Thursday, February 5, 2009

US passports can be read and copied from a moving car using a $250 rig

Meet Chris Paget, a hacker who believes that people shouldn't be tagged with RFIDs. He spent a productive day driving around San Francisco, sniffing and cloning mountains of RFID-equipped US passports and driver's licenses. The equipment to accomplish this feat cost him $250. When we debate the risks associated with RFID-equipped IDs, we usually focus on what happens when the government can follow us around everywhere -- but the real risk may be that crooks, marketing creeps and various unaffiliated snoops will do this instead.

Cloning passport card RFIDs in bulk for under $250