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E-Passport In the Works
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Aug 22, 2006 10:31 AM
from the chip-makers-pleased dept.
from the chip-makers-pleased dept.
ExE122 writes "In an attempt to curb falsification of passports, the United States has placed an order for millions of embedded ID chips. 'The chips carry an encrypted digital photograph of the passport holder. The chip is designed to be read by a special device that will be used by U.S. government workers who check passports when travelers come through border crossings. The State Department began issuing what are being called e-passports to tourists last week and will gradually increase production. State Department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus said existing passports will remain valid until they expire but, eventually, all U.S. passports — about 13 million will be issued in 2006 — will contain such chips.'"
Related Stories
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Your Rights Online: RFID Passports Raise Safety Concerns 459 comments
CurtMonash writes "CNNMoney.com features a skeptical article about the US State Department's plans to soon issue RFID passports (currently being tested on State Department employees). One fear is that they can be hacked for information about you. And even if they can't, carrying around a little transmitter saying 'I'm an American! I'm an American!' isn't a fun and safe thing to do in all parts of the world." From the article: "Basically, you've given everybody a little radio-frequency doodad that silently declares 'Hey, I'm a foreigner,' says author and futurist Bruce Sterling, who lectures on the future of RFID technology. 'If nobody bothers to listen, great. If people figure out they can listen to passport IDs, there will be a lot of strange and inventive ways to exploit that for criminal purposes.'"
[+]
IT: Hackers Clone E-Passport 185 comments
mrops writes "I guess the skeptical Slashdot community always knew that e-passports are a big waste of time and money; now German security consultants have been able to successfully clone e-passports, even onto building access cards. FTA: 'The whole passport design is totally brain damaged,' Grunwald says. 'From my point of view all of these RFID passports are a huge waste of money. They're not increasing security at all.'"
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Your Rights Online: RFID-Reading Passport Scanners Installed 151 comments
Kozar_The_Malignant writes, "Electronic passport scanners have been installed at SFO. Ten of the scanners were received last week and have now been put in service. Various creative responses have been discussed here before."
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IT: RFID Passport Security "Poorly Conceived" 33 comments
tonk writes, "European expert researchers on identity and identity management summarize their findings from an analysis of passports with RFID and biometrics — Machine Readable Travel Documents or MRTDs — and recommend corrective measures that 'need to be adopted by stakeholders in governments and industry to ameliorate outstanding issues... By failing to implement an appropriate security architecture, European governments have effectively forced citizens to adopt new international MTRDs which dramatically decrease their security and privacy and increases risk of identity theft. Simply put, the current implementation of the European passport utilizes technologies and standards that are poorly conceived for its purpose.' The European experts therefore come to similar conclusions as the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee of the US Department of Homeland Security in a draft report, which seems to be delayed."
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10 years (Score:3, Interesting)
If anything, this will raise the value of existing non-RFID passports, since they are more easily modified to indentify someone else.
Americans traveling to other countries. (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, I went to New Mexico twice in the last 6 years. That's fairly often, I think.
Re:Americans traveling to other countries. (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, us backwards wierdo liberal faggy Europeans get 6 weeks holiday
Re:Americans traveling to other countries. (Score:5, Funny)
oh, never mind.
Re:Americans traveling to other countries. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Prefer?" I prefer quite a bit more time off. I would imagine most people do. The problem is, U.S. corporate behavior is geared toward maximizing profits at the expense of the employees and an imaginary work ethic that drives people into the ground and causes them to change jobs on an average of every two or three years and careers on an average of every 10 or 15 years. You ask, stupidly, who pays for Europeans' 6 weeks holiday -- obviously as a cultural norm the employer shells it out. It's a quality of life issue.
But please, don't insinuate that just because you're a driven workaholic with nothing better to do that the rest of us would 'prefer' that lifestyle. I think, given 6 weeks of guilt-free holiday, most Americans would take it gladly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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"The problem is, U.S. corporate behavior is geared toward maximizing profits at the expense of the employees and an imaginary work ethic that drives people into the ground"
Which clearly
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like you're either a workaholic, or you need a new job. I had 2 in my first job, 5 in my second job (state government; paid better than the
Re:Americans traveling to other countries. (Score:4, Informative)
One of my clients is a developer company, based in Mexico City, but with offices in most of the vacation hot spots in the US (because they own high rises in all those cities). There were having issues with their ERM, because it was a fixit session it was scheduled between other trips, and I only had two days on site. Well that wouldn't have been an issue, if they didn't stop working everyday for 3 hours to have lunch and watch the World Cup.
I don't know what it is, but the way we work versus the way that work is done in Europe and Latin America, is hugely different. I like to relate, to the Super Market that was across the street from where I was staying in Amsterdam, they were open M-F 10am-5pm, for an American that is unfathomable, Europeans are used to it, and adept to it, and I did too (by adept I mean I mostly ate at restraunts that were open later in the evening) when I was there for 3 months on a project. But it's quite strange for someone who's last job involved making a 1am Taco Bell run during my 11pm - 11am shift.
Re:Americans traveling to other countries. (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you kidding me? "As a nation", we take what we can get. And all we can get is 2 weeks per year or less.
I don't think there's a man, woman or child alive that wouldn't want more than 2 weeks vacation. This is not a "cultural habit", this is just the dynamic of our employer/employee relationship. Employers want to ride their employees as hard as they can and employees are just doing all they can not to get fired.
Of course, us backwards wierdo liberal faggy Europeans get 6 weeks holiday.
Wow, who pays for that?
If the entire society accepts that this is normal, then no one pays for it.
Let's face it - the world works the way it does because we accept that the world works that way. If it worked differently, we'd accept that too. I mean, who's "paying" for the fact that you're sleeping 8 hours a day rather than working? You, and the rest of American society (at least to this point) has drawn the line at having at least enough time off every day to sleep. Nobody "pays" for that; that's just the way society has chosen to work. Could companies make more money if all of their employees worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Sure. But you don't "pay" for something that never existed in the first place. That downtime is just downtime, not a debt that needs to be paid.
We Americans are overworked. We work more hours, on average, than any other nation in the world (yes, including places like Japan, which lets its employees have an average of 25 non-weekend days off per year). But it's not by and large because we want to, it's because we're demanded to and because employers have decided for us that this is the cultural norm. Someday, maybe we'll get in step with the rest of the world and realize that there are more important things in life than work.
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Out of the people who I've encountered who don't take their full 10 days (14 days? What count
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Re:Americans traveling to other countries. (Score:4, Funny)
You say this like it's a bad thing. Employees need to stop worrying about their little personal lives and worry more about providing shareholder value. Not taking any vacation, working unpaid overtime, etc. are all great ways to achieve this. How about some volunteer work? Volunteer to work weekends, for no pay. Or volunteer with your spare time to do chores, like yardwork, for your boss so that he can concentrate on providing more shareholder value.
Won't somebody please think about the shareholders??!!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This, of course, runs contrary to the common view that American workers are lazy and unproductive. However, there is an interesting catch. Because workers in the US tend to put in more hours than their European counterparts, the rankings change whe
WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WHY? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It has TECHNOLOGY! The technology will solve all out problems! Next we can add encryption to the technology so that it will be even more technological! And because Americans can't even wrap their heads around evolution, there's no way th
Re:WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
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BECAUSE! (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, but what if the 'Thief' doesn't want to so much steal your identity, as pick
Anti-skimming/eavesdropping measures (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the power goes
Already customs lines at SFO for this (Score:3, Interesting)
American Made (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do we always have to get everything from the Germans? (beer & cars for example) Why can't the government contract this out to good ol' American workers? Especially since it deals with National Security?
encrypted? (Score:5, Insightful)
But simply encrypting the message with a symmetric key (as seems indicated by the blurb) would be bad for security, because many people would have the key, and so it would provide a false sense of security.
Scene at the customs office (Score:5, Funny)
I blame it on the lack of logic today (Score:5, Interesting)
1) All computer security systems have been defeated.
2) This is kinda like one of them thar computer security systems that has been defeated.
3) I'm carrying this thing around the world, and any schmo who can defeat it, can identify me faster than the police can.
4) There are a lot of terrorists and terrorism sympathizers who'd just love to off me because I'm American.
If you aren't careful, you'll be broadcasting enough info out there that you'll be easily victimized.
Re:I blame it on the lack of logic today (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
More Lack of Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, according to the TFA: The chips carry an encrypted digital photograph of the passport holder..
Remember everyone, just by going out in public you are letting the world know what you look like! Time to start investing in brown paper bags
You se
anti-pirate passports! (Score:3, Funny)
Heh heh (Score:5, Interesting)
And if we're already on the subject of the government, why are they spending all this money to make sure passports can't be faked, greencards can't be faked, etc., if there is absolutely positively nothing being done to stop the flood of immigrants, criminals, drugs, and terrorists that are crossing our totally unprotected borders into this country every day? Every time this issue comes up, idiots say it's racism. Sorry, it's not racism to stop people and things that shouldn't be here illegally from coming here illegally.
bomb makers can now target americans (Score:5, Funny)
They don't need to correctly talk to the passports only determine that they are american passports.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This could potentially become a huge problem for Americans traveling overseas, especially considering that the Government advises Americans abroad to not advertise the fact, while at the same time, they're equipping us
US Department of State announcement (Score:4, Informative)
Been thinking about this one. (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a standard Credit Card sized plastic card.
Put a chip on it like credit cards use - not an RFID tag, just a simple chip that can store ONE piece of info.
That piece of data will be unique to that person, and is their ID in the system.
On the card we print a photograph, their name and date of birth.
When the card is presented at an appropriate terminal, a database lookup is done for the ID. The card reader then displays a "virtual" version of the card.
Visual inspection will allow the person doing the Identity Check to confirm the persons ID.
ID cards to be updated every 5 years, replacements for lost/stolen/damaged to be charged at cost, and be available within 2 working days, with designated places (like police stations) being able to print out temporary ID papers until replacement card arrives.
As long as downloads to terminals are encrypted, and the credentials of the operatives inputting data onto the system are checked, we have a secure system with no privacy concerns that SHOULD be cheap to implement.
Other systems, Passport Control etc could be tied to the database with your ID reference number becoming your Passport number - Give each person a pin number (or if you really insist use biometric information) and you have a bank/credit card that should also help prevent fraud.
Anyone see any holes in my plan?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. Reliance on a very large central database. What if the database goes down? What if the database gets hacked? With the very large number of people you would have to have entering data into the system, chances are one
I don't see the problem here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Will it eventually be hacked/copied? Yes. Does that mean we throw up our hands in the air and stop trying? Taking a defeatist attitude gets us nowhere. When this one gets hacked, we'll add more forgery deterrents. Take at look at the US currency; its the same thing.
It is just one more tool we can use to keep pace/ahead with those that want to forge them.
Re:I don't see the problem here... (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as anti-counterfeiting measures, the 9/11 terrorists had valid passports and IDs, so how exactly would this prevent terrorism? If an immigration official lets his guard down because a person has an RFID passport, he may be ignoring other tip-offs that would alert him to suspicious activity. This would probably only really effect illegal immigration.
Again, no one is saying that we shouldn't increase security measures. But let's not claim that this is a panacea, or going to do something that is actually can't. Americans seem to have the belief that some simple technology will solve any problem we encounter. The reality is that we have to hire and train competent personnel in immigration and security. Mass surveillance, face recognition, gait recognition, etc. will not keep us safe from terrorism; motivated terrorists will always outsmart the machine or system. What we need is human intelligence, building contacts and infiltrating groups. These sorts of technological fixes are just to pacify jittery Americans into thinking that something is being done.
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The Main Reason is it's Faster (Score:5, Insightful)
The objective is to be able to process more people through customs faster and with more data captured as they get off ever-bigger airplanes.
This doesn't address a control point failure (customs) which is inevitable, but it looks good on paper and sounds really good.
FYI: Yes it's possible to store a picture and a fingerprint template on the contactless modules in question, but more likely it's storing a hash that looks the data up in a DB. Sending a picture file or a fingerprint template across the reader would be pretty slow.
And the obvious problem is... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Oh," says the clerk, "the connection's been down the whole afternoon."
It's not even the first time something like that happens. It's not often, but it does happen.
So for purchasing games or groceries, ok, I can just pull some banknotes out of the wallet. But it kinda scares me that I'd have to depend on something like that at an airport.
How it works in Germany (Score:3, Interesting)
In my opinion, the e-passport was largely introduced to secretly subsidize the biometrics sector: The interior minister responsible for the e-passport, Otto Schily, joined two biometrics companies this month
Source (german only, sorry): http://www.silicon.de/enid/cio/21505 [silicon.de]
Yes, also (Score:3, Funny)
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"How will facial biometrics work? Facial recognition will map various features on the face, for example, the dista