As many of you may or may not know, all US passports issued after January 1, 2008, will contain an RFID chip. Per the US Department of State site, these RFID chips are secure and “protected from alteration“. The latter statement is laughable and echoes that of an ignorant president whom states that we are winning the war on terror. I have always thought that RFID is a bad idea when associated with something containing information about a person and is of great wealth to someone else. Don’t get me started with the “easy swipe” credit cards they have now for “convenience”. That type of card will never reside in my billfold.

Why the diatribe, you ask? Well, a recent post over at darknet has revealed that a German hacker has successfully cloned the “secure and ‘protected from alteration’” e-passports. Here is a snippet from the post:

A German computer security consultant has shown that he can clone the electronic passports that the United States and other countries are beginning to distribute this year.

The controversial e-passports contain radio frequency ID, or RFID, chips that the U.S. State Department and others say will help thwart document forgery. But Lukas Grunwald, a security consultant with DN-Systems in Germany and an RFID expert, says the data in the chips is easy to copy.

“The whole passport design is totally brain damaged,” Grunwald says. “From my point of view all of these RFID passports are a huge waste of money. They’re not increasing security at all.”

Lovely, eh? So, if any of you reading this are worried about this and wonder what you can do to keep your data safe, just follow this simple guide by Wired:

How To: Disable Your Passport’s RFID Chip

Department after January 1 will have always-on radio frequency identification chips, making it easy for officials – and hackers – to grab your personal stats. Getting paranoid about strangers slurping up your identity? Here’s what you can do about it. But be careful – tampering with a passport is punishable by 25 years in prison. Not to mention the “special” customs search, with rubber gloves. Bon voyage!

1) RFID-tagged passports have a distinctive logo on the front cover; the chip is embedded in the back.

2) Sorry, “accidentally” leaving your passport in the jeans you just put in the washer won’t work. You’re more likely to ruin the passport itself than the chip.

3) Forget about nuking it in the microwave – the chip could burst into flames, leaving telltale scorch marks. Besides, have you ever smelled burnt passport?

4) The best approach? Hammer time. Hitting the chip with a blunt, hard object should disable it. A nonworking RFID doesn’t invalidate the passport, so you can still use it.
So, there you have it. Just whack the fucking thing with a hammer and smile smugly the next time you show your passport. You have just increased the security and “protection from alteration” of your passport.