Renew Your Passport Now!

[Starfury]

Bruce Schneier is a reliable source when it comes to computer security issues.

If you have a passport, now is the time to renew it -- even if it's not set to expire anytime soon. If you don't have a passport and think you might need one, now is the time to get it. In many countries, including the United States, passports will soon be equipped with RFID chips. And you don't want one of these chips in your passport.

RFID stands for "radio-frequency identification." Passports with RFID chips store an electronic copy of the passport information: your name, a digitized picture, etc. And in the future, the chip might store fingerprints or digital visas from various countries.

By itself, this is no problem. But RFID chips don't have to be plugged in to a reader to operate. Like the chips used for automatic toll collection on roads or automatic fare collection on subways, these chips operate via proximity. The risk to you is the possibility of surreptitious access: Your passport information might be read without your knowledge or consent by a government trying to track your movements, a criminal trying to steal your identity or someone just curious about your citizenship.

(...)

This is perhaps the greatest risk. The security mechanisms on your passport chip have to last the lifetime of your passport. It is as ridiculous to think that passport security will remain secure for that long as it would be to think that you won't see another security update for Microsoft Windows in that time. Improvements in antenna technology will certainly increase the distance at which they can be read and might even allow unauthorized readers to penetrate the shielding.

(...)

The Colorado passport office is already issuing RFID passports, and the State Department expects all U.S. passport offices to be doing so by the end of the year. Many other countries are in the process of changing over. So get a passport before it's too late. With your new passport you can wait another 10 years for an RFID passport, when the technology will be more mature, when we will have a better understanding of the security risks and when there will be other technologies we can use to cut the risks. You don't want to be a guinea pig on this one.

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0610.html#3

Even ignoring the Orwellian aspects of RFID chips informing on your movements, you know the technology is going to have security holes large enough to drive a truck through.

[stopbush]

1. Time to invest a a biz selling passport-sized tinfoil or lead wrappers.

Whaddayathink?

[speedoo]

3. Someone already manufactures them.

EZ Pass (in NY and surrounding states) hands them out, free, when you pick up your tag. They are intended to protect your tag from being read, if you don't want it to be read. Basically just a baggie, with some kind of foil coating.

[HamdenRice]

27. Car Talk "Puzzler" about charges on an unprotected easy pass!

This will make sense only if you listen to the best show on NPR, Car Talk. Every week they have a little story involving cars that is kind of a mystery, called the Puzzler.

In one of them a guy had ordered a replacement easy pass, and when it arrived and he checked his account (I'm not sure how it works, never had one) it turned out there were like a half dozen charges going over bridges and tunnels.

Turned out that the pass had been in a mail truck driving around the city, charging the guy each time it went through a toll.

I guess that's why you need a protector.

[formercia]

26. High permiability iron

like in low frquency transformers. Your local audio specialist might help you find a sheet of thin material.

[villager]

2. what about just running a magnet over the thing?

n/t

[China_cat]

9. A strong magnet

or even a hefty vacuum cleaner can scramble the microchip placed in pets. I don't see why it couldn't do it to one in a passport.

[xultar]

14. Who would want to scramble a chip in a pet unless they stole the pet.

My pets are chipped and I recommend it to everyone.

[China_cat]

16. It's been found several times to have happened

with kids playing with magnets and people who think vacuuming their dogs is a good idea. The thing is, if we know the chips in animals CAN be screwed up, then we know that the chips in passports can, too.

[xultar]

19. True. They sell really strong magnets on ThinkGeek.com

[formercia]

28. Get your friendly cashier to zap it.

on the plate used to deactivate tags in goods.

[KittyWampus]

31. would this work? anyone know? please?

[China_cat]

33. Why not? If you lay your credit card on that pad

it'll wipe your magnetic stripe in less than a second.

[elehhhhna]

35. Hey, now! Budward LOVES to be vac'd w/ the brush attachment....

cuts down on the hair in the house when he's shedding, too.

[silverweb]

4. Would microwaving kill it?

:shrug:

[readmoreoften]

5. It will damage the passport.

If you microwave an RFID I'm pretty sure it burns the paper around it. That might invalidate the passport.

[silverweb]

7. So much for that bright idea.

n/t

[soothsayer]

17. only takes a few seconds to fry the chip, so I'd say no,but I don't

think they'll let you back in the country cuz your passport will 'read' as fake

[gerrilea]

6. Quick Question about this...

If they are actually going to do this, buying a passport now would be a waste of money...wouldn't it?

Simple fact, if the gov't goes this way wouldn't they then require that anyone with a passport get one of these with the RFID's in them? So we would be paying twice for it...or doesn't anyone see it as I do?

Thanks

[Starfury]

8. I think it'd still have a 10 year lifespan

[Shakespeare]

11. No, from what I've read, existing passport holders will have....

...a date certain by which to "upgrade" their passports. At this point, it doesn't matter. We're all screwed as far as the RFID chips go.

[Starfury]

12. Not sure about that...

A quick check of the state department website didn't say anything in the FAQ section.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/fri/faq/faq_1741.html#valid

Doesn't mean you're wrong, though, about the required "upgrades." But you're definitely right that sooner or later all passports will have these chips, regardless.

[NMMNG]

10. I just got a passport a year ago

It has no RFID chip.

[BlueEyedSon]

25. ... that you know of

[gumby]

13. Whatever happened to those little metalic strips in our money

that we pulled out for "fun"?

Are RFID less vulnerable? Will it not be long before a virus is issued?

[soothsayer]

18. They're still in there, and it's still fun to pull them out!

[shanti]

20. come again?

where are they? i've never seen them.

[Starfury]

23. Hold a $20 to a light,

and look for a thin vertical strip about a 1/2 inch from the left. I think that's what they're referring to.

[shanti]

38. thanks!

;)

[bluedogyellowdog]

15. It gets better

RFID equipped passports can be used to set off explosives.

see:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2006-08-03-flexilis-rfid-passports_x.htm
http://www.rfidgazette.org/2006/08/how_safe_are_th.html

[ryanus]

29. Oh man, I hadn't thought of this.

Bombs that go off when they detect an American walking by. Sigh. Maybe I'll become a Luddite.

[JCMach1]

21. Stick a magnet over the chip and leave it!!!

and enjoy the results...

[cosmicdot]

22. knr

just like with other citizen concerns ... HAVA voting going forward; 30% default finance charges on credit balances; privacy invasions, etc. ... one hears crickets over any Hill dissent over this

like the WashPost article, which the link, links to ends:

"You don't want to be a guinea pig on this one."

If sanity ever returns to DC, and the RFID-chipped passports end, everyone issued one should be able to have it replaced at no cost.

[Maraya1969]

24. A friend in the army told me the same thing

[survivor999]

30. So, if the chip is defective

How can I know it's defective, before I go on a trip? Would I find myself stranded? What if one intentionally slams the passport hard enough to break the chip?

[cobalt1999]

32. The reader would have to be VERY close though.

The smallest RFID tags don't transmit with enough power to be read unless the reader is almost in contact with it.

Also, don't think you can get away from RFID technology. It won't be forever before they are embedded into almost every product you buy.

[Scout1071]

34. The chip includes a digital photo for facial recognition

that can be used by governments worldwide to track you. From their own website:

The U.S. Electronic Passport


The proposed U.S. Electronic Passport is the same as a regular passport with the addition of a small contactless integrated circuit (computer chip) embedded in the back cover. The chip will securely store the same data visually displayed on the photo page of the passport, and will additionally include a digital photograph. The inclusion of the digital photograph will enable biometric comparison, through the use of facial recognition technology at international borders. The U.S. “e-passport” will also have a new look, incorporating additional anti-fraud and security features.

Passports without chips will still be valid for the full extent of their validity period.

The Department of State Starts Issuing Tourist E-Passports

Electronic Passport Frequently Asked Questions

Security and Privacy of the e-Passport

Public Comments in the Federal Register on the Proposed Rule for the e-Passport

New Design for the U.S. e-Passport

This webpage will be updated as more information becomes available.

[jberryhill]

36. ANY ELECTRONICS SUPPLY HOUSE

Sells the conductive poly-bags that your EZ-PASS RFID toll unit is mailed in.

Think for half a second people - they MAIL you the EZ-PASS. The MAIL TRUCKS travel on the roads.

Do you think it is some kind of mysterious magic that keeps five dozen EZ-PASSes in a mail truck from charging tolls on the road?

No.

They are called "Faraday bags". They are metallized plastic bags from which you can form a simple and convenient passport holder.

[Hawkeye-X]

37. When I go renew my passport

I'm gonna smash it with a hammer.

Fuck the government.

Hawkeye-X

[Phrogman]

39. It doesn't matter, DHS will require a chip in your head next year....

Persons without one will be considered enemy combatants, and you know what that means.

[upi402]

40. I don't care, I have my special hat

:tinfoilhat:

[Phrogman]

41. Special hats can save your life!

I've lined my helmet just in case.