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Researchers Find Problems With RFID Passport Cards
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Washington have found that RFID tags used in two new types of border-crossing documents in the US are vulnerable to snooping and copying. The information in these tags could be copied on to another, off-the-shelf tag, which might be used to impersonate the legitimate holder of the card." You can also read the summary of the researchers' report.
One of the main stated reasons they started introducing these things was to facilitate entry to Great Britain.
Actually, much of Europe. But talk to your government about that - they started the tit-for-tat escalating entry requirements. When someone enters the US now, they are photographed and fingerprinted, and the only reason I didn't require a biometric passport for entry last time I went was because there was a temporary visa waiver program in place for people without biometric passports.
Most of the stupid entry requirements for Americans entering other countries are due to politicians responding to pressure from their constituents complaining about being treated like criminals when they enter the USA.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
They still can't.
From the article:
"Although the tags don't contain personal information, they could be used to track a person's movements through ongoing surveillance..."
Considering the "passport" is the entire document and the tag itself contains no identifying information they still can't clone your passport at a distance. They could clone the tag inside it, but the process of faking your passport would still involve creating the paper hard copy. I'd say if they still have to do everything they used to and also something new then it's more secure, not less.
Of course the ability to recognize and track a person's movements through the use of RFID is still worrying, but it's no easier to fake a passport than it used to be.
In Soviet Russia meme tires of you!
Are you ready for the inevitable conspiracy theory? Here it is, cooked up between my wife and myself after discussing the implications of renewing our passports shortly.
The problems are actually a feature. Let me explain. Remember how the old Soviet-bloc countries didn't like their nationals traveling because they would see how much better the rest of the world was? (Don't get me wrong, I like it here just fine.) Well, if everyone who hears about this says "I guess I won't be traveling any time soon", it effectively stops travel (usually by the intelligentia) all the while allowing the govt to say "We have no travel restrictions on our own citizens".
Of course, all this is nonsense. Our current administration would never feign incompetence to obtain other goals. Yet there's plenty of other information that suggests there's no tom-foolery about this and that the incompetence is real.
So in short, I'm not sure which it is, but the bottom line for me is that I'm waiting until the last minute in the hopes that some of the recommended features are implemented by then.