Article, courtesy of Hacker News
The article this week is about the dangers of posting too much information online. A gentleman shared a picture of his boarding pass for an upcoming trip. A friend of his was able to use the information posted on the pass to view/modify details like a passport number and travel dates.
Barcodes have been an interest in since I first noticed a “shaped” barcode on the side of my Tecate. Like Magstripes, it’s interesting to see how many times a barcode is used as a direct representation of the data that it’s next to. Especially in circumstances where the code might be scanned without verifying against the original.
If this is of interest to you, I’d recommend the following talk from Defcon 24 about Hacking Boarding Passes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnq0UfOUTlM
Hi Andres,
I know I am a bit late responding to your post, but this was a great read! I travel very often ( at least once a month) for either business or personal travel. I am always aware of never plugging my usb in the airports and the rental cars, but I never put any thought into my tickets and how they can be used by a hacker. I am never one to post pictures of my tickets or barcodes to the public, but definitely a good tip about not leaving your paper tickets around and how they should be shredded. Even when I try to think of all the possible ways a hacker could obtain my information, there is still always something new…thanks again!