Get a boarding pass, steal someone's identity

[Steven M. Bellovin]

On Mon, 08 May 2006 10:38:38 -0400, "Perry E. Metzger"
<perry at piermont.com> wrote:

> 
> The person who sent this asked that I forward it anonymously.
> 
> From:
> Subject: Re: Get a boarding pass, steal someone's identity
> To: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry at piermont.com>
> 
> (If you want to post this, please make it anonymous.  Thanks.)
> 
> Have you noticed that airline tickets are once again de-facto  
> transferable?  If you print your own boarding pass at home, you can  
> digitally change the name on it before you print.  If you have no  
> bags to check, then the person who checks your ID at the security  
> checkpoint has no way to read the bar code, and the person who reads  
> the bar code at the gate does not check your ID.
> 
This is hardly either news or sensitive.  Schneier described it in
CRYPTOGRAM almost 3 years ago
(http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0308.html#6), as did Eric Rescorla
(http://www.rtfm.com/movabletype/archives/2003_10.html#000546); it's also
been in Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2113157/fr/rss/).  


		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

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