(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

This should be interesting. If China didn't take some serious precautions when implementing RFID for their tickets, we should be hearing any day now about people who remotely cloned someone else's ticket and got into the game denying access to the others.

Or, since passport information is stored on the ticket as well, someone with a scanner can find anyone from a given country should they wish to target someone based on their nationality. Let's see what happens.

(Image is in the Public Domain)

I ended up sitting next to Peter Pietra, the head of the privacy department at the TSA. This gave me an interesting opportunity to talk about issues of privacy when dealing with their agency and the first thing I asked was about the pornographic backscatter x-ray devices.

He was clearly frustrated (and I don't blame him) as I'm sure this is a topic that assaults him regularly. The issue is that backscatter CAN see through your clothes, but the TSA orders the devices preconfigured at a level that prevents them from seeing pictures such as these one on the Internet. They are also unable to modify the configuration. In fact what they actually see, as shown on their site, is smeared blob that highlights objects, but not skin.

The issue that I have here is that if the TSA's claims of how they use the technology are true, then what the hell was all the hype about?

Images will be deleted immediately once viewed and will never be stored, transmitted or printed (the passenger imaging units have zero storage capability) Metallic and non-metallic objects are displayed, including all items that a passenger may be carrying on his/her person

Also, according to the website, you can always choose to have a pat-down instead.

I asked Peter about this because it seems to me most people aren't going to know to go to the website and read about Backscatter before being faced with it at an airport, but he said that the sample picture on the web is printed right on the machine and people are supposed to be shown the picture and told of the option for pat down prior to being scanned.

Final Thoughts

I notice that the picture on the TSA site is from behind so probably doesn't fairly show how much frontal detail they would see so for full disclosure, they should show a frontal picture. However, I can understand why someone wouldn't want to show what amounts to nudity on these machines for propriety reasons and don't necessarily consider that evasive.

What more can you ask for than clear disclosure and a reasonable choice? Granted the technology can be used for worse things, but the devices is about as small and conspicuous as a casket so you'll never be scanned without your knowledge. If they are configured correctly, store nothing, and you can opt for a pat down, then perhaps some have been too harsh on both the technology and the agency.

Speaking of, EPIC's article that led me to write about backscatter in the first place unfairly show the capabilities of backscatter ignoring the actual use of the technology by the TSA. I'm sure there's someone from EPIC around the conference somewhere and I'll be sure to ask them about it.

What TSA Sees

What EPIC Shows

(Image is in the Public Domain)

Lovely.

Customers in shopping centres are having their every move tracked by a new type of surveillance that listens in on the whisperings of their mobile phones.

The main point here is that business are highly interested in knowing everything they possibly can about you. The more then know, the more they can manipulate. Just wait until everything we're carrying has an RFID chip in it. That will make their jobs so much easier.

(Image used under: Fair Use doctrine)

I'm really jazzed about going to this conference. They've got some really cool events lined up like:

Kids taunting classmates (with resulting emotional scars and even suicide); harassment, stalking, and death threats; and organized and race-, gender-, religion-based hate groups; prominent bloggers like Kathy Sierra and Blackamazon have take their blogs down after death threats or attacks ... along with all its promise and power of cyberspace, the Internet also distributes words and images of hate that often lead to real-world violence.

And

Activism and Education Using Social Network

We plan on examining several different types of social networks. Some of these networks are geared toward sending out 'news blasts' to your network of friends, while others support having a much deeper conversation about the topic at hand. Protest groups on Facebook can quickly grow to over a million people– and lead to millions demonstrating in the real world. New technology such as "causes," now available both on Facebook and MySpace, allows for fundraising and eases recruiting. Easy sharing can increase the viral spread of videos and web pages. Innovative mashups like those promoted by Netsquared with their Mashup Challenge make information and calls to action more easily available to more people. We'll survey the available functionality and describe how to use the different variants for education and activism activities, as well as giving tips on how to become part of the particlar social network community that the participant is interested in.

The program is here, but you only have a few more days to sign up so get on it!

GPS

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

Here's a guide on how to make a very low cost GPS tracking device useful for monitoring your own car, your loved ones, or anyone else for that mater so long as you can slip this device into their bag or car.

(Image is in the Public Domain)

If you didn't already know, TV is going fully digital by February 2009. That means that all TVs, VCRs, etc that don't speak digital will be left in the lurch. You'll need to buy a converter and fortunately, the government is offering $40 coupons to all families (one per household) to defray the costs of conversion. Better yet, sometime this summer there should be a digital converter that you can buy for about $40 (making your net cost $0).

There have been some problems with the coupons though.

Adjust the cams, get fines

(Image is in the Public Domain)

Of course, this has been suspected/known for a long time, but Ars Technica covers the story of cities that seem to be changing the timing of traffic lights to ever shorter durations in order to increase revenues from red light cameras.

(Image is used under the Pixabay license)

Well flipping duh.

Most newly issued passports carry an embedded RFID containing digitally signed biometric information. Access to this chip is wireless, which introduces a security risk, the possibility that an attacker might be able to access data on a person’s passport without the owner knowing.

It's this reason that putting RFID in passports was such a stupid idea to begin with. Put wireless into any system that protects private information and watch the world come crashing down around you.

I'm not saying that it's impossible to secure a system using wireless, but it takes a whole hell of a lot more effort that was put into the passports system.

Anyway, now that someone has proven this is viable, those fears that someone can just scan a crowd and find the Americans to target have been entirely validated.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 3.0 [SRC])

Wikinews has learned that The Church of Scientology has warned the documents leaking site Wikileaks.org that they are in violation of United States copyright laws after they published several documents related to the Church. Wikileaks has no intentions of complying, and states that in response, they intend to publish thousands of Scientology documents next week.

Good for them! It's heartening to see that now that one well publicized organization has stood up to their bully tactics, others are following.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

In what was a colossally stupid decision, the US put RFID chips in passports. Oh wait, this article is about the outsourcing! Right.

In what was another colossally stupid decision, the US is now outsourcing the production of RFID passports.