ID Cards
There has been much discussion recently about whether ID cards have or haven’t been hacked. Adam Laurie claims to have copied an ID card, edited the data, and then written the modified data to a new card. The government responded with “We are satisfied the personal data on the chip cannot be changed or modified and there is no evidence this has happened” and then gave many buzz words to explain why they can’t be edited. Perhaps ID cards can’t be edited, but that isn’t what Adam claims to have done, Adam claims to have cloned and created an ID card which the government rather conveniently haven’t acknowledged.
There is doubtless exageration and carefully chosen words from both sides, and so it is difficult to tell what has actually happened. It comes down to a matter of who you trust more, a security researcher or private companies selling their technology. Either way, it doesn’t actually matter whether ID cards have or haven’t been hacked yet because, like any technology, one day they will be hacked. It also doesn’t matter how secure the cards are, people will lose them, and because an ID card is always valid (the government claims they can’t be hacked, so you can’t possibly have an invalid ID card) they have to be accepted, even if there is doubt as to their authenticity – a valid ID card has to be accepted. ID cards will therefore not only increase fraud, but will shift the responsibility of ensuring security from the government and banks to the individuals.