Hardware So I Tried to Do the Unthinkable. Goodbye Homeland Security!

[aykay55]

I was bored, as usual, and decided I might try something out of utter curiosity. Yay! I know that in most passports, like my US one, there is a NFC chip inside containing, basically, what’s written inside the passport but on a chip which can be read by a computer easily which makes the US seem way cooler and richer to other countries than it really, actually is. Wow, just shot a bullet there! Anyway, I’m like, what about the Switch? So I pull my Switch out of the dock, miraculously saving the screen from a deep scratch from its own home, the dock, and put it on the table. I opened Settings, scrolled to amiibo, and clicked Register Owner (or whatever it says), and tapped my passport right on top of the right stick. And amazingly, or not so amazingly, nothing happened. I tried from multiple angles, from every side, but nothing. At airports, the passport easily scans with the reader that the immigration staff or ‘machine’ has, I don’t know why it wasn’t reading. It didn’t ven show an error or anything. Just, nothing. Other people, as my five minute research just told me, can easily scan their passports on their Android devices and see their passport photo and data, basically everything written inside the passport was now on their phone. Which really didn’t do anything. But my question is to you, NetNeutrals and ‘Tempers alike, why is the Switch not ‘noticing’ the passport? It’s NFC, there are no encryption thingees on the chip, as others are able to scan it easily, and there would be no point in the government encrypting the chip when you can open the passport anyway. And just imagine if someone rewrote a passport NFC chip with amiibo data. “Passport Amiibo Now A Thing!”
(If you enjoyed the Author’s Craft, leave a like)

Warm, holiday, Christmasy-Chanukahy regards,
AK47 *koff* aykay55

 

[Uumas]

Mods: Please move to the edge of the forum.

 

[orcid]

It is very simple: You are not an amiibo.
What did you expect? What should the switch do with the information on your passport?

 

[IC_]

It is very simple: You are not an amiibo.
What did you expect? What should the switch do with the information on your passport?

A box saying "This is not an amiibo" would pop up
I tried it with a credit card once and it said that (I did it on a Wii U though)

 

[orcid]

A box saying "This is not an amiibo" would pop up
I tried it with a credit card once and it said that (I did it on a Wii U though)

Ok.
I was curious and tried it myself. (Yes. The NFC chip is standard in many countries nowadays and no american advancement.) Nothing happened. But it was very hard to scan the passport with the pro controller because of its format and the analogsticks. Maybe because of this the switch cannot scan the chip.

 

[linuxares]

Is it a NFC compatible chip? The Switch isn't made to read that kind of chip so it won't show anything for it. The passport most likely use a different algorithm than the standard NFC if it's compatible.

 

[x65943]

By the way - almost all passports have this chip, not just US ones.

 

[wormdood]

(insert facepalm here) yes any nfc reader can read your id . . . but nintendo has written theirs to only show a response to the amiibos code not present on your id's nfc chip

 

[orangy57]

Amiibo use some fancy NFC chip that has a certain amount of space and pages or something that most NFC things don't have, and these cards aren't compatible with those of an amiibo

i don't really know how to explain it, it's just like nintendo uses an nfc card on the amiibo that nobody else uses

 

[hobbledehoy899]

The NFC chip is standard in many countries nowadays and no american advancement.

Charles Walton was an American.

 

[orcid]

Charles Walton was an American.

It was about the chip in passports today and the answer to "on a chip which can be read by a computer easily which makes the US seem way cooler and richer to other countries than it really, actually is". There was no word about the inventor of the chip.

 

[Enigma Hall]

The guy is travelling without left his home.

 

[Zero-Cool]

Try this an airport and see what happens, OP. It should be pretty entertaining when the feds show up to bust you.

 

[hobbledehoy899]

It was about the chip in passports today and the answer to "on a chip which can be read by a computer easily which makes the US seem way cooler and richer to other countries than it really, actually is". There was no word about the inventor of the chip.

You said "no American advancement", not "no longer unique to America".

 

[g00s3y]

Stop doing whatever drug you're doing.

 

[aykay55]

I wasn’t saying the NFC chip was specific to America, I was saying passports, like my American passport, have NFC chips nowadays. And America tries to show off in any way possible, so the process is very streamlined and smooth, as easy as scan your passport, fill out your luggage stuff, and get your boarding pass. And in immigration, at least in some airports, they have these cool machines where you scan your passport, then the machine “stands up” and takes a picture of you, then lowers itself to confirm all info, then you just go to the gate and wait for the plane to arrive. And even though the passport might use a different blah-blah algorithm blah-blah mechanism, the Switch should at least notice it and give an error. I was wondering why it wasn’t even realizing anything was there. I tried it with an amiibo right after and it worked.

 

[wormdood]

the Switch should at least notice it and give an error.

why should it . . . ? did the airports scanner give you an error when you were asked to scan your passport and instead tried to scan a pikachu . . . ?

 

[petethepug]

What are you trying to achieve by doing this?

 

[TerryG]

And America tries to show off in any way possible, so the process is very streamlined and smooth

How is making something easy and efficient showing off?

 

[Futurdreamz]

I fail to see the point of this story. So two items that are not designed to interface do not interface. big whoop. There are a few variations of NFC so they aren't guaranteed to be compatible.

Additionally, if it DID alter your passport's NFC in any way there's a chance that when you try to use it it gets flagged as tampered/counterfeit and then you're banned from flying forever.