

ACLU Sues for Records on Border Laptop Searches - eoswald
http://www.techpolitik.com/2009/08/26/aclu-sues-for-records-on-border-laptop-searches/

======
uhjnybt
Searching the laptops isn't the point - we can all protect the contents of the
laptops.

What would be more interesting is to know whose laptops they are taking:

Is it just shiny new Macbooks because the agents fancy a nice toy?

Is it from anyone with a certain skin color just to discourage them?

Or anyone who has made a contribution to the ACLU?

Is it people working for certain companies? Anyone landing in Seattle from
Airbus, Houston and working for Shell, Detroit and work for any competent car
company?

------
CWuestefeld
Schneier has written about this before, and provided a protocol for a way to
prevent search without having to lie to security agents.

 _Companies and individuals have dealt with this problem in several ways, from
keeping sensitive data off laptops traveling internationally, to storing the
data -- encrypted, of course -- on websites and then downloading it at the
destination. I have never liked either solution. I do a lot of work on the
road, and need to carry all sorts of data with me all the time. It's a lot of
data, and downloading it can take a long time. Also, I like to work on long
international flights._

 _There's another solution, one that works with whole-disk encryption products
like PGP Disk (I'm on PGP's advisory board), TrueCrypt, and BitLocker: Encrypt
the data to a key you don't know._

(the article goes on to describe exactly how you can use a key that you don't
know)
[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/laptop_securit...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/laptop_security.html)

~~~
gradschool
The idea proposed in Schneier's article lacks plausible deniability. If it's
not self evidently clear to the customs official that you can't decrypt it,
you're in a sticky situation regardless.

