The return of RFID border credentials?

["David Farber" <dave () farber net>]

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> From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>
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> Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 13:37:20 -0400
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> Remember that last year, the State Department wanted to deploy passports
> with unprotected RFID chips in them?  They were eventually persuaded that
> the chips could indeed be read from a distance, and that was indeed a
> privacy and security risk.  They opted instead for a variant that uses
> encryption and access control.
>
> Now DHS wants to move in the opposite direction for the passport surrogate
> to be used for re-entry from Canada and Mexico:
>
>         U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency wants border
>         inspectors to be able to read PASS cards from as far as 30 feet
>         away, said Jim Williams, director of the U.S. Visitor and
>         Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program, which screens for
>         terrorists among foreign travelers.
>
> though the article does claim that there are provisions for encrypting the
> data.
>
> See http://www.fcw.com/article94156-04-24-06-Print for more details.
>
>                 --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
>
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