Aug 5: Major Flaw in Proposed RFID Passports
Further to the current issues of the ID cards pending disaster, So far the whole project has been critisied by The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee inquiry into the thinking behind ID Cards, published today, found the government had decided what it wanted to do before it had determined if it would even work.
Practical for stores, to track their stock, but once it's bought, is the things turned off? Do I know, not really. I just have to trust the cashier has deactivated it. That's all I have.
Back to ID cards, yes, RFID is usefull, all you have to do is scan the passport and your details pop up on a screen, if your Bin Laden in disgues, in a I Love George Bush T-Shirt, your gonna get caught. Yes, sounds good, it can catch the bad guys. Yippee, easy work for the home office.
BUT No, it's not that easy! If the Police and other autherities can read the card, then so can other people, people who I don't want to read the card. As all the cards have to be able to be read by all nations, it means a standard has to be thrashed out, with standards, come published stanards, once they are published, then any one can read your passport details without you knowing? right? yes, right they can.
Government trials of the biometric technology it wants to use in ID Cards are planned to occur simultaneously with the procurement, which specifies the system, decides who will develop it, and how much it will cost. But the procurement process should be informed by evidence gathered from the trials.
Not only are the trials not really upto the real world, but they now one of the main technologies that underpin the ID card scheme, RFID, is now under attack. This technologie is now begining to be used in delevery systems, as it is, to be honest very good for tracking loads of boxes in a Lorry, no need to go through the whole lorry too see what's in there, just scan all the RFID tags and the jobs done. Practical for stores, to track their stock, but once it's bought, is the things turned off? Do I know, not really. I just have to trust the cashier has deactivated it. That's all I have.
Back to ID cards, yes, RFID is usefull, all you have to do is scan the passport and your details pop up on a screen, if your Bin Laden in disgues, in a I Love George Bush T-Shirt, your gonna get caught. Yes, sounds good, it can catch the bad guys. Yippee, easy work for the home office.
BUT No, it's not that easy! If the Police and other autherities can read the card, then so can other people, people who I don't want to read the card. As all the cards have to be able to be read by all nations, it means a standard has to be thrashed out, with standards, come published stanards, once they are published, then any one can read your passport details without you knowing? right? yes, right they can.
e-passport cloning risks exposed
yes, your passport could be cloned.A security consultant has shown how to clone electronic passports based on internationally agreed designs due to begin distribution this year.
The demo came as part of a presentation by Lukas Grunwald, CTO of German security consultancy DN-Systems Enterprise Internet Solutions, on hacking new RFID technologies used for dual-interfaces cards, such as within credit cards and passports, at the Black Hat conference in Vegas yesterday.
Grunwald said the data held on RFID cards within e-passports can be copied simply, undermining claims by governments that e-passports will help stamp out forgeries. "The whole passport design is totally brain damaged," Grunwald told Wired. "From my point of view all of these RFID passports are a huge waste of money. They're not increasing security at all."
Now that you know your e-passport can be cloned, what else is the problem with the RFID technologie and the standards used? You can read the information on the card, you can also identify what country the passport is from remotely. As this information is part of the standard, it is there. No real problem then, easy to check if your trying to slip through the wrong queue at the airport, pretenting to be an European, when you have a US passport not a big deal really, but some officials will not think too kindly to your larking around.
The thing about RFID, is that it's also omni-directional, it can be read form any angle when it's open or partially open. That's a strength but also a great weakness. All radio devices need to be screened from interference or eves dropping.
Imagine, if I may, some one can make a device that can read that can read your e-passport from say a under a meter away, say, that they are also able to read what country you are from, and finally, say, they are able to trigger a bomb or something to go off when some one from a certain country passes by? Impossible you think, how barmy an idea? But is it possible, my answer is yes, with current passports that are being issued now, they don't have any shielding, so the above is possible,
These guys Demonstrated it at the latest Black Hat defcom, ( a conference for hackers, goodies and baddies) Read and watch what these guys have to say... Major Flaw in Proposed RFID Passports
Worried? I would be.
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very n
ice pic!
