EU, the ultimate statist thieves

Thursday 6 August 2009

12 minutes to clone an ID Card!

Well, it had to happen but I'm a bit shocked that it was so very easy to do. The Daily Mail asked Adam Laurie, who is no ordinary hacker, to clone an ID card and then change the details on it.

Embedded inside the card for foreigners is a microchip with the details of its bearer held in electronic form: name, date of birth, physical characteristics, fingerprints and so on, together with other information such as immigration status and whether the holder is entitled to State benefits.

This chip is the vital security measure that, so the Government believes, will make identity cards 'unforgeable'.

Laurie picks up a mobile phone and, using just the handset and a laptop computer, electronically copies the ID card microchip and all its information in a matter of minutes.

He then creates a cloned card, and with a little help from another technology expert, he changes all the information the card contains - the physical details of the bearer, name, fingerprints and so on. And he doesn't stop there.

With a few more keystrokes on his computer, Laurie changes the cloned card so that whereas the original card holder was not entitled to benefits, the cloned chip now reads 'Entitled to benefits'.

As a chilling twist, he adds a message that would be visible to any police officer or security official who scanned the card: 'I am a terrorist - shoot on sight.'

ID cards a good idea?

I don't think so! When will the government learn that this sort of technology causes more problems than it solves?

Back to the drawing board after wasting millions of taxpayers money.

Of course, if they'd been a bit more picky about who they let in and who they allowed to stay, none of this would be necessary, would it?

6 comments:

  1. That's only the software for the card. The whole data base is probably already hacked!

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  2. Its a dangerous idea. We just needed to police our borders better. Electronic data is too easily hacked. Nothing like a fingerprint on paper, on file. How are they going to hack that????

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  3. If this doesn't finally blow the whole conspiracy out of the water, then Labour are even thicker, more stubborn and more sinister than we already thought.

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  4. My favourite response to those idiots who say "Well, I have nothing to hide and nothing to fear", is this: "Send me all your curtains and other window coverings and I will pay the postage. If you don't care about your privacy then you won't miss your curtains".

    They walk away scratching their heads and the bonus is that they are finally thinking......

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  5. Nice post - have linked to it on my blog (with comment)

    Found you via EUReferendum and will add to my blogroll

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  6. No surprises here then, especially as it took the bad people about 2 days to hack the chip & pin credit card thingeys.

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