August 6th, 2007
How to Disable Your Passport’s RFID Chip
By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
January 1, 2007 marked the start of RFID-embedded US passports. You can tell you have a new one if the logo on the front is different and there is a little bulge in the back cover. Depending on where you fall on the security issue - some say broadcasting your whereabouts from the passport in your pocket will signal terrorists that an American is nearby, others say wearing loud white tennis shoes in Paris will do exactly the same thing - one things is clear, it is easy to disable the chip.
Short of building your own RFID-blocking wallet, the gang at Wired discovered that simply hitting the chip with a hammer (located inside the back cover) will render it useless. So much for high tech. And to be clear, a disabled chip does not invalidate the passport. Just don’t brag about the hammer in the customs line or you’re looking at 25 years of hard time.
We Say: What else? Looks like it’s hammer time!
John Corliss says:
25 years hard time??? Can you cite a reference for that? I believe that’s called “cruel and unusual punishment.”
August 7th, 2007 at 4:57 am
degustibus says:
Just try the hammer trick with the chip that’s embedded in your buttock. Or behind your ear.
August 7th, 2007 at 7:22 am
Dont Doit says:
This is ALL bad.
Putting the RFID tag in the passport in the 1st place was bad idea #1.
Slamming it with a hammer to de-activate it & risk FED PEN time is bad idea #2.
Trying to disable this bad idea is bad idea #3.
August 7th, 2007 at 8:24 am
John Tidball says:
I think the metallic wallet for the goofy thing is a better idea. No one will ever imbed anything in me if I don’t want them to. Or…just don’t go anywhere. The world is to dangerous now. Stay at home and get on the Big Brother monitoring system. Woopee!
August 7th, 2007 at 10:07 am
asnd16 says:
Just put it in the microwave for roughly 3 -5 seconds.
August 16th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
spotlessmind says:
Clean your pipe, stash your stash paranoid fools. It would be easier to track your hooch than a passport chip. More information is known about you by a credit card probe than a passport chip would ever reveal. It’s a security feature like the holograms and watermarks on your passport…nothing else.
Chill…
October 4th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
John says:
The microwave method risks burning and leaving burn marks.
October 15th, 2007 at 9:43 am