"Fakeproof" e-passport is cloned in minutes
The Times Online reports that those microchipped passports the UK gov't boasted would be impossible to fake "can be cloned and manipulated in minutes and accepted as genuine by the computer software recommended for use at international airports."
3,000 blank passports were stolen last week, but the Home Office said there was nothing to worry about, because they couldn't be forged.
In the tests, a computer researcher cloned the chips on two British passports and implanted digital images of Osama bin Laden and a suicide bomber. The altered chips were then passed as genuine by passport reader software used by the UN agency that sets standards for e-passports."Fakeproof" e-passport is cloned in minutes (Times Online)
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Does this actually surprise anyone? The UK gov would have claimed they were fake proof 'cos a company they paid millions of pounds to develop them said they were fake proof. The checks would have stopped there.
Besides, it's been demonstrated time and time again that any new technology only takes a few months to break if someone's determined enough.
And what the government should be concerned about is that cracking any technology doesn't take millions of pounds of investment, only one guy with enough brains and will.
what we need to solve this problem is a national identity card.
under the coming new I, patriot laws you will be executed for revealing these state secrets. Might as well join you;
"Using his own software, a publicly available programming code, a £40 card reader and two £10 RFID chips, Mr van Beek took less than an hour to clone and manipulate two passport chips to a level at which they were ready to be planted inside fake or stolen paper passports."
Where there's a wire, there's a way.
But of course. It's always easier to copy something digital than to copy something physical... as the music and film industries have learned.
And yet governments keep getting suckered into making things electronic that probably should have stayed analog -- like passports, and ballots.
Why? Are they just dazzled by the idea of "computerization" as inherently futuristic and superior?
The unforgeable travel papers are required for boarding the unsinkable ship.
*sigh* And the best part is, that if you have a malfunctioning chip (e.g. from breaking it yourself for your own security) on a passport issued after 2006, the US disqualifies you from the visa waiver.
Bad security by mandate.
But where did all the missing BLANK passports go???
I mean, obviously these new passports are worthless from a security standpoint, which is really no surprise. I can't help but think there's an ulterior motive behind their issuance.
I recently went on a trip and was "selected for additional screening" both ways at the airport because my id is expired. All they really did was pass me from person to person, almost lose my plane ticket, feel me up and let me go.
I don't know if we should call this stuff "security" or just "new levels to the bureaucracy".
i suppose testing to see if it could be faked never occurred to anyone.
sometimes i swear there's a maximum IQ requirement for security jobs.
AFAIK EMV chips on credit cards have been used for a few years, and have yet to be cloned. Why are the chips on the passports so easily cloned?
And they had to find out now? after they are up-and-running?
E-fraud and cyber-terrorism (and every other cyber-(scary word)) is becoming one of the most relevant topics that no one seems to address. Lawrence Lessig, who mentioned in a recent interview that the government was working on a Patriot Act for the internet (iPatriot?) but according to this article http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=556&doc_id=160628&f_src=flffour , it's all Lessig trying to push his own, personal agenda.
the item you mention was written by Andrew Keen - who is most certainly pushing his own, personal agenda.