Secure passports?
We’re being sold the idea of biometric, chip-based passports because they’ll be more “secure” than existing paper-only ones. But it’s already being demonstrated that they’re not. The Register reports that security researchers are already able to copy a secure passport chip simply using publically available documentation and legal chip readers. Nothing suspect, nothing illegal – simply following the instructions.
security consultant Lukas Grunwald of German company DN-Systems demonstrated the cloning of a biometric passport, observing beforehand to Wired that the “whole passport design is totally brain damaged.” But should we be surprised? Not exactly, because that’s precisely what it says on the tin…
ICAO...stresses that machine checking of the document is not intended to substitute for ID checking of the bearer. The ICAO systems are designed to impede the forgery or falsification of the document itself, and not to give any kind of guarantee that the bearer matches the document…Whatever ICAO says, however, using machines as substitutes for ‘fallible’ human checkers is a major part of the exercise for some governments, and opportunities for forgers can be seen here…
Which, really, leaves us dealing with the baseline ICAO security, the obvious vulnerabilities in its specification, and sufficiently porous borders for these vulnerabilities to be exploited. Kind of like the good old days (i.e., today), isn’t it? Except it costs us more.
pax et bonum
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