WELCOME TO MIDLAND TEXAS GOP

The debate over government issued ID cards still rages. In August it emerged that Adam Laurie hacked into the government planned ID card and changed its data to entitle the holder to state benefits. Laurie claimed he’d inserted the information “I’m a terrorist – shoot on sight.”

It’s no wonder the UK government were so quick to jump on the story as nonsense. It’s not hackable! They said. There’s no way you can do that to our smartcard! They proclaimed. Nevertheless there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that the Government is taking these ‘anything but insignificant’ security issues seriously. When someone claims they’ve hacked your unhackable device, it’s probably worth the effort to investigate.

It’s well known that smart card technology is cheap and easy to get your hands on. How long will it take before a whole black market industry starts to fall over itself to hack the government issued ID cards. There will be huge money in selling criminally produced identities and nothing is unhackable – every top security expert knows this. So what direction should the Government take to help them stop haemorrhaging even more money into what appears to be a dead scheme?

eBay is already rife with smart card paraphernalia, you can grab a smart card reader and writer for £14.00. Second to that, the internet is awash with forums and communities dedicated to hacking and cracking anything that claims to be uncrackable. If the past is anything to go by, there hasn’t been a system yet to survive the onslaught of hackers – how long do the government seriously think they’ll last? MIT student Andrew Huang hacked the Xbox inside of two months and it took eight days to crack the HD DVD encryption. The incentives are much higher to crack ID cards, so mark my words. They’ll be smashed into obsolesence in a matter of days.