solving the wrong problem

Hadmut Danisch hadmut at danisch.de
Sat Aug 6 19:24:50 EDT 2005


When I came to Washington DC last november, my portrait and
fingerprints were taken for the first time. I was the last one in the
queue and the immigration officer was a nice guy, so I asked him how
this should protect against terrorists. As far as I read in the
newspapers, the 911 attackers just came under their real identity with
their own passports. 

He smiled and told me, that this is not about terrorism. It is about
illegal immigrants. A complete criminal infrastructure has
established. As soon as my passport is stolen or if I lose it, they
will have someone who looks similar as me and tries to enter the US with
my passport. The problem is that they do not modify or temper with the
passport in any way. The officers do not have any chance to detect
any flaw with the passport, since it is still an authentic one. Their
problem is not detecting forged passports, their problem is whether
the passport belongs to the person. That's why they are taking
fingerprints and pictures. Once the owner of a passport entered the
USA and is in the database, they can detect if someone else is trying
to enter with the same passport.

Detection of the fiber structure wouldn't help here.

regards
Hadmut

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com



More information about the cryptography mailing list