Fear of a Wireless Passport
Sci Fi Tech's Adam Frucci notes that the U.S. State Department plans to add wireless RFID tags to U.S. passports starting next month.
For anyone concerned about privacy or security, Frucci says, that's reason to worry. "Meant to make it easier for travelers to go through customs, the new 'e-Passports' would broadcast your personal data from an embedded chip, supposedly cutting down on human error at the desk," he writes. "However, if the signals were to be picked up and decrypted by a third party, you could be walking around broadcasting all of your personal info to the world without even knowing it."
According to CNN's Christian Zappone, Futurist Bruce Sterling says it's like having a radio beacon that announces, 'Hey, I'm a foreigner!'
"It's a great way for unfriendly elements to set up their own RFID scanning systems and pick Americans right out of a crowd," Sterling says.
It's just a matter of time, Zappone says, until someone figures out how to hack the passports, leaving U.S. citizens open to easy and pervasive identity theft. "The odds are zero that RFID passport technology won't be hackable," says Bruce Schneier, CTO of Counterpane Internet Security.
"This might be a good time to go get your passport renewed, just so you can avoid this trouble until at least 2016," Frucci writes.
More here from Engadget.
bedroom furniture said:
May 31, 07 at 10:21 amAgreed, break it! A trip in the microwave should do the trick. I hear the new models are coming out with auto settings for baked potatoes, pizza, passports and Easy Mac. What a wonderful world.