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Germany To Roll Out ID Cards With Embedded RFID
An anonymous reader writes "The production of RFID chips, an integral element of the new generation of German identity cards, has started after the government gave a 10-year contract to the chipmaker NXP in the Netherlands. Citizens will receive the mandatory new ID cards starting from the first of November. The new card allows German authorities to identify people with speed and accuracy, the government said. These authorities include the police, customs and tax authorities and of course the local registration and passport granting authorities. There are some concerns that the use of RFID chips will pose a security or privacy risk, however. Early versions of the electronic passports, using RFID chips with a protocol called 'basic access control' (BAC), were successfully hacked by university researchers and security experts."
Unfortunately, they will also make perfect bomb triggers, when the target walks by.
Trusted Computing FAQ | Free Dawit Isaak!
It's time to buy RFID-blocking cover/wallet/bag/whatever. Or feel free to have some fun with aluminum foil - http://www.rpi-polymath.com/ducttape/RFIDWallet.php
I've always wanted to be a german.
And now i can be a bunch of them!
The first three posts in this discussion are - as of now - ACs. Though different from the normal 'First Piss Post'-category. They are spot on the topic. Still ACs. Why?
Already fearful of being tracked? Yes, you are. Through your IP-addresses.
Next year you can be tracked by having your Personalausweis in your pocket. Or in your bag. You need it, because you want to enter an official building; the Rathaus.
Or doing banking business:
"Guten Morgen, Frau Müller."
"Uh, Sie kennen mich?"
"Nein, aber Sie haben Ihren Ausweis dabei! Ich denke Sie wollen Ihren Urlaub bezahlen!?"
"Woher wissen Sie das?"
"Nun, als Sie hier hereinkamen, hat unsere Sicherheitssoftware gemeldet, dass Sie gerade auch im Reisebüro waren."
Oh, what a brave new world we weave ... .
Yes, and the government is out on tracking everybody! Really if they want to track you they will no matter what. If I have to choose between a RFID chip in my ID card or a tinfoil hat and wallet. I'll take the RFID chip cause the chance of it being useful exceeds the chance of the government bothering to track everything I do.
No, the thing is, without this kind of technology, they can choose a number of individuals they have resources to track at the same time. With this type of technology, they can track everybody at the same time. With modern storage capacities, a future government can retroactively check what you have been doing through your life.
And it becomes a slippery slope. It starts with tracking terrorist suspects, proceeds to solving other crimes, and ends with tracking people who disagree with the current party in power and threaten their next election win, and after that all bets are off. Just hope you never visited a house where some opposition activist lived back then...
No, they look to the government for guidance still. It's in the character. They still don't have real freedom of speech there.
So it is only "freedom" if it is identical to your version of freedom ?
Please, cut down the arrogance a few notches, you'll notice the rest of the world likes you a lot better if you don't go around all the time assuming that your way is the one and only true path to whatever.
Our freedom of speech (I'm german) is as real as yours. We just have some priorities differently. For example, we don't allow people to threaten abortion doctors with murder under the cover of "free speech". Our version of your "free speech" is called "freie Meinungsäußerung". That has three parts: Free, speech and opinion. What it means is you can freely express your opinion. If you leave the area of expressing your opinion - and "we'll kill you" isn't an opinion anymore - you may run into trouble.
And no, we don't look for the government for guidance. In fact, our current government is such a joke, anyone who does look to them for anything except satire is retarded. However, what we do is not share the ridiculous paranoia about the government that is visible in the US. We don't think anything done by the government is automatically evil and to be mistrusted. We view the government as an entity much like many others - capable of both good and evil.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You could have a card with RFID which embeds a key that unlocks data in the database. Since governments have control over the database one wouldn't have to worry much their data being looked at by unauthorised staff and if the database was ever stolen only your physical card could unlock it.
You obviously have a very different government to mine. If it's in a government database in the UK, the odds are that copies of it will be posted to the wrong address on unencrypted DVD-Rs, left on hard drives on trains or in taxies, leaked to the press, or used by council employees for private purposes.
A better solution is not to store the information in either place. Store it on the passport in encrypted form and store the encryption key in the central database (or vice versa). You then need to both do a database query and scan the passport to have access to the data. If someone gets a copy of the database, it's no use to them without the passports. If someone steals a passport, they can't access the information on it.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Adam Savage's talk on the 2008 Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference on why Mythbusters was forced to not do the "how easy it is to hack RFID tags" episode is very, very interesting.
http://twitter.com/object404
I wouldn't be so quick to jump on that bandwagon. Although this is an older site, I can't imagine things have changed drastically in 5 years. The page was also updated in Dec of 2009:
http://www.malehealth.co.uk/weight/18962-now-were-fatter-americans
Two out of three US men — 67% - are overweight or obese. Finland, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Malta have now all exceeded this figure. England and Wales are not far behind.
The EU is so worried about it that it has launched its own campaign against obesity. 'The time when obesity was thought to be a problem on the other side of the Atlantic has gone by,' said Mars Di Bartolomeo, Luxembourg's Minister of Health.
The tubby top ten:
Greece (78.6% of blokes are overweight or obese)
Germany (75.4%)
Czech Republic (73.2%)
Cyprus (72.6%)
Slovakia (69%)
Malta (68%)
Finland (67.8%)
Slovenia (66.5%)
Ireland (66.4%)
England and Wales (65.4%).
Frankly, I don't think urban sprawl has anything to do with obesity in a significant way. I think it has to do with fat/calorie content of restaurant food (especially so in the US), and the fact that 'eating out', which used to be the odd occurrence here, has become more the norm for a high percentage of homes. Way too much fast food, or even regular restaurants that don't have healthy menu's. We also spend far more time isolated in our homes, on the internet, and watching TV.
On a side note, I eat out a couple of times a week but I adapt my intake to compensate for shitty food that I might eat on occasion. I also spend 6-10 hours a week in the gym doing heavy lifting and I bicycle for 8-16 miles on the weekends. I live in the the deep south where obesity is even higher than the 'norm' for the U.S.
I sometimes feel like a stranger in my own land given the looks I get in public at times.
What TFA forgets to mention is, that the ID card remains valid when you kill the RFID chip, as it still allows a person to be identified. Also, the fingerprint is a voluntary information to be stored. Most people won't know or bother and just let them store it anyway, though. For my fellow citizens: get yourself a new ID card w/o RFID just now (it is only a few Euros more expensive when you "loose" your current ID). If you have to get, for some reasons, an ID card with RFID on it, just put it in the microwave oven for a minute or so. Chaos Computer Club has proven this to kill the chip reliably.