Hacker News Reader

I think American passports have those as well because I remember all the hax0rs making videos showing where to smash the NFC chip with a hammer or to buy wallets with special NFC blocking properties to keep folks from “stealing their identity” from the NFC chip. Personally I never cared but your comment jogged a memory.

Recently I added my passport to my Apple wallet but I’m not sure if that’s used anywhere.

View on HN

On US passports stealing the identity is a possibility as the chip in US passports do not implement any clone detection mechanism.

Is that still the case? I recall "back in the day" that part of the reason for smashing these NFC chips was because of security failures like this, but I figured over time they'd be addressed.

I'd love to read more about what security features US passports are missing and what they have implemented. Just out of curiosity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com