
Germans are so scared of surveillance they microwave their ID cards - Libertatea
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/08/14/germans-are-so-scared-of-surveillance-they-microwave-their-id-cards/
======
ThePhysicist
To be precise it's not only our ID cards that we like to microwave but above
all our passports.

The reason is that 2005 a new generation of passports was introduced, which
contain RFID chips that can be read out wirelessly over a distance of a few
centimeter (or in some cases even a few meters). In the beginning, these chips
only contained a digital version of the information on the passport, i.e. the
name, passport ID and photo. However, since 2007 the chips also contain the
digitized fingerprints of the passport holder. Various organizations such as
the Chaos Computer Club showed how easy it was to access that information and
demonstrated that such access could even be done unknowingly to the passport
owner, e.g. when walking by a (hidden) reading device with your passport in
your pocket. So, quite a nightmare from a privacy perspective.

Back to the microwaving: While it is required to have a valid traveling
passport if you wanna go abroad (i.e. outside the EU), it is NOT (yet)
required to have a passport with a working RFID chip. Simply putting your
passport into your microwave oven for a few seconds will irreversibly destroy
the RFID chip while leaving the passport intact => Privacy problem solved :)

So the next time someone tells you that Germans are not very pragmatic or too
obedient just tell them that we are microwaving our passports ;)

(I edited the first line to reflect the fact that they primarily talk about ID
cards in the article, thanks to _more_original for pointing this out)

~~~
leni536
What is the effectiveness of RFID shields? Tampering with the passport is
really a nono.

~~~
maze-le
Very good. I made some tests, back when I was at the university. We had a
Hardware Lab with Radio-Test Equipment and RFID Readers/Writers.

I have this one:

[https://shop.digitalcourage.de/thema/stoprfid/rfid-nfc-
myfar...](https://shop.digitalcourage.de/thema/stoprfid/rfid-nfc-myfare-
schutzhuelle-aus-metall-folienausfuehrung-leder-einfach.html)

It just works. The Signal/Noise-Ratio and amplitude of the RFID-Signal (in the
casing) is just too small, to trigger a rfid response.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
What material is actually used in your linked shield for "Schnüffel-Chips"
[fantastic word!] ? Is it just foil lined or is there a mesh, what material is
the mesh and what pitch?

I'd imagine you could have an active mask too [eg just a RFID with false data]
that would return some signal just not the one being sought.

~~~
maze-le
I don't know what material it is exactly but it is a mesh, and suprisingly
thin and flexible.

Your idea of an active fake-chip is really nice, it could actually work (on
non-encrypted content).

------
dao-
"On Tuesday, a 29-year old man was arrested at Frankfurt Airport after
authorities noticed that he had microwaved his German identification card"

No he wasn't. The source ([http://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/mann-erhitzt-
personala...](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/mann-erhitzt-
personalausweis-in-mikrowelle-13747024.html)) linked to from the article says
police confiscated the damaged ID card and gave the man a temporary
replacement, and he could continue his travel.

Yet another glitch in this rather poor article. (Others have already pointed
out other flaws that I won't repeat.)

------
CognitiveLens
The casual xenophobia in this headline and article are crazy. Really, "Germans
are so scared...", "Germans can’t take a joke."?? We must have a little more
nuanced view of the situation than that - just because there is a group of
people doing something in a certain country doesn't mean that we should push
the message that it is representative of the whole population. Wow.

~~~
maze-le
Yep, thats about it, besides some hackers and hipsters, I don't know people
over here who would even consider this. FYI, I didn't do it, I have a metal
casing, that works as a faradays cage, to counter unwanted RFID emissions.

------
BjoernKW
Well, and they've got every reason to be. The NSA and American airport
security theatre made the world a place where microwaving your ID card
actually makes a lot of sense.

> sales of old-school typewriters were reported to have skyrocketed

That's awful journalism and hearsay at best. Typewriter sales didn't
skyrocket. Some authorities, notably services related to government and
parliament bought some typewriters after the NSA breach and the most recent
parliament security breach because they just couldn't trust their digital
equipment anymore.

~~~
dagw
_Typewriter sales didn 't skyrocket._

If you dig back through the sources to the original quote you'll also find
this further quote from the same salesperson of a typewriter company talking
about their sales number:

"We’ve seen an increase because Brother left the market"

So he only said their sales went up, not the total demand for typewriters, and
while he had seen some increased orders from various defense and security
services, he attributed it largely to one of their biggest competitor leaving
the market.

I also wonder how much the hipster movement has contributed to the increased
sales in typewriters?

------
DrinkWater
Deutschland: Das Land der Dichter, Denker und Paranoiden.

The article is a bit overblown, we are not really that scared. Actually most
people don't care or even understand the implications. But privacy is a very
big and deep-rooted thing.

These German microwave shenanigans are around for quite some time, but i
haven't met one single person that microwaved ids or passports.

~~~
pgeorgi
Since you're referring to the Dichter & Denker trope: that was originally
about Germany having no copyright in the 18th century, so access to the works
of the poets and philosophs was affordable and widespread.

So it doesn't refer to lots of poets and philosophs (Germany was probably
below average) but to the wide distribution of their writing.

(my favorite anecdote from that time: Goethe, at some point, cited his own
works. Since he didn't lug all that stuff around he worked from a copy he
bought. Unfortunately it was an unauthorized copy containing modifications,
which he didn't notice - and copied into his citation)

------
flohofwoe
More like incredibly pissed and disillusioned than scared (in the US-meaning,
not UK-meaning of 'pissed'). The article reads like us Germans are a bunch of
tin-hat weirdos, and indeed, pre-Snowden I would have agreed and laughed at
these silly people who think they're watched at every step, it's all just
conspiracy theories right, it's all over since 1990, the secret service has no
longer power over people etc etc etc?

Post-Snowden is an entirely different world, and I feel like the last 25 years
were for nothing. The worst and silliest conspiracy theories turned out to be
indeed true. The 'Free West' which was such a powerful and wonderful vision
for the East German youth turned out to be just another variation of a
surveillance state, just with a prettier paint-job.

So yeah, I'm incredibly pissed at the German and US governments and the secret
services. The sad thing is that nothing at all would change with a different
government.

[edit: typos]

------
holri
One can learn a lot from people that had suffered nazis and stasi not so long
ago.

------
dmichulke
_In 2010, a governmental survey came to the conclusion that it would “take ten
years for the document to establish itself.”_

This is because they have a validity of 10 years, nothing security related.

------
jensen123
In the future, I think it's far more likely that the US or UK will have a
really horrible government, than Germany. Because the US and UK governments
have been pretty good for such a long time, most people in those countries are
not aware of the importance of privacy. And when the horrible government comes
along, there will already be plenty of surveillance in place that it can use
to tyrannize people.

------
octatoan
> "online formulas"

I'm guessing this was translated from German or something; isn't form
"Formular" in German?

~~~
Hermel
It is.

------
furyg3
It's unclear to me why there needs to be any biometric information at all, on
an ID card for use in a modern country like Germany. A chip-and-pin card with
a ID number on it and your name (the latter simply so that you don't mix up
your card with that from someone else). All the rest goes in a database.

The police can look up your "Virtual ID card" based on your ID number or from
other information (a fingerprint, retina scan, name, etc.). Non-security
institutions (other government agencies, a bank, whoever) do so only with your
permission... you put your card into a smart reader, confirm with your pin,
and your "virtual ID card" is shown to the person confirming your identity.

All access to the system is logged (including the police) so that the user can
see who's pulled up his info.

------
lcswi
Yeah, and Americans are fat gun-wielding christians.

~~~
saiya-jin
well, many of them are, just not all :) not that there is anything wrong with
gun wielding, or being christian (nobody is perfect after all), that fat
aspect not so much

------
netcan
How did difficult to assail ideas like Freedom of Speech come about?

I mean, speech can obviously be dangerous, lead to actions, incite, etc. But,
unlikeable speech will garner some support when repressed because freedom of
speech must be preserved.

When it comes to surveillance and a lot of other liberty relevant stuff, we
don't seem to be able to draw lines. Regulations, promises and policies seem
to be enough "as long is it doesn't get into the wrong hands."

What we end up with is a predictable immediate slide. Surveillance laws
enacted to allow authorities to pursue terrorists are used in general
policing. Financial restrictions enacted to fight organized crime, and "money
laundering" end up restricting financial freedoms of anyone getting caught up
in the "risk review" dragnet and being denied basic financial services.

Anyway, Germany and their living memory of the Stazi is a potential flag
bearer for the freedoms that we are losing quickly.

------
Tomte
Let me fix that headline: "a few hundred Germans are so scared of surveillance
they microwave their passports".

~~~
progx
And if millions know that microwaving destroy the chip but the passport is
still usable... did you still think it will be only "a few hundred" ?

~~~
Tomte
Yes. Well, maybe a few thousand.

------
cautious_int
Why not put it into a Faraday cage?

~~~
pgeorgi
Like everything sold on
[https://shop.digitalcourage.de/thema/stoprfid/](https://shop.digitalcourage.de/thema/stoprfid/)
(the 'support shop' of an organization doing privacy advocacy)

------
jamesbrownuhh
"scared of" is not an acceptable synonym of "opposed to".

------
mtgx
I mean those silly Germans - they just can't take a joke about their own
government as well as their partner, the U.S., spying on them and then using
that information for their own economic interests or other more malicious
reasons.

Lighten up!

