US RFID Passport hacking
Aug 1, 2007, 2:09 am
#1
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US RFID Passport hacking
A follow-up to a story released in the past few months:
Perhaps it will give the EU and others pause to contemplate fingerprint scanning and the dissemination of private information of their citizens. As for us, it appears we're doomed.
http://www.wired.com/politics/securi...7/08/epassport
A German security researcher who demonstrated last year that he could clone the computer chip in an electronic passport has revealed additional vulnerabilities in the design of the new documents and the inspection systems used to read them.
Perhaps it will give the EU and others pause to contemplate fingerprint scanning and the dissemination of private information of their citizens. As for us, it appears we're doomed.
http://www.wired.com/politics/securi...7/08/epassport
Aug 6, 2007, 1:25 pm
#3
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Then there was the article in Wired magazine a while back about the RFID chips in US passports. Their advice for privacy-conscious travellers: smash the chip with a hammer. It leaves no evidence of tampering, besides a very useless chip.
Aug 6, 2007, 1:31 pm
#4
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What exactly happens when the chip is trying to be used and you've hauled off and whacked it? I guess I just don't understand when the information stored inside is going to be looked at. During passport control? They already have the swipy thingy.
Aug 6, 2007, 1:57 pm
#5
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Wow, the readers are vulnerable to one of the oldest tricks in the book: a buffer overrun exploit. Using that, as the expert from Germany said, an attacker could put code in place to hack the reader to do various things, like letting through invalid passports.
Of course, the US is marching ahead on RFID biometric passports despite all the problems experts have pointed out. Way to go, US.
Of course, the US is marching ahead on RFID biometric passports despite all the problems experts have pointed out. Way to go, US.