Thoughts 18 Dec 2006 11:04 am
Uncle’s Security Plans
The E-Passport and anything else based on rfid.
In the UK a reporter cloned an e-passport in under 5 minutes.
He cloned the chip and copied the data to a blank chip.
About this:
The UK Home Office however dismissed the ability to get hold of the information on the chip.
A spokesman said: “It is hard to see why anyone would want to access the information on the chip.
I would assume from that statement that nobody has ever used a fake drivers license or passport in the UK. It must be boring to be a policeman there, what with honest criminals and all.
source: BBC >Click
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Chertoff said one of his agency’s top goals next year is to forge ahead with recommendations for the controversial documents established by a federal law called the Real ID Act in May 2005. By 2008, Americans may be required to present such federally approved cards–which must be electronically readable–to travel on an airplane, open a bank account or take advantage of myriad government services such as Social Security.”Electronically readable,” this is nothing more than yet another way to keep track of everything you do.
The reason I say this is not paranoia, it’s because as security goes, this measure is laughable. After California spent millions of dollars on a drivers license redesign, the bad guys spent a few months before they could duplicate the design.
“Electronically readable,” means that the people who officially read this data, police, customs, and so on, will simply glance at the card and see only what the machine says.
If anything, human nature makes these thing easier to forge.
Source: Cnet News
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U.S. currency has special protections built in, that in addition to making it look like monopoly money, are suppose to make it impossible to counterfit. But, I saw a one hundred dollar bill that looked real, but tested fake with one of those old fashioned iodine pens. I didn’t get a chance to examine the bill under magnification, but the strip did glow, it was just the paper that was wrong.
On this subject. Why does the strip on the twenty glow so much brighter than the strip on the hundred, and why can’t most of us check the security features without a magnifier?
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Our primary security issues are cultural:
On one of Phoenix’s quiet residential streets live two men who came to the United States illegally but gained legal status — along with some 3 million others — under the federal 1986 amnesty program. David and Raul, who will give only first names, are in the business of helping newly arrived illegal immigrants acquire fake documents.
They are not part of an organized-crime family, they say — just part of a network of established immigrants who help others attain what they’ve achieved. They are, in effect, the go-betweens from those who bring the immigrants and those who make the fake ID papers — a service they say they provide for free.
They have a man they call, and if he’s unavailable, David said, he drives to the nearest Food City, a chain that specializes in Hispanic goods. There, he said, he just asks around. “There are even guys there who’ll hand you business cards — they’re in the business of providing fake documents.”
How, pray tell, are we supposed to make our borders safe, when the very people we have invited in, are deliberately breaking the law, with no real penalty, if by some massive stretch of the imagination, they happen to get caught.
Source: Seattle Times
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In our current situation there are more problems than anyone could possibly catalogue. The solutions being offered are expensive and don’t appear to have any effect except to make us easier to track. They’ve taken our rights, and in the name of security, given us electronic leashes in return.
Nothing will change, we are no safer now than we were before 911.
Our government will always react at the speed of glaciers, because of inertia, incompetence and personal power.
When the democrats were trying to get elected they swore they would impliment every point put forth by the 911 commission.
Now they are in power, the changes are no longer in play.
Changing the most important of them, oversight of the intelligence community, would take power away from a number of commitees that are now controled by democrats. …Fat Chance.
Law enforcement would like nothing better than to be able to keep track of where we go and what we do, Government contractors are always looking for a new “$400 hammer,” and big companys, like Swift, are always looking for cheap labor.
To this end “special interests” give “gifts” and campaign contributions to their favorite politicians, who in turn pass legislation, etc.
The so called $400 hammer will become a $100,000 manually operated inertial impact device, that will be designed by a blue ribbon engineering commitee, run millions of dollars over budget, require a crew of six to operate, and fail to function when exposed to dirt or dust.
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Let’s face it, until there’s a fundimental change in the way the government operates. we’re screwed.