================================================= Expat Worlds Bi-Monthly Digest ================================================= 10 March, 2005 Vol. 7, Issue 04 .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== THE STORY =================== -=American Passports to Get Chipped=- ==== OTHER EZINES ================ ==== EW SPECIAL ================== -=Western European Bank Account=- ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... == -=Trivia=- -=News Story=- -=Traveller's Tales=- -=Jokes=- ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============= -=GoodMorning!=- ==== INSIDE THIS MONTH EXPAT WORLD == -=Table of Content=- ==== THE STORY ================================== American Passports to Get Chipped By Ryan Singel New U.S. passports will soon be read remotely at borders around the world, thanks to embedded chips that will broadcast on command an individual's name, address and digital photo to a computerized reader. The State Department hopes the addition of the chips, which employ radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology, will make passports more secure and harder to forge, according to spokeswoman Kelly Shannon. "The reason we are doing this is that it simply makes passports more secure," Shannon said. "It's yet another layer beyond the security features we currently use to ensure the bearer is the person who was issued the passport originally." But civil libertarians and some technologists say the chips are actually a boon to identity thieves, stalkers and commercial data collectors, since anyone with the proper reader can download a person's biographical information and photo from several feet away. "Even if they wanted to store this info in a chip, why have a chip that can be read remotely?" asked Barry Steinhardt, who directs the American Civil Liberty Union's Technology and Liberty program. "Why not require the passport be brought in contact with a reader so that the passport holder would know it had been captured? Americans in the know will be wrapping their passports in aluminum foil." Last week, four companies received contracts from the government to deliver prototype chips and readers immediately for evaluation. Diplomats and State Department employees will be issued the new passports as early as January, while other citizens applying for new passports will get the new version starting in the spring. Countries around the world are also in the process of including the tags in their passports, in part due to U.S. government requirements that some nations must add biometric identification in order for their citizens to visit without a visa. Current passports (which are already readable by machines that decipher text on the photo page) will remain valid until they expire, according to a State Department spokeswoman. The RFID passport works like a high-tech version of the children's game "Marco Polo." A reader speaks out the equivalent of "Marco" on a designated frequency. The chip then channels that radio energy and echoes back with an answer. But instead of simply saying "Polo," the 64 Kb chip will say the passport holder's name, address, date and place of birth, and send along a digital photograph. While none of the information on the chip is encrypted, the chip does also broadcast a digital signature that verifies the chip itself was created by the government. Security experts said the U.S. government decided not to encrypt the data because of the risks involved in sharing the method of decryption with other countries. RFID technology has been around for more than 60 years, but has only recently become cheap enough to be adopted widely. E-Z Pass prepay toll systems across the country run on RFIDs, pets and livestock around the world have RFID implants, and businesses such as Wal-Mart plan to use the tags to track their inventory. But Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Lee Tien argues that RFID chips in passports are a "privacy horror" and would be even if the data was encrypted. "If 180 countries have access to the technology for reading this thing, whether or not it is encrypted, from a security standpoint, that is a very leaky system," Tien said. "Strictly from a technology standpoint, any reader system, even with security, that was so widely deployed and accessible to so many people worldwide will be subject to some very interesting compromises." Travel privacy expert Edward Hasbrouck argues that identity thieves are not the only ones with an interest in recording the data remotely. Commercial travel companies, including hotels, will capture the data to create commercial dossiers when people check into hotels or exchange currency in order to up-sell their customers, he argues. While there are no laws in the United States prohibiting anyone from snooping on someone's passport data, Roy Want, an RFID expert who works as a principal engineer for Intel Research, thinks that the possibility of identity theft is overblown. "It is actually quite hard to read RFID at a distance," said Want. A person's keys, bag and body interfere with the radio waves, and the type of RFID chip being used requires readers equipped with very large -- and obvious -- coils to capture the data, according to Want. Still, he concedes that a determined snooper could create a snooping system. "In principle someone could rig up a reader, perhaps in a doorway you are forcing people to go through. You could read some of these tags some of the time," Want said. But Want thinks that overall the chips will help cut down on passport fraud. "The problem with security is there is always a possibility of attack," Want said. "RFIDs are not going to solve the problem of passport forgery, but people who know about printing are not going to learn about RFIDs." ==== OTHER EZINES & BOOKS ======================== ASIAN TIMES ONLINE Asia most trusted source for news, business,commentary and analysis from throughout Asia and our world. (www.atimes.com). ----- SURVIVAL BOOKS Go to and check it out! ----- japan-guide.com Extensive, up to date online guide on Japan living and travel related information. http://www.japan-guide.com/ ==== EW SPECIAL ================================= WESTERN EUROPEAN BANK An Account with Internet Banking and a Visa Card! Here at Expat World we do the impossible. We are now able to get you a personal account at a major Western European Bank based just on a copy of your passport. We've been asked by many of our readers and client's if we can do this and have now plowed through the almost impossible post 911 hysteria to find a bank with a reasonable attitude. Before you become suspicious this account is NOT with the former Eastern block bank in Latvia, Estonia, Hungary etc. It's a 5-star bank complete with internet banking access and a Visa card which has branches located throughout its home country and other EU nations. For details go to and select SPECIALS from the top menu or email us at office@expatworld.net with "Western Europe Bank Info" in the subject heading. ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... ================ NEWS STORIES 'Aussie Bruce Willis' not so dinky-di A SERBIAN Bruce Willis lookalike who passed himself off as the star was caught out - because he thought anyone called Bruce must be Australian. Goran Markovic successfully conned people into thinking he was the Hollywood actor until he was caught using a fake Australian passport and accent instead of an American one. Markovic, 46, used several forged papers in his cons, but made his critical mistake when he linked the name Bruce with Australia's invasion of Hollywood. "I thought he was Australian, all the rest in Hollywood seem to be from there," he told police. Markovic used his resemblance to Willis to get into exclusive clubs and events, claiming he was on holiday in Serbia. He even started stealing cars and used the resemblance to Willis to get police to not look too closely at the paperwork. But he was caught after getting underworld contacts to forge him an Australian passport. He tried to use it to get out of trouble when he was pulled over by police at a routine roadside check in the southern Serbian town of Pirot. When asked for his ID Markovic, who was wearing dark sunglasses and a cap, told officers he was Bruce Willis and handed over a passport, which even had a picture of the real star. But police immediately arrested him when they saw the passport was Australian. A further check revealed the car he was driving was stolen and an ensuing investigation linked him to other car thefts. "When we pointed out the mistake he had to admit he wasn't the real thing," a police spokesman said. "He said he thought that Willis, like Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson and Nicole Kidman, was Australian. "He did look like him, but it was the Australian accent that gave it away." --- Casino Company Buys 69-HH Stripper's Implant MIAMI (Reuters) - A former stripper once cleared of battering a customer with her enormous breasts sold one of her silicone implants on eBay to the same company that recently bought a grilled cheese sandwich said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary. Internet casino company GoldenPalace.com won the bid for the infamous implant at $16,766 on Saturday, according to the eBay Web site and the seller, known professionally as Tawny Peaks. She advertised a 69-HH bra size before her implants were removed in 1999. There was no word yet on what the online gambling company planned to do with the implant. Last year GoldenPalace paid $28,000 for a 10-year-old, partly eaten grilled cheese sandwich with an image many likened to the Virgin Mary. The company sent the sandwich on a national publicity tour, encased in clear plastic. Peaks has retired from the entertainment business, and put one of the implants up for auction last week. She said she was overwhelmed and exhausted by the flood of e-mailed bids. "It's over and I'm happy," said Peaks, now a homemaker living in the Detroit area. She won fame in 1998 when a patron at the Diamond Dolls nightclub in Clearwater, Florida, sued her, claiming he suffered a whiplash injury when she swung her breasts into his face. He said they were "like two cement blocks." The case went to arbitration on "The People's Court" television show and the judge, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, ordered a female bailiff to examine Peaks in private. The bailiff found the breasts to be "soft" and to weigh about 2 pounds (0.9 kg) each. Koch ruled they were not dangerous and refused to award damages. Peaks said she has since become "kind of a recluse." "My old fans don't really know what I look like now," she said. --- Another man cuts off penis, eats it A 40-year-old man is recovering in hospital in The Philippines after cutting off his penis and eating it. Asked about Ernesto Almonte's mental state, a hospital spokesman said: "If you cut your sex organ and then eat it, then something is wrong with you." The incident is not the first time a man has severed his own penis and devoured it. In 2003 a Malaysian man cut off his penis and fried it up before making a meal of it. The man heard 'voices', probably caused by taking hallucinatory drugs, which urged him to mutilate himself. ----- Thief too stupid to send to jail: judge A BRITISH judge issued an arrest warrant for a car thief he had effectively labelled too stupid to jail after finally losing patience with the man. In January, Judge Paul Dodgson admitted that he was unlikely to imprison Mohammed Zaman because his crime - stealing a car and then driving it directly to a police station to confess - was too unusual and idiotic. "You have committed an offence for which, even with your record, you stand a reasonable chance of staying out of prison, because it is an odd offence," Dodgson told the 22-year-old, calling the crime "a little bizarre". Adjourning the case for four weeks for sentencing, and allowing Zaman bail in the meantime, the judge added: "Frankly you are an idiot and I hope you realise that." "I do," mumbled the hapless thief in response. However, Zaman failed to show up for sentencing at London's Southwark Crown Court and after waiting for an hour and a half, Dodgson issued an arrest warrant permitting no bail. The defendant lived so close that he "could have walked here by now", the judge noted. ----- Oxymoron: Personal Computer ----- "There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you." -- Will Rodgers ----- "The reason most people play golf is to wear clothes they would not be caught dead in otherwise." -- Roger Simon ----- "A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it." -- Bob Hope ----- Software Development Process 1) Order the T-shirts for the Development team 2) Announce availability 3) Write the code 4) Write the manual 5) Hire a Product Manager 6) Spec the software (writing the specs after the code helps to ensure that the software meets the specifications) 7) Ship 8) Test (the customers are a big help here) 9) Identify bugs as potential enhancements 10) Announce the upgrade program ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============================ GoodMorning! has been invented in order to make you smile in such horrible moments. The programme appears automatically every morning together with the first start of your computer and connects with the server from which it downloads new humour for the particular day. Get it at ==== INSIDE THIS MONTH EXPAT WORLD =============== EXPAT WORLD NEWSLETTER (VOL.17 ISSUE 02) Table of Content: - EW REPEATS A THEME: RETIREES FIND MORE FOR LESS IN PANAMA - BITS & PIECES - THE EXPAT ARTIST - IN OTHER LANGUAGES - THE BEST AND WORST TIPPERS - AROUND THE WORLD WITH EXPAT WORLD - FREEDOM AND PRIVACY - WAKE UP AMERICA - THE HOMELAND SECURITY STATE - THE MILITARY BRINGS IT ALL BACK HOME - EVERY WO/MAN A G-MAN - EXPAT WORLD'S WORLD OF TRAVEL - PASSPORTS - PASSPORTS - IMPROVING YOUR PICTURE - DIFFERENT TYPES OF PASSPORT - PASSPORTS - WHERE TO GET THEM - EXTRA PASSPORT INFORMATION & WHAT'S NEEDED - QUICK PASSPORTS, LOW TAXES. - SECTION 2 - ID PAPERS - TRAVEL IDENTITY DOCUMENT OR NATIONAL ID CARD - ID CARDS, LIFESTYLE IDENTITY DOCUMENTS, WORK/LEISURE ID'S - TYPES OF CARDS AVAILABLE - INTERNATIONAL SNIPS AND CLIPS - LETTER FROM THAILAND - REVELATIONS IN THAILAND - A GRAND OLD PLACE IN PHUKET - TAXING MATTERS - CRAPPER RAPPER YOU MISSING SO MUCH Each week the EXPAT WORLD DIGEST gives you just a smattering of what you can find in the EXPAT WORLD newsletter that we produce once a month. Why not get the whole story and subscribe now to our electronic version for just US $30 per year. Go to our website: www.expatworld.net to sign up. ********************************************************************* EXPAT WORLD - the newsletter of international living URL - http://www.expatworld.net Email - office@expatworld.net ---------- End of Expat World Digest --------------------------------