Guy has no trouble driving around town, collecting private information from RFID ID
Under a plan called the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, the U.S Department of Homeland Security has now been issuing a new type of passport. The passports use radio frequency identification technology. This means that the passports emit electromagnetic radiation that can be read quickly and easily by the government.
But not only by the government can such an easy time reading the RFID passports. An intrepid data security researcher named Chris Paget devised a simple method of collecting and absorbing RFID passport information for the illumination of his peers at the ShmooCon hacker convention (held in Washington, D.C.)
Chris devised a fairly inexpensive method of tracking and reading the passports. He bought a $250 RFID scanner on eBay to do the actual card-reading. Then he purchased a cheap, simple antenna to boost his range of the scanner. Then, he went driving in San Fransisco.
The current EPC Gen 2 RFID tags used in the wallet-sized Homeland Security passports use no encryption, and are unable to selectively transmit any data. Instead, the RFID tags broadcast sensitive information, enabling anyone with the proper equipment -- such as Chris Pagent -- to collect information that could potentially be used for identity theft, or other nefarious purposes. "The passport card is a real radio broadcast, so there's no real limit to the read range. It's conceivable that these things can be tracked from 100 meters -- a couple of miles," he was quoted as saying.
Chris had no trouble collecting -- and copying -- information from the RFID passports of six people, in a half-hour of driving around.
Chris called this security exercise "war-cloning." (This word comes from "war-driving", which in hacker-speak means to drive around trying to break into unsecure WiFi networks. "War-driving" in turn comes from "war-dialing", which was done back in the stone-age days of modems, where hackers would use programs to dial numbers sequentially, trying to find insecure networks.)
"My goal is to inform people about the risks with these things and how much impact it could have on your personal privacy and security if you don't keep [these IDs] in a protective wallet or if you carry it on your person," Chris said. For his live demonstration at the Shmoocon conference, Chris borrowed an e-passport from his boss, and copied it in front of an audience.
forums
*runs to e-bay to buy a RF reader*
The Passport Book on the other hand does contain personal information but has a shorter read range due to a lower frequency. It does have some shielding in the cover but if it isn't closed all the way you can potentially read it.
You can get a passport size shielding sleeve or drivers license/credit card size from Identity Stronghold at www.idstronghold.com
What should be most disturbing is credit card companies are shipping millions of new credit cards with RFID chips in them that emit your credit card number, expiration date and name. These are the easiest method of identity theft. Much easier than the passport book or passport card. The same Secure Sleeves will block these as well.
-- huh. Did some Googling. RFID CCs have been around for awhile now. I guess they haven't made it up here into Canada as quickly.
National and global security initiatives demand wider spectrum of acts in terms of both in technological areas and non-technological areas, for instance, flexible diplomatic missions and mutual understandings and cooperation are also much needed amongst nations which possess different cultures and traditional beliefs.
Of course, national security is a formidable task to initiate or control in the long-term. Nonetheless, at least, for a while, I do anticipate that Obama administration will yield profound results in preventing and eradicating future terrorist acts by incorporating the proper foreign policy into nation building tasks while abandoning the infamous Bush's legacy of "Unilateralism" towards eliminating global terrorism.
Regarding unilateralism, an old trick, used to increase support for your leadership, is to convince others that you are defending them from a mutual enemy.
There are only mutual understanding and cooperation in the fight against "War on Terror" which needs not constitute a term called "war" in the first place.
Unlike other conventional wars, War on Terror is simply targeted on innocent civilians. So it cannot be defined conventionally from the traditional old politics' point of view. Above all, in the fight against terrorism, Coalition forces need not only coordinated military cooperation but also diplomacy between the host country which breeds gratuitous terrorist organisations and the allied forces which intend to fight those terrorist forces aggressively.
Note: Jingoisms had long been abandoned by the British government since the 20th century.