RFID protective sleeves & wallets

[Paul der Krake]

Help me out InfoSec people. They're completely useless right?

My green card and Global Entry cards came with one. My understanding is that the chips only broadcast an identifier that's then used by the border agents to look me up. What do I care if a third-party knows that I'm traveler #1923782392? I can't find an authoritative source that says anything else is on the chip. Not my address, not my name, nothing.

Is this just one big FUD operation by Big Wallet?

[gooki]

Depends which country issued your passport.

For American citizens, there is no personal information stored on the RFID tag, simply a reference code to a file the government keeps on you and agents can access at passport control. Most other countries store data directly on the chip itself. For Europeans this typically means all of the information about you inside of the passport (e.g. name, date of birth, etc.) plus your photo and fingerprints.

[farfromfire]

Help me out InfoSec people. They're completely useless right?

My green card and Global Entry cards came with one. My understanding is that the chips only broadcast an identifier that's then used by the border agents to look me up. What do I care if a third-party knows that I'm traveler #1923782392? I can't find an authoritative source that says anything else is on the chip. Not my address, not my name, nothing.

Is this just one big FUD operation by Big Wallet?

AFAIK the the most credible attack on these passports occurs while they're being read (so out of the wallet), so you're probably right.

Of course, who knows how the traveler# is chosen (I wouldn't be surprised if some countries incorporate private information in a naive way).

[Kris]

I happened to hear this report on RFID recently.

Short answer: Yeah, the sleeves, etc. are overkill and kind of a scam.

Long answer:

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/07/04/535518514/there-are-plenty-of-rfid-blocking-products-but-do-you-need-them