http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/ Engadget Comments for RFID Passports coming to the US in August http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 15th 2006 2:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 15th 2006 2:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 15th 2006 2:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 15th 2006 2:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Czo
I'm beginning to wonder if I can go get a new passport before RFID comes, although my current one still has quite a few years left on it. Would they let me do that? Maybe if I tear it up pretty bad, say it went through the wash or something.]]>Jul 15th 2006 3:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
Our government ALREADY knows EVERYTHING we do!]]>Jul 15th 2006 3:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/BS I say.]]>Jul 15th 2006 3:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 15th 2006 3:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 15th 2006 3:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 15th 2006 3:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
Um, no? Because the only people who use words like "technophobia" with regard to RFID are a) people who don't know anything about the technology involved, and b) Wal-Mart. (i.e. people who have a vested business interest in its adoption.)

The fact of the matter is this system has already been redesigned several times *because it was compromised*. Tests were run, and the system failed. The fixes applied amount to a band-aid on a heart attack - the real problem is the entire concept of RFID in passports, not the implementation.

Whenever a system like this is put in effect, you have to ask yourself why. Who is it benefitting? It is not for the benefit of you. It is for the benefit of the government. And if people get their ID's stolen, and if people get attacked because their nationality can now be skimmed through the air, then who cares? All the government cares about is tracking your every movement as effectively as possible. That's pretty much the point of a passport in the first place, so I don't fault the government for looking at RFID to that end. But I do fault the government for not realizing that the risks outweight the benefits.

I mean in the end, this makes passports *less* secure, which means it would be easier for a potential terrorist to fake an ID, provided he was savvy enough to get the data off a real US passport. So it really defeats the entire purpose of using this system in the first place.

I'm lucky enough to have just had to renew my passport last year, which means I have 9 more years before I have to do it again. By then, my guess is the RFID system will have been dumped once the government realizes it's having pretty much the opposite effect that they thought it would and is costing them a whole lot of money to try to fix.
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either im paranoid or i do remember everyone (engadget incl.) last year opposing using RFID in passports.]]>Jul 15th 2006 9:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
Thanks for your comments Jeff. I agree & tts good to show the anti-privacy camp that all us folks who are concerned about RFID aren't all tinfoil-hat crazies.]]>Jul 15th 2006 10:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
The issue is that identity theft will run rampant (well, more rampant) because the whole RFID passport concept is fundamentally flawed. Yes, please, broadcast every single piece of information about me to anybody with the tech savvy to listen in and a couple of spare hours later on to crack the encryption! This is not a hypothetical fear, people have actually run the experiment to prove how easy it is.

But the government doesn't give a rat's ass about identity theft. All they care about is throwing money at a non-problem to give the appearance of increasing security. Same thing as making people take off their belts and shoes at the airport. Same thing as invading Iraq on fabricated pretense. The whole business is just a show to convince people the government is tackling our problems, 'cause the folks in charge are afraid they'll be blamed for screwing up back in 2001 and voted out of office otherwise.]]>Jul 15th 2006 11:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 15th 2006 11:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/If you don't travel out of the USA, don't worry about it. You don't have a passport anyway. Plus, what do you think that little black stripe on the back of your drivers license does? Or the tiny microchip on the eye of the president on the new 20 dollar bill? I could tell you what I know, working in law enforcement for over 20 years, but it's a secret. LOL....all your base belong to us LOL...]]>Jul 16th 2006 2:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 16th 2006 2:41AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 16th 2006 12:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
I respect my own privacy and feel my government should as well. I think we need to be clear what the supposed advantages of a system are versus the disadvantages.

When the fact my government (American) can't keep privacy data private (VA data, cell phone records, etc. etc.) is combined with the increasingly evidence-supported notion that they've been implementing Poindexter's TIA program (Total Information Awareness) under some other name and the kafka-eque journey the data takes us on (FAA terrorist watch lists), I've lost faith in my goverment to protect my privacy.

Add to that the increasingly negative worldview of America and hence Americans, I worry of the ability of potential terrorists or others to use this information at the risk of my life.

Combine those with the well-documented fallibilities of RFID and you've got a number of examples of ways this system can hurt individuals, whether through external data theft or triggering or just the increasing ability and inclination of our governemnt to act Big Brother well beyond the limits of the law.

It seems to me the reasons not to have RFID are well documented (not necessarily by me here, but through external research), the question is what are the positive reasons for RFID passports and do they outweigh the negatives? At this point, what I've seen lends me to say no.]]>Jul 16th 2006 1:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
The purpose of these passports is to speed up international travel and make it near impossible to forge a passport. You alarmists need to look at the places who have it like Australia and realize that it didn't increase idenity theft among their international travelers, and they aren't having every moved monitored by the Govt. If the Govt. wanted to track the general populations every move they'd put tracking devices on drivers licenses not passports. We're not in 1984, and Big Brother isn't watching you.

furtim can you maybe link me to an article that says anything about the people "testing" to get around the safegaurds engadget failed to report about on these passports that haven't been used in the U.S. yet?

P.S. we can only speculate on what will happen with these new passports, no one here has enough information to accurately and reliably predict what will happen. bagelche is the only one to have made any sort of point or counter-point. I say lets give it a go and if it becomes a bigger problem than a help we'll try something else. ]]>Jul 16th 2006 3:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/ Ultimately, the technology could go either way ...

Or it would make all the data meaningless, since they can be fabricated. And obviously, in the place where pass is checked the data from human cannot be checked.

In short term - before checks would be bypassed - that might be the PITA for everyone.]]>Jul 16th 2006 9:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 16th 2006 10:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 16th 2006 11:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
What kind of argument is; It doesn't affect most people so we should just let it slide? That's ridiculous, and identity theft is only one of the possible issues caused by this.

As for your safeguards....this is passive RFID, range is determined by the power of the reader device. Encryptions and PINs get broken. Impossible to forge a passport? Nothing so far makes forgery of anything (money, etc) impossible, it just makes it more difficult.

In this day and age, you really want people to be able to point a device at you and know all your personal information? You want to be traveling abroad and have anyone know of your info, including your nationality?

You may say I'm taking an extreme position, and that is true, but you are taking an equally lazy position when it comes to your safety and privacy and it's sickening. But go ahead and roll your eyes and dismiss my arguments without giving them any thought. It's just one little thing, it doesn't really matter. Ignore all the little things until they add up to something big enough for you to care about. Too bad by then you won't be able to do anything about it.

All so you can go through a line at the airport faster.]]>Jul 17th 2006 12:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 17th 2006 7:01AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
(from dailykos; http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/3/162911/3140)

To his credit, UnderSecretary of state Frank Moss came to the International Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy last sporing to face the critics of the US RFID passport scheme. During his panel, the ACLU's Barry Steinhart demonstrated a reader effective at 10 inches.

Afterwards, in the hallway, photo (That's me in the background.) EFF's John Gilmore explained how the range could be extended to 10 feet. Travel writer Ed Hasbrouck then laid out a scenario in which terrorists used an off the shelf RFID reader to detect the presence of a US Passport holder on a bus in Beirut, triggering a pre-installed bomb.

This apparently impressed Moss, who delayed introduction of the chipped passports originally scheduled for last June, so that they could be made with wire mesh shielding to prevent them from being read when closed. He also directed the data be encrypted, bringing us to the flaw identified in the diary.

]]>Jul 17th 2006 7:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
Funny how people on this site do not really understand the technology - the world is so full of talking heads.]]>Jul 17th 2006 8:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
Also, *totally* unrelated, I wonder what effect a microwave would have on an RFID chip?]]>Jul 17th 2006 9:34AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
I wonder what happens if your RFID chip failed. Will they just manually verify you and proceed with business as usual?

Also, *totally* unrelated, I wonder what effect a microwave would have on an RFID chip?]]>Jul 17th 2006 9:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
After reading the comments in here we the "US citizen" would take a VOTE to see if we want RFID passports, or RFID anything. I think most of us in here would say NO that is from reading the comments in here on the RFID passports. If congress/government would ask the US citizens do they want RFID, and then proceed/abandon this RFID if the US citizen wanted it or not, also e.g. it the votes aren’t fudged in anyway 2000/2004 presidential elections hint hint, then congress would say... the PEOPLE have spoken!

So why doesn’t congress/government do anything like this, e.g. the last sentence in the Gettysburg Address... that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Because congress KNOWS what they are doing! It is all by DESIGNE!

btw, when was the last time congress/government did something that the whole entire country was totally ecstatic over? Throwing parties, celebrating in the streets, kissing and hugging complete strangers. I guess congress/government knows what is better for me than I know what is better for me.

Maybe those RFID's things really do work!

j/k on that last line :D
]]>Jul 17th 2006 10:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 17th 2006 10:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
Anyone have a Mobile SpeedPass? ]]>Jul 17th 2006 11:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/]]>Jul 17th 2006 3:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Jul 17th 2006 10:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
My friend Mobil SpeedPass has ben hacked long time ago
here you go
http://www.marketingshift.com/2005/01/exxon-mobile-speedpass-hack-via-rfid.cfm]]>Jul 23rd 2006 5:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/Mobil Speedpass has been hacked long time ago
here you go >>>

http://www.marketingshift.com/2005/01/exxon-mobile-speedpass-hack-via-rfid.cfm]]>Jul 23rd 2006 5:48AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/How to hack RFID's
http://rfidanalysis.org/]]>Jul 23rd 2006 5:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/15/rfid-passports-coming-to-the-us-in-august/
Nonsense #1:

"The new RFID tag-toting documents will store all of your personal data, including name, address, nationality, a picture, a digitized fingerprint and just about every other thing crooks would need to take your identity for a joyride."

IN FACT, the US passport's RFID chip only stores the same exact written information that's on the first page of the passport. It DOES NOT contain an address, a picutre or a digitized fingerprint.

Nonsense #2:

"The government is insisting that they've taken the necessary precautions to prevent data "skimming," but that can be a lot trickier than it sounds. Just ask the Dutch."

First of all in the Dutch experiment that was absolutely positively no skimming or attempted reading of an actual RFID passport from any distance whatsoever. There is a major factual mis-reporting in the linked article, the Dutch team did not intercept an actual conversation between a passport and reader - at the time the report was made the Dutch haven't even released electronic passports. In fact, what they did in reality was only an exercise meant at showing how, becuase of the way the Dutch number their passports, that number is easy to guess and thus, since it is the basis of the encryption setup between the passport and reader, one could in theory fairly easily decode the data transmission between the two devices (again, they did not try to actually capture the data exchange). What the Dutch team demonstrated is what can happen when you THINK you have generated enough randomness to create a strong encryption key but in fact you have not. The US government is aware of this and employs a much much stronger key (besides other safeguards against skimming that the Dutch don't have in their passports) to ensure the US passport is safe. So no, "asking the Dutch" in this context has no relavance. A decent reporter would have outlined what are those precuations that the governement took and guide the reader in deciding whether those are sufficent or not before mentioning as an example which isn't even relavant because the US designed its passports in a different way than the Dutch have.

I won't even get into the writer's unfounded opinion piece in the end of the article regaring fascism, it's too much.

I really love Engadget's reporting and I read it frequently but the level of professionalism exhibited in this report is simply dismal.]]>Jul 24th 2006 10:55PM