On: How experts stay safe at the Black Hat security conference

[e12e]

But is it then, technically, still a valid passport?

[fractallyte → e12e]

Valid enough for human validation! (Although, I think it's technically illegal to deface a passport. But, at the same time, it's not technically 'defaced'...)

Edit: As a frequent (if reluctant) traveler, I've yet to encounter a necessity for RFID at passport control. (I simply avoid that particular queue.)

I've been stopped twice for not being obedient: once because I refused to step into a mm-wave scanner (after the controller refused to send me back through the metal detector after I removed my belt...), and another time for not staring into the hypnotic blinkenlights that were swirling around the cameras above everyone's heads in the queuing area.

[graedus → fractallyte]

Can you elaborate on the 'hypnotic' lights? I've never seen or heard of this.

[fractallyte → graedus]

I think it was UK Gatwick Airport, on the way to passport control. The passengers were shepherded into lines, and spaced at intervals above each line were ceiling-mounted cameras. Bright LEDs around the camera lens were flashing in rotational patterns - designed to instinctively draw attention, and hence make facial recognition easier.

[ethbro → graedus]

Were there four lights? Or five?

[fractallyte → ethbro]

I really can't recall. I wasn't looking up!

[caskance → e12e]

No, but the kind of person who writes things like that never leaves his basement anyway, so he doesn't need a valid passport.