Archive for August, 2008

Dutch Passport Chip Broken by Academic Researcher

Friday, August 8th, 2008

The Register and other sources report, Jeroen van Beek broke the protection of the Dutch digital passport:

The ‘fraud-proof’ e-passport can be copied and altered, a Dutch security researcher has demonstrated. In tests conducted for the Times, Jeroen van Beek of the University of Amsterdam changed the chip data in a normal UK e-passport to contain a picture of Osama bin Laden. The paper also reports that van Beek has contrived to have a passport in the name of Elvis Presley accepted by a public e-reader in a Dutch town hall.

The good news is that Dutch computer security research seems to be thriving and that I still have an old passport.