Subverting RFID Chips in ID Docs

Subverting RFID Chips in ID Docs

Written by Renee Ferguson; Illustrated by Stephen Anderson

Subverting RFID Chips in ID Docs – Introduction

Now that RFID-chipped passports are being widely distributed by the U.S. State Department and other chipped ID documents are under discussion, the question remains: How do you disable the damn thing if you dont want to broadcast your person

Subverting RFID Chips in ID Docs – Electronic Probe

Sort of like a cattle probe, but for passports. The idea is the electronic probe would essentially shock the tag into disrepair.

Subverting RFID Chips in ID Docs – Mylar

The Mylar bag, once sent by California’s Sun Pass program to customers worried about privacy, wlll block the RF tag from being read-sort of like how lead blocks Supermans X-ray vision from seeing through Louis Lane’s blouse. Tin foil will serve pretty

Subverting RFID Chips in ID Docs – Total Submersion

H20 will fry anything electronic. Since the RFID chips in documents are passive-they’re ‘awakened’ when nudged by a reader, and thus don’t require a battery-water might not work as effectively as, say, a cattle prod. But there’s a remote possibility it co

Subverting RFID Chips in ID Docs – The Microwave

Pop an RFID-chipped passport in the microwave, set it on high and watch it spark. The cooking chamber is full of 2.54 GHz electromagnetic waves, with a wavelength of about 12.4 cm. But remember what your Mom told you about putting metal in the microwav

Subverting RFID Chips in ID Docs – Cut and Paste

Cut out the chip and carefully swap it with a friend’s chip, so you can trade identities for a day. Kind of like that movie where a girl magically becomes her mom and the other way around, except you get denied re-entry into the country and jailed.

Subverting RFID Chips in ID Docs – Blunt Object

Another tried and true method: Hit something solid with a heavy blunt object – a hammer is a commonly used example – and it will break. The result is likely not very subtle, and also probably a pretty good reason for customs detainment.

Subverting RFID Chips in ID Docs – Nothing at All

Seriously, if someone is close enough to your RFID passport to be able to read the tag, they are too close to you period. If you aren’t suspicious of a stranger pressed up against you in the immigration line, you have bigger things than RFID to be worri