I think this is the craziest thing. It's easy to just leave an encrypted copy of all your phone's data online, reset your phone to factory settings, travel, and then restore your data to your phone. Seizing it to search is just... invasive and ineffective.
Right. Like most laws, it will end up being used against ordinary citizens who obey the law 99.9% of the time, to squeeze them for the 0.1% of the time they broke the law either by mistake, or in the same ways that MOST people are breaking the law but nobody cares because law enforcement hasn't singled them out for special treatment.
The weird thing you realize when you start exploring the law enforcement space is that the vast majority of people that break the law are just, pardon me for not mincing words, just monumentally stupid. They don't take basic precautions.
Police wind up dealing with the same people over and over and over and over again. You'd think they'd wise up and learn how to not get caught, but the mindset that leads to criminality is pretty far away from the mindset that leads to careful action.
It's only the very rare person that actually breaks the law with intent, and also with the care and forethought to avoid even the most basic law enforcement scrutiny. Organized crime represents the barest fraction of actual crimes committed.
So as a result, dragnet-style police tactics are often extremely effective at accomplishing their aims. Which is, of course, why they're employed.
This is, sadly, a pure human-rights issue. Sad because the human rights angle is just not very convincing to people who are invested in the status quo.
Which is why we still see these types of tactics, even today.
>>>The weird thing you realize when you start exploring the law enforcement space is that the vast majority of people that break the law are just, pardon me for not mincing words, just monumentally stupid. They don't take basic precautions
I think you mean most people that get caught breaking the law are monumentally stupid
There are plenty of people that break the law everyday and never get caught, unsolved crimes rates are HUGE
>>>Police wind up dealing with the same people over and over and over and over again. You'd think they'd wise up and learn how to not get caught, but the mindset that leads to criminality is pretty far away from the mindset that leads to careful action.
Recidivism is a complex issue and is not simply down to "you'd think they would wise up", it is mix bag of untreated Mental illness, lack of education, lack of support structures, lack of opportunity, and then even further reduction in opportunity due to a criminal record, and finally once you are "on the radar" of the system the police become aware of you and will target you for greater scrutiny
>>>So as a result, dragnet-style police tactics are often extremely effective at accomplishing their aims.
I would agree here, but only because their aim is to have a nice press release to "show their effectiveness" and justify their budgets, dragnet policing is pure security theater. it is a show for the taxpayers nothing more
> There are plenty of people that break the law everyday and never get caught, unsolved crimes rates are HUGE
Sure but this is a resource problem. If we devoted the resources, we could solve the crimes. Those resources would arguably be "better" deployed 'simply' rather than, say, by investing in officer sensitivity. The tactics of policing work, that's the argument I'm trying to make.
No, society deserves more sensitive policing, even though it costs more and demands more from people, because it's the right thing to do. It's a pure moral argument, and it loses something when you try to paint it as a tactics issue.
> Recidivism is a complex issue
It's really not. The whole thing can be boiled down to a very simple statement of fact. Society fails people. The reasons why it fails people can be largely determined to be resource problems, not failures in the mentality of the people trying to help. The 'bad egg' explanation of law enforcement failure should be taken way more seriously than it is. Most cops really do want the best for the people they have to work with on a daily basis.
But they just don't have the resources to put all these people into the precise social programs that they need. Every decent social worker is immensely overworked and underpaid. There's a massive number of people who want to get into social work but there's just not that many jobs available, because from a governmental budgetary perspective, money spent on social work is money thrown away.
Sure, when you get academics into a room and do studies, yes, money spent on social programs more than pays for itself. But that 'paying for itself' is diffuse, the repayment doesn't just flow back into state coffers. So you have to justify every expenditure.
It's a really hard problem, and laying blame at the feet of law enforcement systemic failure misses the point profoundly.
Life is not a crime drama we really don’t know how to solve most individual crime even with essentially unlimited resources.
Ex: Somone was robbed at knife point in a city. With no direct physical contact with victom and no image of who did it and you don’t have any way to track this down.
People mostly get caught becase they can’t retire of of one thing so they keep rolling the dice and eventually something changes.
It could be with unlimited resources where those resources are millions of high res cameras everywhere. Which I am against, but it would not be unthinkable that most crimes, including the one you mentioned, would be solved fast(er) with unlmited resources.
I was robbed at knife point years ago; I got the license plate of the stolen 'getaway' car (it was at a gas station on the parking lot); there were cameras there (not in the parking lot but connected to the building), I reported it immediately, the police (later on camera) saw the car crossing a toll booth and then it went into some village. They found the car abandoned but never (at least not in time for me to be helpful) got the robbers. If everything, including the village, would be blanketed with high res cams, they would've caught them. The toll booth cams were too low res to identify anyone, just the car + numberplate.
I do believe we know how to solve most (traditional; financial / online crime can probably be similarly solved with enough resources and invasion of privacy) crime with unlimited resources; we don't have unlimited resources AND, at least in my country (where the robbery took place), we (still) have strict privacy laws and they are not allowed to hang cams on the streets of these places. Which I find a good thing by the way, but it doesn't help solve unobserved crimes like violence in off the beaten path alleyways and stuff like this.
This is a very good example of the skimming reading example that is high up on the HN front page today. You did not read what I said nor did some downvoters; I say I am against this idea. BUT I was responding to someone saying 'we don't know how to solve most individual crimes even with unlimited resources'. I do not believe that is the case and this is one example of doing it, but no I am in no way advocating it which is what I say multiple times in my comment.
I actually say in the first line 'which I am against', so definitely not advocating it. Just saying; unlimited resources really do give us ways to solve most crimes but we might choose to value freedom and privacy over solving all crimes, which I hope happens although many places, like London/UK already have pretty much blanket camera networks.
You’re assuming the only limit is resources, instead of resources being to only limit I am minimizing.
Sure, if we where willing to implant GPS trackers and require people to upload their daily movements that would cost resources, but people’s unwillingness to be tracked like that (outside of cellphones) has nothing to do with resources. Thus a willingness to spend more money would not allow for that kind of tracking or even what you are suggesting.
PS: Low millions of cameras is also insufficient, you need billions just to cover major cities and even then people would focus on low coverage areas. You really need to track people for hours or even days to get positive identification. That takes more than a few cameras in the right places as plot demands.
Hence the unlimited :) But yeah, given that unlimited is not unlimited and people won't allow it (although govs will try) you are right; we have not much chance to solve every individual crime because we have no way (yet) of attacking the problem. Education and jobs seems to help, but that's prevention, not solving after it happened.
I 100% reject the "bad egg" explanation of law enforcement failure and do not believe it is the "bad eggs" at all but instead a systemic failure caused by improper training, improper goals, improper exceptions and Unethical laws (aka the war on drugs) that have turn the police force from a protectionary force to a oppressive force. The police of today are not about protecting people, it is about control.
Further The number of laws, regulations, etc on the book ensure the most people on any given day can have something used against them, this leads to all manner of corruption and attracts those they want to abuse people
I also reject the idea that is is "resources" problem, we do not need more resources in policing and prisons, we in fact need less. What we need ti less criminal laws, less regulations, and less abuse by those with authority
This is a narrative that you will believe in that can be analyzed and rejected purely on the internal logic of it.
You're 'othering' the police and the social system. If you get to know these people, listen to their stories, what they have to say about society's problems, as the people whose literal careers are to deal with them, the explanation of systemic failure rings more and more hollow.
But you have to actually go to these people and listen to their stories in order to understand. That takes work, but it's work made easier with Quora. But you don't need to, you can just look at the statements you're making and see that they're the products of narrative belief.
>>This is a narrative that you will believe in that can be analyzed and rejected purely on the internal logic of it.
Feel free to, since you elected not to I will simply dismiss this claim
> If you get to know these people, listen to their stories, what they have to say about society's problems, as the people whose literal careers are to deal with them, the explanation of systemic failure rings more and more hollow.
That is neither required, or ideal in looking at the actual problems. the Inherent bias their outlook makes any opinions they have on the solutions suspect in the first place. Plus police are not trained researcher nor are likely to understand the root cause of the social problems that stretch back generations as such would likely propose the same "solutions" that have failed for those same generations. Such as increased prison terms for offenders, more draconian surveillance, decrease accountability in policing (some times called "giving police more unilateral authority at the street level). etc etc ad nauseam
For example most police officers when polled support the War on Drugs and oppose efforts to legalize narcotics, even though in every objective analysis of the facts the War on Drugs as a objective failure on every front,
Socially, the US is almost hilariously authoritarian, we aren't at any sort of interesting benchmark when it comes to respect for personal freedom.
(The US Constitution is well written enough that our system has less and less blatant hypocrisy when it comes to personal freedoms, but that's different than broader society actually respecting personal freedom)
I'm only speaking to Android but unfortunately many Android apps don't implement cloud backup; if you wipe the app you lose your information or progress. From memory everything from Google's 2FA app authenticator to popular games like Bloons don't do off-device saves at all or automatically. So it's not quite as easy as "just wipe your device and restore a backup." At a minimum you need to root your phone and install a third party backup app like Titanium backup.
I've been using Google's 2FA app for years but switched fairly recently to Authy because it allows for multiple devices to be used as authenticators. It would also allow you to wipe a device and add it back.
I'm using an iPhone but used to use Android. It's surprising to hear that there's not something equivalent to the measly 5GB of online storage that Apple gives. Terrible for backups but good for sharing state from apps.
Adb has a backup function you can use to download an apps data. I assume there is a reciprocal function to restore, but I've never used it.
The confirmation dialog that comes up on the phone looks like it is intended as an end user backup feature, but I've never seen a way to do it without enabling developer mode.
IME it's a pain in the ass to backup your phone this way -- you have to download and setup development tools, and sometimes things fail in ways that are hard to explain. Inaccessible for the non-technical user, and frustrating for the savvy, aside from android developers. Furthermore, on phones with locked bootloaders (e.g. Pixel) it's impossible to root your phone in order to make the process of doing full-device backups easier.
That being said, if anyone knows a way to do full-device backups on the Pixel series phones, let me know.
I've used Helium a few times before (by the maker of CWM), does it work on Android P?
That reminds me, I just moved 3 Android phones recently (Samsung GN5 broke -> Redmi 4A backup -> Redmi Note 5 replacement), and the only cloud backup that worked were WhatsApp and Line :/ I should backup all my apps for the next time.
Even stupider: first class personal mail in the US can not be opened without a warrant. So you can mail your iPhone to your destination before you go.
My friend was on a list because his father is a high ranking police officer in another country friendly to the US (if you think about something like an executive in the FBI you'll be close). Every time he entered the US, his electronics were seized -- presumably to see if they could get some information about his father (because spying on friendly countries is still a thing). Since he often went to the US to give talks at conferences, he eventually realised that he could mail his laptop to the conference and it would get there every time.
> Even stupider: first class personal mail in the US can not be opened without a warrant. So you can mail your iPhone to your destination before you go.
You can, but postal delivery (especially cross border) suffers from a much higher rate of "packet loss" than you keeping your phone with you, and phones can be incredibly useful during travel before you reach your final destination where the phone is supposedly waiting for you (for example, to call/hire transportation, coordinate with people, notify about delays or that you're ok, make alternative arrangements if there are issues, keep track of connections/flight status, not to mention being able to continue to work or use them for entertainment, etc).
Also keep in mind that stuff that crosses the border by mail can also be seized for a variety of reasons.
And of course, there is the issue of price: if you want to ship your phone across the border and not be without it for too long, with insurance & tracking, it's not going to be particularly cheap.
Unless you're actually using it as a USB drive, my guess is that this is mostly pictures/videos (which syncs automatically in both Android and iCloud), audio files (which you can backup or use Spotify) and application caches (deletable)
Not as easy but do an encrypted backup on to a laptop. I know it's not the point you're trying to make but just thinking out loud how someone could do this. Do a backup, wipe phone, minimal setup so it has nothing on it but is functioning, pass border then restore.
With gate scanners getting more and more invasive, that's actually likely to get noticed (it's the first place they look for drugs...).
Just put the sd card in a checked-in bag, which is only scanned for large threats (bombs, firearms, animals, and smelly drugs). Anything looking like a little piece of plastic among little pieces of plastic will simply be ignored.
You realize that most data plans have limited volume, right? Mine is technically a flatrate, but after 1.5 GB I get throttled to 2G (which is about as fast as dialup).
I did exactly that and flying back from Germany to Usa, I was heavily questioned at the border as of “why is my phone empty”. It took 3 hours of details i dont want to get into. This is my last time flying with cellphone. Next time im just gonna buy one when i land and leave it with friends for my next european trip.
US boarders have long list of questions you are supposed to be asked every time you enter country, but because its over 800 questions, its impossible and impractical to ask everyone. Someone who travel with entirely wiped out phone is an exception of the rule, I imagine.
Sample of questions:
- have you ever been associated with Nazi party?
- have you ever been associated with any Cuban government agency?
- do you know anyone that is terrorist?
Etc. Some questions repeat later on, some are constructed different way but ask the same. All questions are only YES or NO. And you clear if you have all NO checked.
I keep hearing that the constitution doesn't apply at the border, but it seems too incredible to believe.
To the question, "Do you know anyone that is a terrorist?" I would have to answer, "Probably" or at least, "I don't know." I could not truthfully answer, "No." Neither could just about anybody.
It seems pretty clear to me that it would be improper to detain somebody because their phone was too clean and they do not know if they know anybody who is a terrorist.
Can anybody point to actual case law that supports the claim that such persons are not protected by the constitution? There is a lot of scaremongering in this area, but I haven't seen any actual case law. Of course, I haven't paid much attention either. But the only cases I have seen have been decided in favor of the citizen.
I'm pretty sure there is a limit to how long a Highway Patrol officer can keep me on the side of the road without an arrest or a ticket. I know there is a limit to how long I can be detained by police without being charged. There must be a time limit to how long CBP can take to ask me 800 questions. Or rather, how long they could detain me while I answer 0 questions and repeatedly ask for an attorney.
I am glad there are people willing to spend the time to hold them accountable when it would be easier to just move on and try to forget the whole thing.
The former president of my country (Uruguay) was a terrorist (or "freedom fighter"), and so is the current vice-president. So, does every national at my country have to say "Yes"?
"It's easy to just leave an encrypted copy of all your phone's data online, reset your phone to factory settings, travel, and then restore your data to your phone" - Easy indeed, but having to do so shouldn't be needed.
GP is talking about The Bad Guys. Point being: if you're a Bad Guy, you're gonna encrypt your data. It's easy, and obvious. The likelihood of catching any Bad Guys with this is, therefore, very slim. Far outweighed by the price paid by the Good Guys, who don't go through that rigmarole, and just get their privacy violated.
That's the argument, in essence (which I mostly agree with, the childish tone notwithstanding).
I don't think the Bad Guys will even be doing that. Anything elict is going to go through a $20 dollar burner if The Bad Guys are the least bit competent, because carrying anything incrimitating on your person 24/7 is just generally a stupid thing to do
You will catch some Bad Guys with this approach, but only the ones who are also dumb. That’s not an insignificant portion of them, but it means the smarter ones, who are more dangerous, might get away.
yeah but this way some middle-manager bureaucrat type gets to pad their numbers and request 15% more budget next year. Catching 15 nobodies a month looks better than catching 1 actual big fish a year.
Not really. Any agent who believes this is going to quickly learn that there are a significant number of travelers who travel with newly-issued/rental devices.
Two of my previous employers would issue thin-client loaner laptops for travel to countries with espionage concerns.
Even when I travel internationally myself, I rent phones keyed for the destination network and use them in their factory-reset status. No sense in loading up a device with apps and crap for something I'm only going to need for a week.
It's easy to "just" tell the police you want a lawyer and won't answer any questions, yet every day people waive this right and confess or are caught in lies.
"Ineffective against a clever adversary" and "effective against loads of real-world criminals" are routinely true at the same time.
