Wireless passports. Who could have guessed they'd have security problems.

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So much for "Fakeproof". Of course, anyone who knows about RFID and the way they work could see this coming.

University of Maryland

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They sent out mailings that had the SSNs on the outside envelope. But don't worry! They're offering a free year of credit monitoring!

Whee.

Instead, do something useful and take advantage of Maryland's Credit Freeze law to actually protect yourself rather than get ripped off by credit monitoring

China has history, but the recent part isn't so good.

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The Fourth Amendment prohibition against illegal search and seizure made it into the U.S. Constitution precisely because its drafters understood that the power to snoop is addictive. Even if we happen to trust in the good intentions of the snoopers, the nature of any government can change rapidly — which is why the Constitution places limits on the tools available to any regime. But the drafters could never have imagined the commercial pressures at play today. The global homeland-security business is now worth an estimated $200 billion — more than Hollywood and the music industry combined. Any sector of that size inevitably takes on its own momentum. New markets must be found — which, in the Big Brother business, means an endless procession of new enemies and new emergencies: crime, immigration, terrorism.

We're in very real danger of what they have over there being implemented here. And it's already begun.

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TJX, the company that is known for having the largest data breach in history (so far), has not implemented better security and might have gotten worse. The employee that blew the whistle on them has been caught and fired for it.

TJX now has a firm that scours the internet to find bad things posted about them, which is how they found the message and fired him for it. Too bad they don't appear to have hired anyone to beef up operational security or to convince people to use strong passwords.

Hey! That probably means they'll find THIS page. Sweet.

If that's the case, then here's my message to them: Stop storing all that personal data about us against our will and you won't have to pay for more security. You can't lose what you don't have, duh!

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Reunion.com is using a deceptive marketing strategy where they pretend to be someone you know who is inviting you to Reunion. If you go to Reunion.com to see who it is, sign up, and make the horrible gross mistake of giving them your e-mail address password, they will automatically send out false e-mails to all the people in your contact list.

Two things are going horribly wrong here. One is that Reunion.com is using false and deceptive practices and is doing nothing less than what a virus or hacker would do. I hope the hammer of law hits them hard and fast

The second thing is that people somehow believe it's ok to give up their e-mail address password which is a huge no no.

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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.

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A university has hacked the encryption of an RFID chip maker who's contactless smartcard applications include fare collection, loyalty cards, and access control cards.

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There have been almost 40 data breaches in Maryland since January which have been reported only due to a new breach notification law in Maryland.

I'm betting the story would be similar for other states if they had similar laws.

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What can happen when you become numbed to the security alerts.