When I came to Washington DC last november, my portrait and fingerprints were taken for the first time. I was the last one in the queue and the immigration officer was a nice guy, so I asked him how this should protect against terrorists. As far as I read in the newspapers, the 911 attackers just came under their real identity with their own passports.
He smiled and told me, that this is not about terrorism. It is about illegal immigrants. A complete criminal infrastructure has established. As soon as my passport is stolen or if I lose it, they will have someone who looks similar as me and tries to enter the US with my passport. The problem is that they do not modify or temper with the passport in any way. The officers do not have any chance to detect any flaw with the passport, since it is still an authentic one. Their problem is not detecting forged passports, their problem is whether the passport belongs to the person. That's why they are taking fingerprints and pictures. Once the owner of a passport entered the USA and is in the database, they can detect if someone else is trying to enter with the same passport. Detection of the fiber structure wouldn't help here. regards Hadmut --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]