Hackers Adam Laurie and Jeroen Van Beek tested the security by creating a fake passport of Elvis Presley and using it in the Schiphol airport at Amsterdam. It was cleared for travel. By scanning it in an automated passport scanning system, Elvis’s photo showed up on the display. To create the passport, they created content for Elvis Presley and then put it on a chip signed by their own key for a non-existent country, according to Van Beek. The device that read the chip wasn’t able to check the country’s signature. "I think fraud is 100 percent possible," said Laurie. "The passport bit is the more difficult. You would have to buy one from a professional forger or some means, but adding the chip is something we could do ourselves using off the shelf equipment using $100 investment." To make the security safer, all countries need to have an international system where they can check all the countries’ signatures.
I think that this is a sign to us that security will never be perfect. The better the system gets, the better the hacking will get. It seems as if you should never trust the security that is promised, but rather stay aware that anyone could hack the system if they make up their mind. This is also definitely a sign to the governments that our airport security is not good enough. We should not have to wait for another chaos like 9/11 to start making the security better again. We need to take precautions against hacking and try to correct the flaws and do the best we can in making a perfect system.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/19/passport.security/index.html?iref=allsearch
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