Edit: YHBT ;>
This one came to me via a web2.0 service. It’s not very relevant to my interests usually, no, but here’s something that just made me think twice. Apparently there is someone out there on the blogosphere who’s wrong. Surprising! Wrong information, on MY intertubes?
No, of course, even with Israel’s underdeveloped blogosphere and web services in general – even there, some jerk could come in and pour their verbal manure on to a page. It only takes one. This time, it was about Israel’s oh no revolutionary biometrics act.
Turns out somebody’s quite scared, and has been watching a lot of cheap sci-fi to base their fears, too. So apparently the government will start a database with the fingerprints and “facial features” of citizens.
But here’s the thing, unless somebody screws up royally, there’s no reason for this to fail too hard at all.
So I’ll go one by one and debunk a few of the post’s misinformed ramblings.
There will still be other records that will be more meaningful.
Do you honestly think that any government will suddenly start relying solely on this system? Now, that would be stupid, wouldn’t it?
I can assure you, even though I haven’t read about this too thoroughly, that there will be other records, which will hold more credibility over this one.
We have checksums, and they only work one day way
We have this thing called checksums. Algorithms used to generate checksums generate a one way checksum. The only two ways you can find it out are either:
- Brute forcing the data yourself
- Find someone who already bruteforced a lot of data and use their DB (rainbow tables)
This is most likely how logging into your bank account works.
It’s possible to verify the authenticity of data with a public key
We have the technology right here and now, and it goes one way. This is how it works, roughly. I have a private key and a public key. The private key, combined with a password, applied to data, can sign the data.
Say you have 3 agencies sign the biometric data in that manner and each put it in their respective database. Let’s say the databases are all in separate places in Israel, connected using the government’s internal network (it exists, and it’s not a part of the internet) – how am I supposed to make sure they all agree for my evil “leet hacker” methods to work?
It’s not impossible to crack any (most) systems, but it’s not impossible to abuse others’ stupidity.
So called identity theft can be done using the following method.
- Call unsuspecting victim, pretend to be calling from one of the following: the bank, their cell phone carrier, landlines carrier, some charity organization
- Ask for unsuspecting victim’s personal information. For instance: credit card number, phone number, some ID number (its local variant), bank account number.
- Wait a few days
- Call again as someone else! (Go back to 1)
This is real. These things actually happen. And you want to tell me that the weakest link is… an electronic system? Them evil machines! It’s humans, with their utmost intelligent that provide a system of ultimate fortitude! Well, turns out that’s not the case.
I’ll go a step further and say that, no, physical storage of data is not all that safe either. Houses are broken into on a daily basis. As are shops. Sometimes, no matter how difficult it’s supposed to be to get out or in of some place, it happens all the time.
I have a lot more to say, but maybe I’ll just quit. It’s been fun, but it has to end. So there, I presented strong arguments why the fact that it’s a computerized database doesn’t honestly matter.
While I don’t agree with the referenced post, I believe the author doesn’t fear technology, but rather has zero faith in the ability of the Israeli government to employ appropriate security measures.
The much-discussed biometric database will probably be built by the lowest bidder, checksums and digital signatures will be “implemented at a later phase”, and just about every clerk will have the authorization to add/delete/change records, or to export the entire database.
The issue of implementation is entirely separate from that of the database existing to begin with. I doubt (and that said, would rather not believe) that even this backwards poor excuse for a government is remotely capable of such an utterly pants-on-head retarded policy.
Said lack of faith if is not entirely absent from the post, though it does focus on how “every system can be ‘hacked’” which is hardly focusing on the issue at hand.
The concept of “hacking” means different things to different people…
Software engineers think of hacking as “breaking the encryption/signature”.
To a person who’s not an engineer, calling a government clerk and convincing her to make a change – which she’s authorized to make – is a form of hacking.
There’s a very good chance that “somebody screws up royally”, as you put it. It’s not very different from the current situation in Israel, and biometrics probably have nothing to do with it, but that’s what the author seems to be scared of.
Hacking is finding creative solutions to problems.
Technology doesn’t scare me.
It’s incorrectly implementing technology that scares me.
As a security specialist, I’ve seen dozens of cases where bad security practices have been catastrophic.
Israel has some of the worlds biggest security professionals, and many of them fear the new law.
The objection in Israel isn’t to implementing more secure ID cards, based on smart cards, or even on biometrics.
The issue is – there is no true reason for actually holding a centralized database with all this information.
The Israeli government has proven time after time that it lacks the ability to protect its citizens’ privacy. Sensitive databases are exposed, released and even intentionally leaked.
Military records of celebrities get published, as do mental records.
It’s not that we don’t trust technology – we don’t trust people.
What we also don’t trust, is the haste and lack of public scrutiny in this decision. Meir Shitrit, the member of Knesset that is actively and aggressively pushing this law, is doing so without allowing any true and meaningful discussion, including all the security, economical, and social meanings of this law (Can a citizen be forced to provide the government with his fingerprints? How about an Islamic woman who isn’t allowed to show her face?)
Israel is a country based on values of freedom and liberty.
While must of realize that some concessions must be made in order to ensure our freedom, and some liberties must be wavered in order to ensure others – the biometric database is the case of an unnecessary evil.
I say yes to a smartcards as ID cards, and I’ll even agree to biometrics on those cards – if implemented correctly.
A forced, centralized database of biometrics of all of Israel’s citizens however – is a privacy and security disaster just waiting to happen.
Wish I could say that with a straight face. :D
Heck, I wish I could say that about any country with a straight face.. : P
From our declaration of independence:
“THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions”
Sadly, this never formed a constitution.