume is totally authentic, and which they can now use to claim your name and address as their own identity.
The only way you end up poor is by giving goods and services away.
Likewise, there are ideologies that sound attractive in most or all political parties, just not 100% of a particular party.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
What you are advocating is a card approach which is not compatible with legacy passport systems still in use. The old ways die hard in gov't.
Not at all. There's no reason the material the chip is embedded in -and the electrodes are on the surface of - has to have the form factor of a credit card. You can use the the cover of the passport - front or back, outside or inside - just fine.
Passports have had plastic-coated covers for over a decade. There's no reason the plastic layer can't be made thick enough to contain the chip and support its contact patches.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
[most] /. readers should be prepared for: mandatory civilian RFID tags...
get your RFID Experimentation kit now! http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/907a/
Am no fek Buddhist, but this is enlightenment.
Isn't this exactly what RFID passports are intended for? I mean, facilitating ID theft? :)
You call yourself a libertarian and you can't see the internal inconsistency in that position?
That's the great thing about libertarianism. My liberty becomes your chains. Public education (a non-libertarian item) saves me money by helping give children an education and direction, thus preventing even larger costs in prisons (something libertarians believe in). Thus, by logic, I can claim that, since public education reduces the overall size of the government, free public education is a libertarian goal. Others, with a different perspective, would disagree. The great thing is, there is no right answer. Which choice has the overall less infringement on freedom for all the population? Government funded schools. Which one has the least impact on the middle-class and rich (at least at first)? Stopping public schools. So both are right. That's the great thing about opinions and personal beliefs. They need not be (and rarely are) consistent.
He puts a gate around his house, but does not believe in national borders being worthy of a fence. Others think that it is within libertarianism to fence off a border. I would say that a border fence is not libertarianism because it forces the fence on everyone. Not to mention, your argument for it supposed that there are more more people willing to take things by force or fraud that are outside our borders than within.
Sigh, what happened to the good old days when libertarians were people who had read and understood Ayn Rand?
That is one and only one way of looking at it. There are many more. That you like that one best doesn't make it any more right. There are many arguments over where my nose starts when what you do doesn't directly cause the touch. What about when you are swinging a fan with the purpose of making me cold. You are affecting the air that makes me cold. It is you swinging your fan without hitting me, but it does make my nose cold.
Where the line is drawn is a huge variable, even if you think that libertarianism is the right answer.
Learn to love Alaska
If libertarians these days can't even understand Ayn Rand, then I'm sure as hell glad very few have won elected office. A libertarian that can't grok Ayn Rand is like a green that struggles with Bambi.
I seem to recall that my database 101 class (using DBaseIV for us greyhairs) had something like a prime directive: Never build structure into your data. Why was the key (apart from the RFID issues) such a bone-headed construct? Or, as I suspect, it's "good enuff for gummint work" at work?
The amount of data on these chips is not enough to carry much "biometric" information, and the implementation at the passport checks so far has not, so far as I've seen, include checking that information anyway. So it doesn't matter.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
A true libertarian -- vs an anarchist -- knows that government does have some legitimate functions, national defense being prime amongst them. Secure borders are an aspect of national defense, and a fence is a hell of a lot cheaper than armed guards every dozen yards or so.
Too many self-styled libertarians seem to think that the term implies no government at all -- and then fawn worshipfully at the foot of corporations who decry "government interference". The fact is, without government, there would be no corporations.
Not to mention, your argument for it supposed that there are more more people willing to take things by force or fraud that are outside our borders than within.
Not at all, the number within are irrelevant to the fence; that's a situation to be solved by different means. Letting more in, even if the number is fewer than are already here, is a net loss of liberty. The fence should in no way constrain anyone from leaving, or from returning if they're from here and/or can demonstrate peaceable intentions, so it doesn't infringe the liberty of anyone within it.
Thus, by logic, I can claim that, since public education reduces the overall size of the government, free public education is a libertarian goal.
Only if you can raise money for that public education without taking it by force or threat of force (or fraud), ie compulsory taxes. Many people would willingly contribute to paying for that, so yes, that might well be a goal of some libertarians. Doesn't make it a libertarian goal, though.
Where the line is drawn is a huge variable,
And this is what I mean by not undestanding Ayn Rand.
-- Alastair
The whole point of these chips is to carry 'biometric' information. Their called 'biometric passports' for a reason. Anyway, a biometric passport carries, at a minimum, your picture, which will be displayed to the immigration agent, so unless the terrorist/criminal has a make-up job that alone will catch them.
The EU versions (excluding the UK) carry your fingerprints. The US version has space for additional biometrics so you'll see either fingerprints or retinal scans on those as well in the near future as a 'second stage' check if there is a question about the validity of the passport holder.
]{
And cowards are often people who insult absent third parties and believe that somehow proves something about themselves. It does, but not what they think.
-- Alastair
Summary: UK Passports vulnerable to brute force attack
6 ,00.htmlw s/news.html?in_article_id=440069&in_page_id=1770
CVE: None
Date: Mar 07 2007 10:25PM
Credit: Adam Laurie is credited with discovering this issue
Vulnerable: UK Passport >= 2006
Not vulnerable: UK Passport < 2006
Lack of security checking or strong passwords allows an attacker to gain access
to personal details stored on the passport by launching a brute force or
dictionary attack. An attacker would need access to a region of a few
centimeters around the passport, but would not need to the passport itself.
References
* http://www.guardian.co.uk/idcards/story/0,,195022
* http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/ne
This is no troll its a useful message.
For a cup of hot tea?
Secure borders are an aspect of national defense, and a fence is a hell of a lot cheaper than armed guards every dozen yards or so.
Secure borders are against military threats, not people you don't like. A fence will stop no military force. A fence is for closed borders. Isolationism can come with libertarianism, conservatism, or liberalism. Closed borders are about isolation, not security.
And this is what I mean by not undestanding Ayn Rand.
And what if someone understands and disagrees, but still considers themselves libertarian? The word isn't trademarked, and you can't just claim everyone else is using it wrongly because you don't like it. Since you claim so many people do not understand it but use it anyway, then it seems that the definition has changed, and you are the one using the word incorrectly. Language changes. It is defined by the current meanings, not what it initially meant. If you are the only one using a particular old definition of a word, that doesn't make you better, that makes you wrong.
Learn to love Alaska
Comment removed based on user account deletion
the problem im having with this is the key to the encryption is on the passport itself..anyone can get the information from the chip even if it was copyed with or without opening the packaging. The point of encryting with a key is that nobody else besides the user and receiver(in this case airprot security) never knows the key..
Since you claim so many people do not understand it but use it anyway, then it seems that the definition has changed, and you are the one using the word incorrectly. Language changes. It is defined by the current meanings, not what it initially meant. If you are the only one using a particular old definition of a word, that doesn't make you better, that makes you wrong.
I don't know what your politics are, but you certainly argue like a left-winger.
I guess it shouldn't surprise me that the left wing is out to hijack the term "libertarian", they already did that with "liberal". That's always been a tactic on that side: since they can't win with reasoned, rational arguments (because they are not rational), they hijack the language and redefine the terms in an attempt to, if they can't win the argument, at least confuse the onlookers.
-- Alastair
I guess it shouldn't surprise me that the left wing is out to hijack the term "libertarian", they already did that with "liberal".
Liberal was perverted by the Republicans to become an insult. It was a political move by a political party.
That's always been a tactic on that side: since they can't win with reasoned, rational arguments (because they are not rational), they hijack the language and redefine the terms in an attempt to, if they can't win the argument, at least confuse the onlookers.
1.One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
2.One who believes in free will.
If you have a different definition, please post it. "You don't understand and I'm not going to explain it" is the tactic of the people that are changing the meaning of the words, not the ones that are trying to use its original meaning.
Oh, and I use "liberal" to mean someone who advocates change and "conservative" as someone resistant to change. No amount of whining by either party has changed the dictionary definition or the definitions as I use them.
Learn to love Alaska
RFID really just needs a simple on/off switch that completes the circuit to its antenna. Is anyone doing this?
;P
My Metro SmartTrip card essentially does this all by itself after sitting in my wallet for a while. The only way it registers to readers is if I flex the card a certain way.
It's only after a year or two when I have to replace the card that the authorities can track my ass once again.
Liberal was perverted by the Republicans to become an insult.
No, "liberal" was perverted by the left wing long before. The Republicans couldn't have used it as an insult if they hadn't. Look at the self-named Liberal parties in other countries, Canada for example.
1.One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
That could as easily label anarchists. At one time it applied to Republicans (of the Reagan or Gingrich variety, not the current crop).
2.One who believes in free will.
Hmm, is there anyone who doesn't? I supposed there are a few die-hard Marxists or Leninist-Stalinists who believe that free will should be subjugated to the needs of the State, but I think they still believe that free will exists.
-- Alastair
I have a UK passport with an RFID. I never (to my knowledge, at least) gave the government a fingerprint or retinal scan. The booklet that came with it also implied that the only thing "biometric" about it is that it has your photo on it.
Well, I know this old British woman who travels through the USA a couple times a year. Each time she goes through US customs, they take her finger prints and tell her they don't match the ones they have on file. Of course, she's never had her finger prints taken. So they take her back to a room while they talk about it and eventually let her through. The same rigmarole happens every time. So maybe thats just a database on the US side that links her passport with her fingerprints. I don't really know. I just think the whole thing is funny.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Last night I cloned my passport by putting it in a color copier.
Serisouly, someone who has access to the mail can just open the envelope, copy it, and then re-seal the envelope.
No, I will not work for your startup
That's absurd.
There's a HUGE distinction between duplication and forgery when it comes to cryptographically signed data.
Forgery involves fabrication of information: changing names, photographs, birthdates...
This is computationally infeasible without the government's private key used to sign the information.