U.S. to Begin Issuing Electronic Passports

[sintax]

U.S. to Begin Issuing Electronic Passports


Wednesday August 10, 2005 2:31 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States will begin issuing electronic passports in December to help tighten border and identity security, the State Department said Tuesday.

A computer chip will be embedded in passport covers and will hold the same information that is written on the inside: name, date of birth, gender, place of birth, dates of passport issuance and expiration, passport number and a photo. The chip will also have a unique digital signature designed to protect the data from tampering.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5201290,00.html

[halobeam]

1. Thanks UK for telling us what's going here....

gees.... wtf are we here.... completely useless waste of airspace. They are all "dead air channels" now.

[sintax]

3. They Thought They Were Free- Suave Technocratic Fascism

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop.  Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing.  One day it is over his head.

[VegasWolf]

2. This should make them even easier to forge. How long before this

little database on the card is hacked. 10 minutes? 15?

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. Or worse...

How long before hackers develop a hand-held scanner capable of reading these passport chips from about a foot distant and downloading your name, date of birth, gender, place of birth, dates of passport issuance and expiration, passport number and a photo for the purpose of identity theft? The very high probability of this has been at the forefront of argument against such passports for years. Next time you are at the airport, the person behind you in line just might be aiming such a device at your wallet or purse, hoping to strike it rich.

Leave it to the Ruling Junta to make America less safe under the guise of making it more safe.

[VegasWolf]

6. Exactly, about 10 seconds after they decode the database! nt

[all.of.me]

13. you have a typo. 'minutes' should be 'seconds'

;)

[damntexdem]

5. I just applied for a passport today.

That should mean that I will receive one well before they start tampering with them.

[VegasWolf]

7. Unfortunately, mine will expire in 3 years and I will be stuck! nt

[AndyTiedye]

9. Time to "Lose" Your Passport and Apply for a Replacement

[henslee]

12. Why? I don't follow.

[despairing optimist]

8. The Passport Agency may retrofit the rest of our passports with stickers

containing the chips. We could be instructed to place the stickers over that UPC code on the inside back cover. Just a guess.

Otherwise, what's the point of changing a few? It would take years for everyone who has just renewed their passports to get the chipped ones.

[thatgemguy]

10. I got mine in May

I suspected passports would get more difficult and expensive to obtain.

I picked up the application in February, and by time I got a certified copy of my birth certificate to replace a lost copy, and submitted the passport application in April there was an additional $12 security charge added to the passport fee.

Any idea what the addition of the electronic doo dad will cost applicants?

[all.of.me]

14. i think i will go do the same with my younger daughter.

older daughter has had one for years.... (the world traveler at 12...)

[sintax]

11. Bump for the morning folks

who might want to see this and get their passports in order.

But Then It Was Too Late

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after1933,between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know it doesn't make people close to their government to be told that this is a people's government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote.  All this has little, really nothing to do with knowing one is governing.

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security.  And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop.  Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing.  One day it is over his head.

[NuttyFluffers]

15. Well, I know a certain chip that gets to sit on a magnet soon! :D

Maybe a visit to the microwave too, just in case. :evilgrin:

The passport is perfectly usable without the chip, I'm sure, so why let it survive with such critical (and easily stealable) information inside?

I'm glad I got my passport recently. Should last for quite a while before I need to "hacker proof" my little chip. The database on the other hand... Just makes it that much easier for the gov't to pass on identities for black-ops and/or terrorists (nah, they'd *never* do that, would they?).

[Mairead]

17. Yes, I was just thinking about a nice trip to the eprom burner

for my next passport. But giving it 30 second's attention in the microwave might work just as well.

Of course, that could be construed as invalidating the passport, giving them an excuse to give you a Gulag Holiday.

Perhaps this is an opportunity: start a cottage industry making lead-box passport holders.

[Ilsa]

16. Thanks everyone, and also for the bump.

I need to get mine and the kids'.