The Washington Post's Bruce Schneier advises renewing your passport as soon as possible, even if it's not set to expire anytime soon. "In many countries, including the United States, passports will soon be equipped with RFID chips," he writes. "And you don't want one of these chips in your passport."

The State Department has started implementing some additional security features in response to criticism, like encryption and shielded covers, but Schneier says those measures don't go far enough -- any time the passport is open, it can be read from "many feet away," and hackers have successfully cloned the passport's chips.

Still, there is one solution -- Schneier notes that "popping your passport in the microwave will disable the chip," but you should be careful in doing so, because "the shielding will cause all kinds of sparking"... Better still, he suggests, get a passport as soon as possible, before the chips are implemented.

"You don't want to be a Guinea pig on this one," Schneier writes.