March 31, 2007
How to Hack the RFID Passport Chip
As we are probably all aware, everyone will need a U.S passport by January of 2008 if they plan to leave the borders of the United States in any direction. For those who don’t know how to obtain a passport you can check out an article earlier published on this site: How to Get a United States Passport.
In 2006 the United States started using RFID, Radio Frequency ID, in an effort to thwart document forgery. The RFID is a chip which is digitally signed by the issuing country enabling authorities to distinguish between official documents and forged ones. Wow, that sounds great right?
It would be if the information on the RFID chip was in anyway encoded. It is a pretty simple concept that if you can read the data you can then clone the data and create a new tag. Right now it appears that the RFID passport is in no way improving security and therefor is a huge waste of money.
But how would anyone read the information on an RFID passport chip? Pretty simple actually. You could order a reader from the maker, AGG Identification Technologies or you could make your own for about $200.
Or add an antenna to a standard RFID reader. The information would be read using the same software that the Boarder Patrol uses: Golden Reader Tool made by Security Networks. The reader also acts as a writer, so once the information is available it can then be duplicated on the spot.
All of the information about hacking the RFID passport chip in this article is not provided for the purpose of actually hacking the chip. The reason I felt the need to write this article is because I find it appalling. It’s like the government just wants us to have the illusion of security instead of the real deal.
Do you agree?
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Char Lyn
04/06/2007 at 7:09 am
I feel the urgent need to check and see if my passport has an RFID chip in it. I just got it last year so I could meet my in-laws who live in Croatia, but I thought I did so before they started implementing them. Yikes.
Enrico Fermi
05/29/2007 at 2:36 pm
I’ve messed with these things before and and it isn’t difficult at all to start hacking. As you stated, these readers are inexpensive and the technical know-how isn’t beyond most computer programmers. While PKI is great, offering up your encrypted data is still insane, even if it is hard to decrypt. Cloning is simple in this case and anyone with a month’s practice using a reader would be able to figure it out. Someone who experimented with antennas a bit could probably pick up a few hundred in an airport within a few minutes, take the data with them, and then decrypt it in their spare time, or just used the cloned data. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is already going on.
What should have been done in addition to PKI is using a password encrypted sector, with the password being sent (and changed) each time, where the password itself is encrypted by the reader using a unique public key provided by the RFID chip. And even this would probably be hacked via brute force.
Or we could just do without the technology.
Ken Savage
06/06/2007 at 4:27 am
hey Char Lyn, nice to see ya again.
Yea the older passports seem to have a visible chip inside the back cover but the new passports have an RFID chip inside the passport’s bridge from what I can research here on the net.
Max Hartshorne
05/11/2008 at 12:27 pm
I have a friend who is traveling to Cuba. SHould she try to hack her 2008-issued RFID chip US passport? Is this necessary if she goes to a place like Cuba where she’s not supposed to go?
I still dont’ see how one disables this chip. Do you know how?
Chainsaw
07/02/2008 at 12:26 pm
Truthfully I don’t see the value or utility in it. Increasing the quality of their tools isn’t going to increase the quality of our government, and the quality of tools isn’t, and historically hasn’t been, the limiting factor. Or more bluntly, we don’t have a problem that this will help solve.
If you look back through history, as much good as harm has come from people being able to transcend the limitations imposed on them by their government in an emergency. Ask the Jews about passports that can be turned off by the government.
Sometimes, it’s more important that we be able to get somewhere irrespective of our governments’ desires, just as it is sometimes more important that we help enforce the law than that we protect our employer’s corporate interest.
It is in our interest to see that our government remains controllable by us, not vice versa.
To disable the chip – you could try microwaving it for a second or two. The chip might pop and leave a burned hole in the passport, but it would be disabled
Or take it with you to your next MRI scan. Or visit someone who builds giant Tesla coils.
But I would think that if they expected a chip in your passport and there wasn’t one, you might have a LONG wait at the border.
kongol
09/12/2008 at 5:20 am
To Max. Smash your passport with a hammer or blunt object. this will disable the chip!
Antidote
11/22/2008 at 10:08 am
Wake up guys….
http://www.infowars.com