eMarkLee

The new passport looks the same and feels the same as the old one for the most part. There is one big difference, however: RFID. As far as what the reason is for deploying such a insecure technology…who knows. There have been various demonstrations that have proven this fact, yet we are still stuck with it. There was one clear example performed at the Black Hat Conference last year that proved this exact point. There is probably some congressman and some salesman somewhere smiling all the way to the bank. Oh well…my passport is valid for 10 years, so I will need to figure out how much I want to live with all of my information available to be accessed with the proper RFID scanner. Yes, my lazy ass should have renewed my passport in 2006 so that I can keep using a plain old paper passport, but alas I have a RFID Passport.

You can see a lame demonstration here:

What are my choices to protect my identity?

1. Break the RFID chip with a hammer. This technique was highlighted in Wired. The problem is that what if it takes me an extra hour every time I use my passport because they ask me why my passport doesn’t work? I’m not sure if this is worth it.

2. Buy a RFID shielded wallet. Like this one. But who wants to pay $20 for a passport wallet?

3. Zap the RFID chip with your own zapper.

My Way
Or you can do it the good ol underground way, with tin foil. It’s long been used by criminals for shoplifting. Line a shopping bag with foil and toss all of those DVDs in there and just walk out. Boo ya. They even banned foil underwear in Colorado. Ha!

1. Make sure you tie a rubber band around your passport. The passport has a mechanism that does not allow for transmission when closed all the way. As the video demonstrated above, just a half inch opening is enough for a $200 scanner to detect.

2. Break out the aluminum foil (side note, why do Americans take the “i” out of Aluminium?):

3: Mold it into a bag. I will not demonstrate how to do so. but will just give tips on folding along the edges and the opening.

4: You can line it with duct tape, but I think I will hold off on that for now since it will make it heavier, and also because I don’t know where the hell my duct tape went.

Voila. You’re now safe from RFID information theft…just hide that foil in your travel bag because it isn’t exactly designer. Some people say Fritos bags work the same way, but who wants to risk getting your wallet thrown away with lunch? Some say those anti-static bags that your hard drive came in also work, but there are some rebuttals to that claim so I’m sticking with my aluminum bag. I may try to test these methods out at work with my badge and see how well they actually work….