

Defending Privacy at the U.S. Border: A Guide for Travelers Digital Devices - llambda
https://www.eff.org/document/defending-privacy-us-border-guide-travelers-carrying-digital-devices

======
_delirium
An odd thing about these searches is that they really have no chance of
catching anything nefarious carried by anyone halfway intelligent. An
acquaintance of mine smuggled digital documentary video out of Iran just by
opening up a laptop and loosening one of the two hard drives' connectors so it
no longer registered as attached; the brief border search at the airport of
course saw one hard drive with nothing particularly nefarious on it, and
didn't go to the trouble of determining that this model of laptop should've
had two drives. That's not foolproof, but it's going to foil 99%+ of these
kinds of casual searches.

Of course if someone really suspects you personally and wants to scrutinize
your machine in detail, that's another story, but just random dragnet-type
searches of machines at borders are laughably easy to foil, with dozens of
different methods, so the stopping-terrorism justification doesn't seem
plausible.

~~~
slowpoke
That is why we call it "security theater" - because every informed person will
realize it's a heap of bullshit that serves no purpose but to get people used
to methods of a authoritarian police state. Terrorism is a retarded excuse,
period, and anyone who uses it as their primary argument should be laughed out
of the building.

~~~
c1sc0
I commend you for saying this out loud in a public forum. How things have
changed in just a few years! Just after 9/11 _you_ would have been laughed out
of the building for pulling out the "security theater" card. It warms my heart
to see so many people vocally & publicly calling out the bullshit governments
are trying to pull on us, no matter if it's SOPA, PIPA, ACTA or whatever they
will come up with next.

I've been thinking about this internet freedom movement quite a bit lately & I
am convinced the single most powerful thing we can do is to come out of our
anonymous hiding places & publicly declare our intentions. That's why I
created my freedom.txt & hope others will do same:
<http://fr.anc.is/freedom.txt>

~~~
mahyarm
I think people in a HN/Reddit/Slashdot type form have been saying this since
it was implemented, and everyone was nodding their heads.

------
mrdingle
Important takeaways:

    
    
        - Use full-disk encryption.
        - Secure it with a very long hard to guess password.
        - Turn your computer off at least 10 minutes before going through customs.
        - You don't legally have to tell anyone the password with out a court order.
        - You don't have to give them any information to aid in their search.
        - Secure delete everything before you travel.
    

Super important:

    
    
        - DO NOT LIE.
        - You can simply not answer a question. But never lie.
        - Say, "I'm sorry, but I cannot answer that question."
    

Super super important:

    
    
        - Plan!!!
        - Decide what you will do *before* you get to customs.
        - Don't stress out, just relax and don't answer questions you don't want to.

~~~
nekojima
If you are asked if you have "pirated" material on your laptop or various
external media devices, and you do, how to respond?

"Not to my knowledge." or "I'm sorry, but I cannot answer that question."?
Which would then likely raise the alarm in the interrogator.

~~~
mrdingle
Say, "I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable answering that question."

And when they ask why say, "Because I believe that it is my right not to."

But nothing more. Just be short, to the point, and courteous. You're not
guilty of anything for saying that, and they will understand that you
understand your rights.

They may make your life a tiny bit harder because of it, but if your courteous
and patient you can maintain your dignity and your privacy.

------
tatsuke95
This is ridiculous. Not what EFF is trying do do, but the extent to which
people are going to have go to feel secure. Look at the doctor example. Akina
the Japanese doctor is going to a wedding out of country. They recommend
mailing a laptop to a relative at the wedding, then wiping it there and
bringing it back across the border, all to protect the confidentiality of some
emails. That is a completely and utterly ridiculous idea. But yet, there it
is, seriously stated.

10 years of pacificity towards the erosion of rights and privacy, and here we
are.

~~~
guylhem
"That is a completely and utterly ridiculous idea. But yet, there it is,
seriously stated"

Maybe to you, but not for me. I'm a doctor and a geek. I work on confidential
patient data which I manipulate with custom software I write (some C, some
perl... even some php at times :-).

But every devices this data goes into is encrypted.

To avoid any problem, when I travel I take my special "travel laptop" which
has a brand new OS install from the night before. I take absolutely no data at
all, unless I absolutely need to work on it during the trip - and in this
case, this piece of data travels on an external media, in an encrypted form.

The macbook and the external media are disposable - should any agent want it,
they can have it and keep it. I won't even complain.

What I care the most about is preserving the data confidentiality.

Why exactly wouldn't you want this kind of protection on your data from your
doctor?

~~~
tatsuke95
Hmm...either I wasn't clear enough, or you misunderstood. Maybe replace "idea"
with "concept" or "requirement". What the doctor is doing/should do isn't
ridiculous. It's the fact that the EFF had to write a 30 page document that
instructs people on how to protect themselves from some neanderthal on a power
trip who decides to comb through personal emails at the border. All in the
name of fighting piracy. _That's_ ridiculous.

~~~
guylhem
I see you point know. I'd rather say it's a sad situation, but you play the
cards you're dealt.

~~~
dereg
The smart person steps away from the table. Alas, that's not an option.

------
mike-cardwell
If I had to fly to America these days, I would not take my laptop unless
absolutely necessary. I would also do a fresh install of Cyanogenmod on my
phone and configure it up only after crossing the border.

There was a time that I wanted to live and work in America. These days, I
don't even want to visit for a holiday.

------
gst
I only travel with encrypted data - both my laptop (linux with luks) and my
phone (galaxy nexus) use full disk encryption.

Currently it seems that the worst that typically happens is that they take
your hardware away from you. I don't care too much about that as all my data
is securely backed up in the cloud (tarsnap). The value of the hardware is
maybe something like 1000 euros alltogether. Given how unlikely it (currently)
is that this happens this is an acceptable monetary loss for me.

The only thing that bothers with my setup is that encryption in Android 4 is
absolutely braindead, as it forces you to use the same password for the
encryption as for the screenlock, although the security requirements are
completely different: You want to use a really strong password for the
encryption, but for the screenlock a short password is sufficient. Hopefully
that will be possible in either one of the next versions, or one of the
inofficial forks.

------
fl3tch
Supposedly, if your hard drive is encrypted, customs agents can hold your
computer indefinitely if you refuse to provide the password. The irony is that
gigabytes of encrypted data cross national borders every second -- over the
internet. So dump your important data in an encrypted file and put it on a
file sharing web site, or a VPS, or whatever, and download it again when you
get across the border. Nobody with "interesting" data (and half a brain) will
be physically bringing it across a border. The searches are useless.

~~~
mrdingle
_Nobody with "interesting" data (and half a brain) will be physically bringing
it across a border._

What's super ironic about this legislation is that it makes local law
enforcement's job of actually catching criminals harder. No one's going to get
caught at the border with anything but parakeets shoved down their pants. And
now criminals are forced to use full-disk encryption and secure delete for
everything if they want to travel which will likely lead to more security at
home and more obstacles for local law enforcement.

------
spodek
Every now and then you have to step back and look at your world.

When I was young, people having to take precautions like this were clicheed
signs in a movie of someone oppressed by a totalitarian regime. Invariably the
"good guys" were working to free people from it.

Can we reverse this trend?

------
chakalakasp
This happens in Canada, too. There was a thread on a popular storm chasing
forum in 2007 in which a chaser driving from Florida to Canada was stopped by
the Canadian border patrol and had his car randomly searched. The post is also
here on the chaser's personal blog: <http://sky-
chaser.com/america.htm#WINDSOR> . They grabbed his laptop that he was using
for GPS mapping, brought it inside, then came back out and told him he was
being detained in order to investigate the photos he had on his drive.
Apparently they were concerned that some of his Asian nudie pics were of
underage models. He was then arrested until some specialist could come in and
interview him and review the photos to determine if they were underage. After
waiting several hours in a cell, the investigator showed up, asked him a few
questions, then released him. "You are good to go. We have insufficient
evidence and cannot find anything related to the charges suspected, we are
sorry for the inconvenience and I hope this does not prevent you from visiting
Canada in the future."

------
fijal
This website is horrible to read, occupies about 12% of my screen and does not
even support turning pages using keys! EFF, you can do better than that.

~~~
rajbot
There is a full screen button you can click.

Here is a direct link to the full screen version, and arrow keys work for
turning pages: <https://www.eff.org/file/33930#page/1/mode/2up>

Direct link to pdf: [https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/EFF-
border-...](https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/EFF-border-
search_0.pdf)

------
daintynews
My concern with this US border search is the idea of confidentiality. One,
we've all seen movies. Lots of them. And though we may laugh at how easily the
antagonist acquired the needed information from the protagonist, it can't be
said that it can not happen in real life. And this US border search is making
that highly possible. Also, for doctors and lawyers, this confidentiality
thing I'd like to believe, is sacred. So when another person sees that on
their laptops or gadgets, would it be the same as doing a breach of contract
or doing something against their oath?

~~~
kijin
I wonder if it would be possible to get the American Medical Association (and
whatever the lawyers' equivalent is) to fight against this ridiculous policy.
Or would they just shrug and say that doctors shouldn't put confidential data
on portable computers?

