Shanghai Yummy

So the United States government is going to start issuing passports with RFID chips embedded by October of 2006.

The choice of RFID over a "smart card" type of chip is indicative of only one thing: this government wants to use this technology to invade your privacy.

Fundamentally, I am in favor of a "smart card" style chip, because I agree with the government that you can have a great deal more information on a chip than can possibly be provided on the paper. Biometrics, for instance. I am not against the use of biometrics to verify someone's identity. The way passports are set up now is just far too easy to foil. I mean all you really need to do is get that picture on there and you're halfway there... so I think it's a good thing when technology makes it harder for criminals to fake their identity.

However, you can get all of that information onto a chip that doesn't transmit that information wirelessly. I don't care what kind of encryption they put on something like that: Encryption CAN AND WILL BE BROKEN. I don't want to be walking around with my passport transmitting my biometrics to anybody that has a receiver and some hacked decryption key. That is just plain stupid.

You can get all the benefit of biometrics and whatever else you want to put on there with a smart card that doesn't transmit the information over RF. RFID is just plain stupid for passports. My government continues to demonstrate its stupidy.