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Chipped Passport Cloned In Minutes

Posted by samzenpus on from the unsafe-at-any-customs-counter dept.

Death Metal Maniac writes "New microchip passports designed to be foolproof against identity theft failed the test when a researcher was able to manipulate one in minutes. The cloned passports were accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports. According to the article: 'A computer researcher cloned the chips on two British passports and implanted digital images of Osama bin Laden and a suicide bomber. The altered chips were then passed as genuine by passport reader software used by the UN agency that sets standards for e-passports.'"

3 of 326 comments (clear)

  1. Summary doesn't mention digital signing by Wanderer2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Home Office has always argued that faked chips would be spotted at border checkpoints because they would not match key codes when checked against an international data-base. But only ten of the forty-five countries with e-passports have signed up to the Public Key Directory (PKD) code system, and only five are using it.

    The researcher replaced the digital signatures on the passports with ones of his own creation when altering the photographs... if the equipment used to test had actually compared the digital signatures to those on file, it would have immediately spotted the tampering. Problem is most countries aren't sharing their signatures yet, making those checks impotent. For now, at least (and not saying there aren't other vulnerabilities).

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    I say we take-off and slashdot the site from orbit... it's the only way to be sure
  2. Re:Electronic voting's cousin? by stainlesssteelpat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I got one of these new fandangled passports a few years ago when I went to Japan, got fingerprinted electronicly at customs and thought nothing of it, with all the post 9/11 sentiment it sucks but i can't see it going away now. Anyway point is I'm an ex chef (still part time while at uni), so when I flew into newark to go visit my girlfriends parents with her in Fargo I get hustled into an interview room. I thought it was on account of being heavily tattoed and having dreadlocks and being under 30. Anyway, I get grilled by this mean assed gentlemen from customs about how I got this passport. Turns out the damage done to my hands over the course of two years, meant that thier software didn't match the biometric that Japanese customs had put on there. Got sorted out eventually, 2 hours nearly missed my connection from JFK. Was more bemused than anything, US customs don't get Aussie humour thats for sure.

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    War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.- Shelley
  3. Papers, bitte. by monkeyboythom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have to say the more we rely on "foolproof" technology, the more we rely on fools to operate the machinery.

    I have to admit the Germans had it nearly right. Almost nothing beat the steely-eyed glare of a Hauptsturmführer asking for your passport -- unless of course you have a John Williams musical score swelling in the background, and even then it would be a life changing, tension filled 2 minutes of your life going by you.