Computer chips in My Passport!

I just signed for it before, and was rather shocked to discover a rather large microchip embedded in the centre page!

I had heard nothing of this, which rather surprised me (although on further investigation it would appear people have been talking about this for quite some time, 5+ months) - and immediately saw the implications of these new "SECURITY FEATURES".

I mean, what is safer? The information it contains being in a zipped, locked bag with my eyes on it all the time, or the information it contains being accessible to everyone within 10 feet that has a RFID receiver (or whatever the range/damn thing is).

SportyMBs thread "US Electronic Passport now issued....Bio-data included! Other countries to follow" is rather interesting. That's all I could find at such short notice, but nonetheless I did not realize that it included a digital photograph as well.

I'm not exactly sure if I'm allowed to do this, but tough:



As you can see, page 17 contains a 'contactless integrated circuit chip,' which stores the same information that is on the data page.
The data page contains the following: 4X3 cm (approx) facial shot, Full Name, Nationality, Sex, Date Of Issue, Date Of Expiry, Authority, Code Of Issuing, Place Of Birth, holders Signature, Document Number, and a 38 digit alpha-numeric code. Sample data page here.

The actual 'antenna' thing is 7 1/2 centimetres high by 4 centimetres wide, with the actual chip being 11 X 14 millimetres.


Sorry about the blur. A 2MP mobilephone camera isn't the best and I had to hold it up to a very bright light in a dark room to see the thing clearly.

Another pic of the centre pages from the official DFAT page: e-Passport

Off of Gi-De.com

Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) is a leading supplier of banknote paper, banknote printing, currency automation systems, as well as smart cards and complex system solutions in the fields of telecommunications, electronic payment, health care, identification, transportation and IT security (PKI).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There are a number of reasons why Giesecke & Devrient is the partner of choice for this type of project:

* Over 150 years of experience in the area of security printing
* Proven know-how in smart card development
* Extensive competence in biometrics and contactless technology

Oh, great. They make smart cards as well.

Also,

High-tech passports fail to pass hacker's security test

But, speaking at the annual Defcon security conference in Las Vegas, Lukas Grunwald, a consultant with a German security company, said he had discovered a method for cloning the information stored in the new passports.

Data can be transferred onto blank chips, which could then be implanted in fake passports, a flaw that he said undermined the project.

"The whole passport design is totally brain-damaged," Mr Grunwald told wired.com. "From my point of view, all of these [biometric] passports are a huge waste of money - they're not increasing security at all."

In the same article,

. . . the data held on a passport chip are not encrypted . . .

Plus, there was a test when one of these chips was read from NINE METRES AWAY! Called skimming, people close by can electronically 'snoop' the chip. Article

Now none of this is making me feel any better.

Further links:

Keycorp.net and again,

Customs.gov.au
AustralianIT.News.com.au
Ethics.org.au
Passports.gov.au
Mailman.anu.edu.au


[edit on 4/9/2006 by watch_the_rocks]

Thanks for sharing!

Lets see, RFID chips in our trash cans, our cars, passports, CCTV cameras everywhere,....hmmmmmm.

Yup. the NWO is here indeed. My passport, a US passport, I had renewed last November. No chip. Just holographic anti-fraud designs. Ill refrain from losing it, as its good for 15 years, so I have enough time to settle in one country and not have to renew it for an NWO RFID card.

its another one of the governments ways of tracking you. they know your exact location as long as you have it on you!

We were ALL warned that THIS was coming!

*heads for the hills....

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

Ill refrain from losing it, as its good for 15 years, so I have enough time to settle in one country and not have to renew it for an NWO RFID card.

Skadi, not to shift the forum topic, but if you had a chioce where would you go? I've been pondering this little dilemma for QUITE some time now...

Originally posted by snoochies
Skadi, not to shift the forum topic, but if you had a chioce where would you go? I've been pondering this little dilemma for QUITE some time now...

Thailand for me......definately Thailand.

Seriously though, if your'e ever looking at hiding from the authorities SE Asia is the place to be. South America is too unstable, imo and there's also large number of US LEOs that you would have to dodge. The corruption, cheap economies and no questions asked attitude make it the perfect place hide out and keep a low profile.

Great thread btw

This is a serious issue that is no longer the rant of some crazy CT or something from a sci-fi movie....it's a reality.


Sporty


[edit on 4/9/2006 by SportyMB]

lol. Funny thing is, I am using this to go to those countries.

All it is is a way for you to movethrough the line faster..... They CAN NOT, I repeat, CAN NOT track you by this. The chip has no battery, it recives all of it electricity through low powered microwaves. Thats what the big "ring" running out of the chip is for, it collects the energy. The chip MUST bewithin about a foot to be able to generate enough energy to send a usable signal. If there were enough microwaves in the air to always keep the chip active we would all be smouldering crispy critters.
The signal the chip sends out can only be read over about a foot also.
Now they will only pass a scanner above your passport, instead of taking 10 minutes to get all your info, as well as ten minutes for the guy in front of you, and the lady in front of him, etc, etc.

Lots of people are freaking out about the new RFID chips like this one that sem to be making it into everything these days. Why? Whats so different thana credit card? They can still track all of your purchases as well as your general financial situation.

THESE CHIPS CAN NOT BE USED TO TRACK YOU EXEPT IN THE SAME WAY YOUR PASSPORT ALREADY DOES.

P.S. These chips can't really hold that much info, more likely they have some 16 or more digit number that corrosponds to an electronic passport they can pull out of a database. I just cant all you passpost info fitting on a RFID tag..

[edit on 5-9-2006 by Tiloke]

biometric/rfid passports have been around for a while now

i wonder what they will come up once they - oh coincidence- will prove some "terrorists" have faked biometric/rfid passports. That will be the time to introduce a brand new , top class , ultra secure way of identification , one that even evil terrorists will not be able to fake.
I'm thinking (eventhough it might be a bit far fetched) subcutaneous rfid implants , maybe coupled with futuristic gadgets like gps trackers and dna imprints.

I don't know , this is really becoming very very scary

i feel uncomfortable enough to know my credit/debit card history can be checked , but have a look at this ,
fingerprint shopping , i prefer good old cash

Could I make a little faraday cage for my passport? There's an industrial plastic that stops radiowaves. Maybe I could make a pouch out of tinfoil, and only get out my papers when I'm in line. The rest of the time, carry them in a little foil envelope.

Somehow, the whole topic reminds me of the first 5 minutes of Casablanca: " . . . Letters of transit, cannot even be questioned, can not be rescinded, even by General DeGaulle himself."

So what's to keep Bin Laden from copying my information on to a blank chip, and standing in line with my electronic signature?

Letters of transit, indeed.

.

Cant you put it in some metalic box that distorts microwaves so the chip cant be read anymore? (without destroying the chip itself)

If you corrupt the chip you'll have a hard time getting through customs when they try to scan it.

Originally posted by Tiloke
All it is is a way for you to movethrough the line faster..... They CAN NOT, I repeat, CAN NOT track you by this. The chip has no battery, it recives all of it electricity through low powered microwaves. Thats what the big "ring" running out of the chip is for, it collects the energy. The chip MUST bewithin about a foot to be able to generate enough energy to send a usable signal. If there were enough microwaves in the air to always keep the chip active we would all be smouldering crispy critters.

They won't be able to track you, but someone could steal whatever info is stored on there. If someone had a RFID reader they could easily get it close to your pocket without you knowing, seeing as you'll be using it in crowded airports.

Maybe there can be some kind of anti-theft case produced for the passports so unwanted people don't "read" your information.

Originally posted by AcesInTheHole

Originally posted by Tiloke
All it is is a way for you to movethrough the line faster..... They CAN NOT, I repeat, CAN NOT track you by this. The chip has no battery, it recives all of it electricity through low powered microwaves. Thats what the big "ring" running out of the chip is for, it collects the energy. The chip MUST bewithin about a foot to be able to generate enough energy to send a usable signal. If there were enough microwaves in the air to always keep the chip active we would all be smouldering crispy critters.

They won't be able to track you, but someone could steal whatever info is stored on there. If someone had a RFID reader they could easily get it close to your pocket without you knowing, seeing as you'll be using it in crowded airports.

Maybe there can be some kind of anti-theft case produced for the passports so unwanted people don't "read" your information.

Actually, it doesn't have diddly to do with microwaves, e-passports are an h-field trick. They use induction coils - it's all magnetic fields.

But you're right, while they can't track you they can bump you and clone the data, if they can get within a foot or so.

The really odd/sad part of all this is that the parts they're using have a lot of hardware based encryption available. Very very good encryption. If you didn't want Joe Hacker getting into it, the gubmint could have made it damn near impenetrable, but didn't take advantage of the capabilities of the part.

That's what you have to wonder about. Why not? They specified that the chip be damn near unhackable, and the parts are more expensive because they can defeat the tricks used in the past, but then the gubmint just doesn't use the security features they required it to have. That's just loony.

ps - the other thing, they could have required a membrane button press to enable the passport. So you could have had a "press here" surface on the passport that switched it on, and without being pressed, the passport would not have responded. No tin-foil cases required. That also seems as if it would have been a good idea, cheap, straightforward and already provided for by the component.

[edit on 10-6-2007 by Tom Bedlam]