Basic Access Control

Basic access control (BAC) is a mechanism specified to ensure only authorized parties can wirelessly read personal information from passports with an RFID chip. It uses data such as the passport number, date of birth and expiration date to negotiate a session key. This key can then be used to encrypt the communication between the passports chip and a reading device. This mechanism is intended to ensure that the owner of a passport can decide who can read the electronic contents of the passport. This mechanism was first introduced into the German passport on 1 November 2005 (correction; Norway started to use this 3 October 2005, Sweeden started also to use this in October 2005) and is now also used in many other countries (e.g., United States passports since August 2007).

Read more about Basic Access Control:  Inner Workings, Security

Famous quotes containing the words basic, access and/or control:

    Man has lost the basic skill of the ape, the ability to scratch its back. Which gave it extraordinary independence, and the liberty to associate for reasons other than the need for mutual back-scratching.
    Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)

    Oh, the holiness of always being the injured party. The historically oppressed can find not only sanctity but safety in the state of victimization. When access to a better life has been denied often enough, and successfully enough, one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts. After all, one reckons, “they” don’t want me, “they” accept their own mediocrity and refuse my best, “they” don’t deserve me.
    Maya Angelou (b. 1928)

    If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.
    Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)