RFID Passports – Hi, I’m a Foreigner

Scott Karlin — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 15:55:14 +0000

The CNNMoney.com article “e-Passports: Ready or not here they come” reports on the security and personal safety risks associated with the RFID (radio frequency identification) tags that will be embedded in U.S. passports by August 2006. These tags are meant to be read via radio waves from a “short” distance by a passport reader; they are designed to protect against counterfeit passports and to streamline the processing of visitors. However, as the article states, there are concerns:

“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.”

There are two issues. The first is that, currently, few people carry around anything with an RFID tag. By simply detecting the presence of such a tag, a bad guy could infer that the person is likely to be a foreigner. The second issue is that the tags are likely to be cracked — meaning that the personal information in the passport would be available to ID thieves.

I definitely see a market for passport holders with RF shielding.

Via Slashdot.

RFID Shot in the Arm

Scott Karlin — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 23:53:35 +0000

Referring to a Doctor Fun cartoon in which a man objects to an RFID implant until he learns that the implant is also a cellphone, digital camera, and an MP3 player, Bruce Schneier writes, “This is 100% right.”

I agree—in fact, the same argument could apply to the privacy implications of the new version of the Google Desktop. If you bundle enough goodies with a technology that threatens privacy, people will buy it anyway. Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down…

Applied Miscellany » RFID

RFID Passports – Hi, I’m a Foreigner

RFID Shot in the Arm