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US Government To Release Electronic Passport
XueCast writes "The federal government has announced that they will release new electronic Passport cards in either April or May 2008. The cards could be read wirelessly from up to 20 feet away, which could reduce the waiting time at border checkpoints. Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State For Passport Services, Ann Barrett said, "As people are approaching a port of inspection, they can show the card to the reader, and by the time they get to the inspector, all the information will have been verified and they can be waved on through.""
Tin foil billfolds and passport covers are already being sold: http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&safe=off&q=RFID+blocking+wallet&btnG=Search
Nothing a microwave oven on high for 2-3 seconds (or a hammer and hard surface) won't solve: http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&safe=off&q=RFID+disabling+passport&btnG=Search
There are certainly ways to perform key exchanges and begin encrypted communication without being vulnerable to eavesdropping.
My understanding (which may be wrong) of the main problem with these RFID devices is that there is in fact no handshaking or encryption, and that the device will happily spill its guts to anything that asks.
Why do you need a device with the range of 20ft? How about range of 2 inches and place the reader 20ft down the line?
There should not be much more "guts" to spill, than the passport number itself. This will not give an attacker much information at all — other than: "There exists a passport with this number," but in those few seconds, that it takes a person to walk up to the counter, their giant picture will already be on the officer's screen for verification...
It would still be a hole, but a much smaller one than it may seem at the first suspicious glance. It will, hopefully, be further narrowed by making these passports respond to RFID-readers only when they are opened and, maybe, only when directed towards the reader — simply by making the passport's cover with some RF-blocking material.
All of these measures will make your hypothetical eavesdropper rather impractical even without encryption.
People have been using EZ-Pass and similar (oppressive) RFID-readers for many years now to go through highway robbery, ehm, tools... Yet there are no stories of EZ-Pass numbers picked-up by hidden crooks and plugged into fake EZ-Pass devices for resale... Maybe, someone is doing it, but it sounds more difficult, than crossing into the US through the Southern border.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Furthermore, these new passports have a half-assed faraday cage built into the cover, but like so much of government it really is half-assed. All it takes is for the cover to be open by less than a centimeter, as might easily happen in lady's purse, and the RFID is no longer protected against unwanted access/detection.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Customs isn't mainly for crime, its for economics. At least at the canadian border, i see people held back all the time because they brought too many goods over and the receiving side wants to tax their stuff. The next thing they're worrying about is foreign food that could introduce diseases.
You're right that this is useless tech however. It takes about 4 seconds for a border officer to process your passport. The reason there are bottlenecks at ports of entry is because there tends to be a maximum of two border agents for every 50 people trying to cross.
Slartibartfast:"Is that your robot?"
Marvin:"No, I'm mine."
It's not just about Americans.
Australians have had to use RFID-embedded passports for the past couple of years to comply with US regulations. Can't say it's sped up my travels at all.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."