RFID & the Surveillance State

Photo Credit: parker62

Apparently there was an interesting conference just held in Seattle called: The Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy(CFP) at which this blogger Edward W. Felten cornered a Government Rep who had been their to give the governments point of view on RFID's and Passports. And had the opportunity asked him some questions. I have to agree that his responses seem pretty weak.

Why Use Remotely-Readable Passports?
In the Q&A session, I asked Mr. Moss directly why the decision was made to use a remotely readable chip rather than one that can only be read by physical contact. Technically, this decision is nearly indefensible, unless one wants to be able to read passports without notifying their owners -- which, officially at least, is not a goal of the U.S. government's program. Mr. Moss gave a pretty weak answer, which amounted to an assertion that it would have been too difficult to agree on a standard for contact-based reading of passports. This wasn't very convincing, since the smart-card standard could be applied to passports nearly as-is -- the only change necessary would be to specify exactly where on the passport the smart-card contacts would be. The standardization and security problems associated with contactless cards seem to be much more serious. Read More....