> A company makes security seals for this very purpose and markets them under the name "TamperTell". They have a serial number on them and a matching receipt tab that you remove before flight then check against on arrival.
I wouldn't put too much trust into the marketing of products like this. Time and time again they fail to protect against the most basic of "lockpicking", and unless I've seen multiple skilled people failing at unlocking the "TamperTell", I'd put it in the same bucket as the rest.
> DEF CON 18 (2010) held the first ever "Tamper Evident" contest, where contestants were given a box sealed with a variety of tamper evident devices, many of which purport to be "tamper proof." All of these devices were defeated, even by those with little experience and a limited toolkit. Like the computer world, many of these devices are overmarketed
I get your point but since most locks are pickable does that mean that I shouldn't bother locking my doors?
The threat vector I am defending against is one baggage handler in one airport putting drugs in my bag and another baggage handler at the destination airport retrieving them.
Why would they go to the hassle of having to fiddle around with a bag with a seal on it leaving prints in the process? If they want to use my bag to smuggle drugs they will most likely just rip the tags off it. If I kick up a fuss at the destination airport they will find nothing out of the ordinary in the bag and assume that customs inspected it at departure or the seal somehow broke off in transit.
Ha, nice. I was a silent participant of that contest that year. My buddies team was able to acquire a second tamper kit to practice on, I learned a lot about seals that weekend and I still apply that knowledge to this day.
Any seal that uses an adhesive is often easily removed with acetone. Seals that use multiple materials like plastic and metal, well you can dissolve the metal component and replace it if you have multiple blanks of the seal. If the plastic part is the part that is serialized then bobs your uncle.
I moved on to using security paper to make high security envelopes. There are a ton of different features you can combine to make a unique security paper. Then mechanically sealing it with security wire and a lead seal. If an evil maid needs inside they would need to duplicate the security paper's features.
If you want to go off the rails and raise legal questions for the government though, do this. Go to the treasury and buy sheets of uncut US currency to make your envelopes out of - remember all bills are uniquely serialized. If you are a true high roller buy uncut $100 bills, they probably have extra security features. Assuming your theoretical evil maid is a US government employee, it raises an interesting question: are NSA/US government employees allowed to forge/duplicate US currency in the pursuit of protecting national security?
If you want to see other interesting application of anti-tampering features, go check out your passport and all your visa stamps in it. The low hanging fruit is UV, but don't forget that there are two common bands of UV, shortwave is where it's at. Lots of fluorescing going on. But don't forget IR transparent inks there (or IRT). Also don't forget that fluorescence can happen in wavelengths outside the human visible spectrum. If you shine an IR laser pointer at stuff there are inks that can fluoresce from IR back into the visible spectrum. There's a ton of other things too, but your passport has a cornucopia of interesting tamper evident features.
And don't get me started on microwires. If conspiracy folks had any idea about these their heads would explode.
https://security-paper.tagit-eas.ch
> are NSA/US government employees allowed to forge/duplicate US currency in the pursuit of protecting national security?
We already know plenty of things they are not “allowed” to do, but happen anyway. If they’re already invested to the level of effort it takes to duplicate security seals, I think they can call off the Secret Service from investigating a little counterfeiting.
Certainly, but imagine the reams of red tape you'll be making your agent team wade through. The FBI has a lot of resources but I suspect they are not setup to counterfeit US currency. Sooo many meetings and approvals, Judicial oversight, just to get a special run of bills from the Treasury Department. Would they be required to destroy the original evidence since they are duplicating US currency? The years of the missed soccer games and birthdays of their loved ones just to take a peek at some pepe memes that have no meaning.
Don't forget to put some sealed US currency envelopes in your suitcases while flying kiddos, the TSA needs to have fun too.
>Assuming your theoretical evil maid is a US government employee, it raises an interesting question: are NSA/US government employees allowed to forge/duplicate US currency in the pursuit of protecting national security?
Why would they need to counterfeit the notes? Is there something stopping the NSA from calling up the treasury and asking for uncut sheets with specific serial numbers?
Would they even be breaking the law if they decided to go it along and reverse engineer the printing process? While the Treasury is granted the right to print physical money[0] it does not exclude anyone else from physically printing money as well. Further counterfeiting/forging currency[1] needs to have the intent to defraud.
I get your point though. I guess it would operate similarly to the operations of undercover police who have to break laws as part of their work. I suspect a lot of oversight would be needed from the upper levels of the organisation so as not to fall foul of the Justice Department.
I wouldn't put too much trust into the marketing of products like this. Time and time again they fail to protect against the most basic of "lockpicking", and unless I've seen multiple skilled people failing at unlocking the "TamperTell", I'd put it in the same bucket as the rest.
> DEF CON 18 (2010) held the first ever "Tamper Evident" contest, where contestants were given a box sealed with a variety of tamper evident devices, many of which purport to be "tamper proof." All of these devices were defeated, even by those with little experience and a limited toolkit. Like the computer world, many of these devices are overmarketed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W07ZpEv9Sog