The Evaporation of Privacy and Freedom

For some time, I have been following the development of surveillance and data collection activities in Europe, the US and other countries. Collating varied articles on this broad topic is a slow process. At some point the information I collect reaches critical mass and I get to connect the dots to see if my guesses have had any semblance to the actual events (published for public consumption). What follows is a mosaic of the future materialising, bit by bit, before our very eyes. It transcends national boundaries.

The horizon of our global future now becomes visible through the dense fog of media. Now is the time to decide if what we see is what we want.

I will update this collection of articles about the legal, technological, and political forces creating a future where surveillance and control are the sole right and privilege of government. Many Americans will be surprised to learn that the DNA from every newborn is now required and stored in a national database.

Europeans may gasp when they realise that details such as their grocery purchases can be freely accessed by the US National Security Agency WITHOUT CAUSE. It is and extra-judicial process now.

The list which connects the web of government data retention (preventive retention of personal data) is indeed horrifying as well as the emerging technological advances to enable this. Hope you enjoy the dots and have a lovely time connecting them. I would enjoy any feedback. Related videos follow the articles.

Update July 12, 2009

The Electronic Police State

The legal perspective: data held for evidence of future crimes

RFID Panopticon

Kurt Nimmo
Truth News
January 26, 2008
It’s sold in the Washington Post — the CIA’s favorite newspaper — as a wonderful world of convenience come true for consumers:

“RFID-enabled refrigerators could warn about expired milk, generate weekly shopping lists, even send signals to your interactive TV, so that you see ‘personalized’ commercials for foods you have a history of buying. Sniffers in your microwave might read a chip-equipped TV dinner and cook it without instruction… Companies say the RFID tags improve supply-chain efficiency, cut theft, and guarantee that brand-name products are authentic, not counterfeit. At a store, RFID doorways could scan your purchases automatically as you leave, eliminating tedious checkouts.”

Excuse me, but I’ll take the tedium.

The problem, critics say, is that microchipped products might very well do a whole lot more. Read more...

"Reality Mining" Inside Big Brother's Control Grid

By Daniel Taylor
Data mining is a practice long used by government agencies and companies like Choicepoint to collect a vast amount of information on individuals, trends, and other fields. Now, with the advent of new technologies, a new form of data collection is rising. This new field is called "reality mining". Social engineers, marketers, as well as government agencies with an interest in learning everything possible about you are eagerly anticipating its widespread use.

Reality mining is one of many facets stemming from a global sensor network that will monitor everything from the environment, subtle variations in human behavior, to everyday objects. It consists of an interconnected network of biometrics, machine vision, radio frequency ID tags, Global Positioning Systems, "geotagging", wireless sensors, "smart dust", and traditional surveillance equipment. This is a "system of systems". In short, everything is to be monitored in a digital real-time mirror of the real world. Read more...

Cyber Tsar to save America

30 May, 2009
President Barack Obama is creating a “Cyber Tsar” to safeguard America's cyber space security. The person who's going to take on the job has yet to be named. He or she will overlook the safety of government and military computer systems which have been subjected to hacker attacks.

Barack Obama says that right now the USA is ill-prepared to deal with any kind of cyber attack. Therefore, the country needs a “cyber superman” to handle such situations. Read more...

The Launching of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM).
Offensive Operations in Cyberspace

by Tom Burghardt
Global Research
July 1, 2009
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates signed a memorandum on June 23 that announced the launch of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM). A scheme by securocrats in the works for several years, the order specifies that the new office will be a "subordinate unified command" under U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM).

According to the memorandum, CYBERCOM "will reach initial operating capability (IOC) not later than October 2009 and full operating capability (FOC) not later than October 2010."

Gates has recommended that this new Pentagon domain be led by Lt. General Keith Alexander, the current Director of the ultra-spooky National Security Agency (NSA). Under the proposal, Alexander would receive a fourth star and the new agency would be based at Ft. Meade, Maryland, NSA's headquarters. Read more...

Federal Authority Over the Internet?
The Cybersecurity Act of 2009

Jennifer Granick April 10th, 2009

There's a new bill working its way through Congress that is cause for some alarm: the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF summary here), introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The bill as it exists now risks giving the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet without necessarily improving security in the ways that matter most. It should be opposed or radically amended.

Essentially, the Act would federalize critical infrastructure security. Since many of our critical infrastructure systems (banks, telecommunications, energy) are in the hands of the private sector, the bill would create a major shift of power away from users and companies to the federal government. This is a potentially dangerous approach that favors the dramatic over the sober response.

One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds goes too far. Certainly there are times when a network owner must block harmful traffic, but the bill gives no guidance on when or how the President could responsibly pull the kill switch on privately-owned and operated networks. Read more...

Federal cybersecurity director quits, complains of NSA role

Rod Beckstrom quit the post after less than a year

By Jaikumar Vijayan March 8, 2009

Computerworld - In a move that highlights differences over who should be in charge of national cybersecurity efforts, the director of a federal office set up to protect civilian, military and intelligence networks has submitted his resignation after less than a year in the job.

Rod Beckstrom, director of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), on Friday said he is quitting because of concerns over what he said is the National Security Agency's (NSA) domination of the nation's cybersecurity efforts. The NCSC was set up within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last year to oversee and coordinate efforts to shore up the nation's defenses and responses to cyberthreats.

Beckstrom was appointed to lead the NCSC in March 2008 and was required to report directly to then-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff.

In a sharply worded letter to current DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Beckstrom on Friday noted that the NSA effectively controlled DHS cyberefforts "through detailees, technology insertions" and a proposed move of the National Protection and Programs Directorate and the NCSC to an NSA facility in Fort Meade. His letter, dated March 5, noted that allowing the NSA to control national cybersecurity efforts is a "bad strategy on multiple grounds."
Read more...

New Military Command for Cyberspace

Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander is second from the left

By THOM SHANKER
June 23, 2009
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Tuesday ordered the creation of the military’s first headquarters designed to coordinate Pentagon efforts in the emerging battlefield of cyberspace and computer-network security, officials said.

Pentagon officials said Mr. Gates intends to nominate Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, currently director of the National Security Agency, for a fourth star and to take on the top job at the new organization, to be called Cybercom.

The new command’s mission will be to coordinate the day-to-day operation — and protection — of military and Pentagon computer networks. Currently, the Defense Department operates 15,000 separate computer networks and more than seven million individual computers or information-technology devices, officials said.

The Obama administration has undertaken significant efforts to protect the nation from cyberattack and prepare for potential offensive operations against adversary computer networks. The first step was creating a position of White House director for cybersecurity issues.

But the plans raised concerns that respect for privacy, diplomatic rules and sovereignty may be harmed as the administration accelerates its efforts to detect and attack adversaries on global computer networks that disregard borders. Read more...

NSA Plans Massive
Data Center in Utah

July 5th, 2009
The Salt Lake Tribune

The National Security Agency was so confident that its nearly $2 billion plan for a new data center in Utah would be approved by Congress that it began designing the facility last November.

NSA budgeting documents also indicate that the design of the 1-million-square-foot center should be completed by February, with building to begin in June on a project that could mean thousands of construction jobs for a state that, like many others, has been stuck in a building lull.

President Barack Obama last week signed a spending bill that included $181 million for preparatory construction of the Camp Williams facility and tentatively agreed to two future phases of construction that could cost $800 million each.

The secretive agency released a statement Thursday acknowledging the selection of Camp Williams as a site for the new center and describing it as “a specialized facility that houses computer systems and supporting equipment.”

Budget documents provide a more detailed picture of the facility and its mission. The supercomputers in the center will be part of the NSA’s signal intelligence program, which seeks to “gain a decisive information advantage for the nation and our allies under all circumstances” according to the documents.

The agency is set up to collect intelligence on foreign threats, but it has been accused of also participating in the unwarranted monitoring of the communications of U.S. citizens.

A similar center is being constructed in San Antonio, Texas, and NSA documents indicate that the agency is also expanding its existing intelligence collection facilities in North Yorkshire, England, and Fort Meade, Md. The agency has been seeking to decentralize its operations in an effort to protect assets and find areas with the capacity to satiate the energy appetites of its enormous computer caches.

To that end, the initial phase of the project is expected to include more than $52 million in preparatory electrical work — much of that is likely to be spent connecting two large power corridors that run through Camp Williams to the construction site near the base airstrip. The next phases of the project will include $340 million in electrical work, according to the documents.

About $70 million has been budgeted for security, including vehicle inspection facilities, fencing, surveillance and separate visitor control centers for construction and technical personnel.

All NSA security measures will be in addition to security that the Utah National Guard already provides for the 28,000-acre Camp Williams facility.

“Physical and technical security of the construction site will be assured,” the budget documents promise.

While the project — and the ongoing operation of the center — will bring millions of dollars into the state, the Utah Guard doesn’t stand to make a penny.

Guard spokesman Hank McIntire said the state, which manages Camp Williams, would act as “a benevolent landlord.”

Citizens Education Project director Steve Erickson, who advocates for greater military oversight, was wary.

“If we’re going to be landlords,” he said, “we should act like a good landlord and have some rules that apply to the tenants to make sure they’re behaving.”

Regrettably, he said, that’s not likely to happen when dealing with one of the most secretive government agencies in the world.

“Finally, the Patriot Act has a home,” he sighed.


Here's a lovely little article on the privacy of one's medical history. Note is it written in 2002; no doubt progress has been made since then in its ability to access global personal medical data.

DoD Database Provides Global Tripwire for Bio-Terror

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON
Dec. 17, 2002 – DoD personnel are on the watch for possible bio-terrorism, scanning computer databases featuring outpatient treatment information gathered from more than 300 military hospitals and medical clinics worldwide.

That effort, called the Electronic Surveillance System for Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics, or ESSENCE, is helping DoD to detect both naturally occurring outbreaks of disease -- and potential bio-terrorism attacks, noted Army Dr. (Col.) Patrick W. Kelley. He is an epidemiologist at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md.

ESSENCE started up in 2000 as a pilot program to monitor the medical health of service members, family members and military retirees living in metropolitan Washington, Kelley explained.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, he said, ESSENCE was expanded to include outpatient information from 313 Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard medical facilities around the world.

ESSENCE is on the front line of defense in the war against global terrorism, Kelley maintained. Its worldwide reach is important, he emphasized, because "infectious diseases have no borders and an attack on one country with a bio- terrorist agent could well be an attack on the globe."
Read more...

Don't relax if you are in Europe.
The EU is just a bit sneakier than the USA. Who has heard of

European Homeland Security EHSA?


Well, I invite you to visit their webpage.

It's really quite interesting when you investigate the links there.

This one

is, I am sure, a high priority budget item.

Update July 10, 2009

NSA’s cyber-security grab is a
major expansion of web surveillance

By Wayne Madsen
Jun 26, 2009
With Time magazine reporting that President Obama has narrowed his top choice for the White House “cyber security czar” position to former Virginia Republican Representative Tom Davis, a leading backer of the Bush administration’s surveillance powers over the Internet, comes word from WMR’s sources that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been given a green light by the Obama White House to embark on a major effort to establish total surveillance over the Internet.

The decision is somewhat of a consolation prize to NSA director General Keith Alexander who made no secret of his desire to be named as Obama’s cyber security czar. However, it is anticipated that Davis is in lockstep with the NSA in ensuring the eavesdropping agency becomes the de facto lead organization for conducting spying on Internet users worldwide.

The NSA seeks to expand its surveillance powers over the Internet well beyond its current e-mail surveillance capabilities conducted by classified programs like Pinwale, first reported by WMR on December 4, 2005, and reported as an e-mail interception program on September 15, 2008. Using the cover of additional code-word programs, NSA is expanding its surveillance capabilities of the Internet by striking technical agreements with various software developers, hardware vendors, and service providers, including Microsoft, Intel, Google, and social networking services like FaceBook and Twitter. Read more...


VIDEOS

Witness - Security Threat
A really excellent and thorough look at the use of profiling and surveillance technology used to
analyse personal data. Also a bit scary. 36 min


Privacy is dead - Get over it.
The inside scoop from a security expert on our digital footprints (which we leave everywhere). Like having a magician reveal a secret of a magic trick. Captivating. You might feel naked after watching this.

Shape of things to come

I have written on the shape of things to come before here. Disturbing trends are converging at a rapid rate which portend an entirely different future than humans have imagined (except in science-fiction).

Three articles below stand out as huge milestones in the relentless march toward a New World Order: sophisticated human implants, corporation monopolies of food production and the alliance of China and Russia politically. The vehicle of implementing surveillance through implants and DNA collection, could very well be world hunger as corporations have taken over food production.

When I first blogged on these issues, I was alarmed. But finding the ongoing progress of technology to control the masses, I am beginning to fear the road ahead for us. Not that I have a solution - but the first step in definitely being aware.

Saudi 'Killer Chip' Implant Would Track,
Eliminate Undesirables

05-17-2009
Source
It could be the ultimate in political control — but it won't be patented in Germany.

German media outlets reported last week that a Saudi inventor's application to patent a "killer chip," as the Swiss tabloids put it, had been denied.

The basic model would consist of a tiny GPS transceiver placed in a capsule and inserted under a person's skin, so that authorities could track him easily.

Model B would have an extra function — a dose of cyanide to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he'd become a public threat.

The inventor said the chip could be used to track terrorists, criminals, fugitives, illegal immigrants, political dissidents, domestic servants and foreigners overstaying their visas.

"The invention will probably be found to violate paragraph two of the German Patent Law — which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals," German Patent and Trademark Office spokeswoman Stephanie Krüger told the English-language German-news Web site The Local.
Click to enlarge pic.

The 21st century's bleak harvest

Rising food prices increased the aid dependency of developing countries [GALLO/GETTY]

By Asif Mehdi, development practitioner
Source
As the world staggers from one economic crisis to another, it seems easy to forget the global food crisis that occupied centre stage in 2008.

World prices for essential grains more than doubled between 2006 and 2008.

Rice, the staple food of most of Asia, doubled in price in just seven months. And, despite their commitments to trade liberalisation, a few significant grain-exporting developing countries rushed to protect domestic grain stocks by banning exports.

The poor, who typically spend between 50 and 70 per cent of their meagre incomes on food, were most affected by the crisis.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the food crisis raised the number of undernourished people from 923 million to more than one billion by this year.

In late 2007 and 2008, the crisis caused food riots in at least 15 countries across the world, from Brazil to Bangladesh, and international media and forums spoke of little else.

Then, as suddenly as it struck, declining prices relegated the food crisis to collective global amnesia.

Causes not addressed

However, while prices for grains and foods have declined in 2009, they are still higher than pre-crisis levels and the fundamental causes of their volatility have not disappeared.

The international economic system has witnessed a dramatic disbanding of trade and investment barriers.

However, the international market for agricultural commodities, the nature of industrial agriculture, changing consumption patterns and international finance all threaten to make food price volatility and food insecurity a recurrent feature of the early 21st century.

Agriculture offers a textbook case of international market distortion. And in this case, the market distortion is created by precisely the developed countries that extol the virtues of free markets.

Double standards

The developed world protects its domestic agriculture with any number of subsidies and technical barriers to trade.

In 2006, for example, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated that agricultural subsidies in OECD member countries were about $230bn.

In contrast to the magnitude of those subsidies, Official Development Assistance from OECD member states amounted to $120bn (the US alone had a military budget of $600bn in 2007).

The agricultural subsidies cover a host of measures - from domestic price support, to compensation to farmers for maintaining fallow land, to export price subsidies to dumping, some of which is disguised as food aid.

Paradoxically, international trade negotiations and, more importantly, International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending conditions expect developing countries to remove agricultural subsidies and liberalise domestic markets to imported foods.

While these measures allow for the increased availability of food, they have also eroded domestic agriculture and impoverished the rural economy, often in the most economically fragile states.

It was not surprising that the most impoverished countries were unable to meet the international price surge with increased domestic production, or the release of buffer stocks of staple food commodities.

In fact, those countries became ever more aid dependent as governments struggled to find the resources to pay the bills for imported food (and fuel), in the face of sharpened threats of hunger and undernourishment.

Industry domination

The opening of developing country markets does not benefit the average farmer in the developed world.

The international agricultural industry is dominated by a few grain, seed, chemicals and oil companies.

Such is their market power that three companies control the global grain trade and one company controls 60 per cent of seed production.

The grain trading conglomerates have unchecked market power to hoard and influence world prices.

Seed companies have employed breakthroughs in biotechnology to produce seeds that are compatible only with certain brands of pesticide or supply patented terminator seeds which germinate just once, and therefore the seed from a harvest cannot be used to grow a second crop.

This last feature of the seed business ensures a seed serfdom for the farmer, who cannot set aside part of the harvest for replanting.

It is no wonder, then, that the profits of the grain traders soared to astronomical heights in 2007, in one case up by 60 per cent over the previous year.

And it is no wonder that small farmers are bankrupted by one crop failure because of their inability to afford to buy or finance the procurement of seed for a new crop.

Industrialised agriculture

The other facet of industrialised agriculture is its energy intensity and reliance on hydrocarbon resources, whether as fertiliser or as fuel.

The poorest were most seriously impacted by rising food prices [GALLO/GETTY]
During the heyday of the Green Revolution, one study noted that between 1945 and 1994 US energy input for agriculture increased four-fold while crop yields only increased three-fold.

Since then, energy input has continued to increase without a corresponding increase in crop yield.

Barring a breakthrough in seed technology, industrial agriculture has reached a point of diminishing marginal returns from energy usage.

In addition, the fact that oil resource availability has peaked suggests that oil prices will be on a long-term increase, thereby increasing the costs of food production.

Given the nature of the financial crisis in developed countries, it is highly doubtful that governments will have the fiscal resources to increase subsidies to the agricultural sector, in order to contain the increase in prices.

For the developing world, fiscal constraints on governments and the likely drying up of development assistance will have the same impact.

Food to fuel

The recent movement in the developed world to produce bio-fuels is yet another factor propelling the price of grains.

A World Bank study, prepared in April 2008, pointed out that a third of US corn production goes to produce ethanol and half the vegetable oils produced in the EU to the production of biodiesel.

This diversion from food to fuel is subsidised extensively, while imports from Brazil (which has had the longest standing and most extensive bio ethanol production) are subjected to tariff barriers that effectively prohibit imports of Brazilian ethanol into these markets.

Commodity speculators, seeing the potential from increased demand for grains in these subsidised programmes, drove up futures commodity prices which in turn raised current prices in grain markets.

The same World Bank study contends that 75 per cent of the food price increase was due to bio-fuels, a figure hotly contested by the Bush administration at the time.

An International Food Policy Research Institute study asserts that the effect was somewhat less, at 30 per cent of the food price increase.

Ideology of the rich

The financial crisis in itself was a cause for the food price hike.

While prices rose steadily through 2006 and 2007, the latter half of 2008 saw a sharp increase in prices, in a so-called price spike.

However, little had changed in the fundamental conditions of supply or demand to cause such dramatic market adjustments.

If the financial crisis reduces aid another food crisis could be devastating[GALLO/GETTY]
By now it is clearly evident that as the unregulated and complex financial sector of the US was facing the unfolding effects of the real estate bubble, trillions of dollars moved across sectors and spaces and invested in food and primary commodities, causing another price bubble, this time of an altogether more serious consequence.

The simultaneous inflation of oil and food futures caused cost increases in the production of food while inflating its trading prices at the same time.

It seems that finance had run out of opportunities for profit, so it turned to the earth as a means of generating speculative profit, whether through real estate or primary commodities and food.

As the more recent financial crisis has shown, there is no regulatory capacity to stop such profiteering from reoccurring.

These are the difficult prospects and consequences of a world run by the ideology of the rich and powerful.

Development lessons

There are development lessons to be learned here.

First, food security is an issue requiring long-term international effort and food security demands that local agriculture be able to supply domestic needs wherever possible and that reserve stocks are garnered for difficult times.

Second, the developing nations are justified in holding out in the Doha Round of trade negotiations until real and tangible concessions are made with regard to trade in agricultural products.

Third, national development efforts need to be replenished with such 'old fashioned' endeavours as investing in rural production, water availability and the empowerment of the small farmer.

Economic history shows us that industrialisation was preceded by agricultural transformations, with the state playing a heavy role.

And economic history is a better guide to policy than the theorising of free marketers serving powerful corporate interests.

Asif Mehdi works in international development with an international intergovernmental organisation and has worked extensively in Asia and Africa during his 29-year career as a development practitioner.

The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Al Jazeera.

China's top legislator: China-Russia partnership
enjoys fast growth

05-17-2009
Source
The strategic partnership of cooperation between China and Russia is currently showing all-round momentum and rapid growth as high-level contacts remain frequent, China's top legislator said in Moscow on Wednesday.

Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, made the remark during a meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

Wu, who arrived in Moscow on Wednesday for an official goodwill visit, said he appreciates the frequent contact between leaders of the two countries.

He said Medvedev's visit to China last year helped lay the foundation for continuous growth of the strategic partnership between the two countries.

Medvedev said that he and Chinese President Hu Jintao held their first meeting this year during the London G20 summit in April. He expressed the wish that they will have more meetings later this year.

The Russian president said he expects Hu to pay a state visit to Russia in June. Medvedev also expects to meet with Hu during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and the summit of "BRIC" countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China, later this year.

China and Russia this year also are to hold a series of activities to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties.

Wu and Medvedev stressed the importance of parliamentary exchanges between the two countries, saying they reflect the high level of development of the China-Russia partnership of strategic cooperation.

Wu said the strong China-Russia partnership is reflected in such areas as frequent contacts between top leaders of the two countries, the staging of "Russian Language Year" in China, the signing of an oil cooperation agreement between the two governments, and exchanges between the NPC and the Russian parliament.

Russia, Medvedev said, places high importance on parliamentary exchanges and cooperation between the two countries.

The Russian president also said Wu's visit reflects the momentum of fast growth in bilateral links.

Source: Xinhua

http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2009-05/14/content_252734.htm

Hackers clone passports in drive-by RFID heist

I have been following the progress of the RFID chip for some time. Wouldn't you know it? As Big Brother becomes more clever to control us for our safety we become less secure. All that money spent to implement systems outsmarted by a kid in a car with a cheap RFID reader. Go figure how government spends your money. Other articles on RFID and surveillance on this blog are here and here.

By Iain Thomson
4 February 2009
Source
A British hacker has shown how easy it is to clone US passport cards that use RFID by conducting a drive-by test on the streets of San Francisco.

Chris Paget, director of research and development at Seattle-based IOActive, used a US$250 Motorola RFID reader and an antenna mounted in a car’s side window and drove for 20 minutes around San Francisco, with a colleague videoing the demonstration.

During the demonstration he picked up the details of two US passport cards, which are fitted with RFID chips and can be used instead of traditional passports for travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

“I personally believe that RFID is very unsuitable for tagging people,” he said.

“I don’t believe we should have any kind of identity document with RFID tags in them. My ultimate goal here would be, my dream for this research, would be to see the entire Hemisphere Travel Initiative be scrapped.”

Using the data gleaned it would be relatively simple to make cloned passport cards he said. Real passport cards also support a ‘kill code’ (which can wipe the card’s data) and a ‘lock code’ that prevents the tag’s data being changed.

However he believes these are not currently being used and even if they were the radio interrogation is done in plain text so is relatively easy for a hacker to collect and analyse.

The ease with which the passport cards were picked up is even more worrying considering that less than a million have been issued to date.

Paget is a renowned ‘white hat’ ethical hacker and has made the study of the security failings of RFID something of a speciality.

In 2007 he was due to present a paper on the security failings of RFID at the Black Hat security conference in Washington but was forced to abandon the plans after an RFID company threatened him with legal action.

He points out that RFID tags are increasingly being used in physical security systems such as building access cards and the technology needs significant security adding before it could be considered safe for commercial use.

Copyright © 2009 vnunet.com

We know who you are and what you are doing

Say 'sorry' now to all the so called conspiracy theorists who have been ridiculed and labeled 'nuts'. Unfortunately, all the 'I told you so's' of those who have been warning the general disbelieving populace of the New World Order and its methods of controlling people, will not be sufficient to gloat about the technology that is taking over our lives. The plans have been well laid and required R&D, testing and manufacturing which has been ongoing for years, in spite of the denial by well meaning, security seeking, delusional sheeple.

I will continue to post blogs here which detail the New World Order we are entering, surveillance be damned. You will not find this news in the NY Times, but you will find these RFID chips on your new drivers licenses and passports. Read and weep.

US rolls out 'Vicinity RFID'

to check IDs in moving vehicles

Published on 24-11-2008 Source: The Register

RFID technology that allows the remote identification of travellers in moving vehicles is being rolled out at US land border crossings this month. Crossing points with Canada at Blaine, and with Mexico at Nogales, came online last week, with Buffalo, Detroit and San Ysidro to follow, and a total of 39 planned.

The system uses the US PASSport (People, Access Security Service) card, which is intended to operate within the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) for US citizens entering the US via land and sea ports. Using "Vicinity RFID" it can read the cards from a healthy skimming distance of 20-30 feet, but according to the Department of Homeland Security this isn't a problem. The RFID chip on the card doesn't contain any personal information, only a unique identification number, and skimmers wouldn't have access to the data the number matches up with.

The system is intended to work like this. As a vehicle approaches the border post, the numbers of the cards inside it are read, and pictures and data on the holders are called up from a database. Then, presumably, the immigration officers check the faces of the passengers to make sure they match, and bust any who happen to be flagged as terrorists or loose criminals.

In addition to the PASSport card, some US states are beginning to issue Enhanced Driver's Licence/ID cards (EDL/ID), which have the PASSport RFID functionality added to a standard driver's license. These can also be used for land or sea entry to the US, but neither variety of card is valid elsewhere, or for WHTI air travel into the US. Obviously, they'd only be of any use at anybody else's border post if there were compatible readers there, and if the US had kindly shared its ID database with the relevant country.

So it's an internal passport system, one that's entirely incompatible with the biometric ID system that the US has gone to such pains to get the world to adopt. Were they only kidding, then?