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I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection
- arnon 10y agoTerrifying
- marak830 10y agoThese officers refused to identify themselves to me at all, which is interesting " Is that even legal?
- clowd 10y agoAnd if it isn't, what's anyone going to do about it? Those officers were "never there," and that part of the encounter "never happened," and no one can prove otherwise. Welcome to America, your cell is down the hall...
- lolikoisuru 10y ago>and no one can prove otherwise. Someone could, but does anyone dare to? Airports have a ton of CCTV cameras.
- syshum 10y agoSince when has something being legal or illegal ever stopped US law enforcement. There is no actual accountability, so why should they care if what they do is illegal. They are the law, and they make shit up as they go
- gorbachev 10y agoBorder entry points aren't legally in United States and you have absolutely no rights whatsoever, even if a US citizen, when at those locations. There is nothing new about this, but it's been getting worse ever since the evul hackers started subverting the US Government by encrypting and leaking the Government's illegal activities.
- zeroer 10y agoI missed that part in the constitution where it said these rights not available in all areas.
- rhizome 10y agoNot in the Constitution per se, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception
- zeroer 10y agoThat was kind of my point. It's not in the constitution and conflicts with the constitution.
- Nrsolis 10y agoIt doesn't conflict with the Constitution and this is a common misunderstanding by laymen about how the law works in the USA. "Case Law" vs "Statutory Law" is the name of the game here. To not beat a dead horse: every single decision made by the Supreme Court is effectively in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Any part of the Constitution can be interpreted, modified, or nullified by a decision of the Supreme Court. So, when the SCOTUS decides that an exemption against prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure applies at the border, you can be assured that they view it as "constitutional".
- syshum 10y agoWhich is contrary to how many of the framers wanted the nation to be run... I cite Jefferson >>"The Constitution... meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." --Thomas Jefferson [1804] >>"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves." --Thomas Jefferson [1820] >>"This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt." --Thomas Jefferson [1825] Over the last 200 years to much reverence and power has been placed in the hands of the Supreme Court, and the federal government in general.
- avenoir 10y agoYou probably have more wiggle room with law enforcement than you do with Border Patrol or US Customs. These guys have free reign and can do whatever the fuck they want, especially after 9/11. I'm sure there is accountability at some level, most likely unattainable by mere humans.
- seanp2k2 10y agoThey did it and I guarantee no one will be held accountable for it, so what would it being illegal matter in this case? They do whatever they want to you if the state really wants to harass you, laws be damned.
- psybin 10y agoGuess what, absolutely nothing will happen if the border guards do anything wrong. You're the criminal, not them.
- alasdair_ 10y agoIf he felt strongly about it, simply saying something like "I don't believe that you are a police officer" and refusing to obey would probably eventually work. (And yes, I know that CBP are not the same thing as police but this seems to more reasonably be the sort of thing that someone would say.)
- walrus01 10y agoFor those not in the loop, this is the guy who runs http://cock.li http://cock.li
- tscs37 10y agowelp, two of my email addresses are at stake here
- lolikoisuru 10y agoHe is back home now. Your addresses aren't at stake anymore.
- pizza 10y agoI incorrectly assumed that site had been pwned.. is 'prurient' the word I'm thinking of? 'Salacious', maybe?
- Girlang 10y agoIt's because of people like him that there's no women in Computer Science!
- angry-hacker 10y agoWhy are all the names profanities? Serious questions.. Some are pretty.. Racist. Why people use this service, because of transparency and anonymity?
- luckystartup 10y agoHe's an active member of 4chan, and that's how this email service was started. Similar to Imgur being made for Reddit users. It's basically a culture of trolling people and making lots of overly sexual and racist jokes. The porn on his phone was "nude anime girls with MAGA hats". A lot of 4chan users seem to be Trump supporters. I'm not sure what percentage are actual Trump supporters, versus people who just want to troll the US with memes and watch the world burn. One of the email domains is "tfwno.gf", which means: "That feel(ing) when (you have) no girlfriend". Depression and loneliness is a common theme, so there's a lot of lonely people taking out their frustration. There's also a lot of pretty normal people who just enjoy being rude and gross for no reason. 4chan can be a pretty dark and weird place. But I've heard there can also be some fairly positive sub-communities and good discussions.
- ChuckMcM 10y agoSadly this is feeling more and more like the new 'normal'. Carry a copy of your essential data, heavily encrypted, in an 'attachable' hard drive. Leave the expensive display and keyboard (aka laptop) at home. Now I'm wondering if I can patch Asterix so that if I text it a particular challenge and response will it take the number that is texting it and route my phone number to it.
- walrus01 10y agoOr don't carry anything, and take an old thinkpad with basically a throwaway thin client OS on it set up to allow you access to a vnc-over-ssh session elsewhere.
- throwawayish 10y agoEd25519 keys are short... someone with a good memory should be able to memorize their private key (it's just 32 bytes).
- bjelkeman-again 10y agoWhat would be a good tutorial for those that aren't familiar with this?
- pizza 10y agoThese links might be a good step in the direction of familiarization http://askubuntu.com/questions/304017/how-to-set-up-remote-desktop-sharing-through-ssh http://askubuntu.com/questions/304017/how-to-set-up-remote-d... http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/86666/how-to-handle-disk-encryption-for-remote-connection http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/86666/how-to-han...
- johnbellone 10y agoI picked up a $160 Chomebook Thinkpad and it works great for this purpose.
- Vinkekatten 10y ago
- ploddington 10y agoIt would be fun to start a meme of carrying antiquated electronic waste devices, and getting them confiscated as a means of disposal. Encrypt them with spacefiller data and start crossing borders, and then refuse to provide passwords and abandon them for sheer amusement. Way more fun than recycling old laptops and batteries. And better than planning to travel empty handed, in anticipation of getting ripped off by pesky customs guards.
- walrus01 10y agoCarry an ancient, worthless 50 pound 2U rackmount server with a giant sticker on it that says "wikileaks mobile data collection unit", while the 6 x 36GB raid array is entirely full of a barebones centos install, ext4 partition and h.264 videos of never gonna give you up.
- pcardh0 10y agoIs there something more to the story? I travel with laptops and iPads all the time. Never been stopped.
- gorbachev 10y agoYou're not on a Government watch list. Start working on Tor, LavaBit, Wikileaks or any other technology initiative the Government sees as a risk, and see what happens. Alternatively you could also start acting as a publisher of leaked Government documents.
- johnchristopher 10y agoWhat about some of the interesting domain names in the list featured on his website ? Some might tip off someone in a federal agency to have a look on the guy.
- angry_octet 10y agoAnd in MAGA land, probably many other thought crimes. Like, going to a women's rights march.
- angry_octet 10y agohttps://www.washingtonpost.com/local/canadian-traveling-to-womens-march-said-he-was-turned-away-at-the-us-border/2017/01/21/79e4b4ee-dff9-11e6-918c-99ede3c8cafa_story.html?utm_term=.e5a1b1d451c5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/canadian-traveling-to-w...
- shrimp_emoji 10y agoYou've got it wrong; it's the regressive left who convicts people of thought time. In "MAGA land", you're free to piss the left off in defiance of their byzantine schemes of political correctness.
- angry_octet 10y agoCBP are known to be resoundingly pro-Trump. It was a great example of perverting their authority to discriminate against views they don't like. The next step will be to mark NGOs as having 'foreign influence'. Pretty soon RT'ing Amnesty International or the EFF will exclude you from government or sub-contractor employment. Just look at what happens in Russia.
- nodamage 10y agoIs this person a US citizen?
- lolikoisuru 10y agoYes, he is. Tho he moved to Romania last year.
- anondon 10y agoGenuinely curious if anyone here experienced something similar (being asked to unlock all your devices) and if so how often?
- psybin 10y agoIt's standard. All people who are taken aside by customs in the US are given a standard form which asks for all passwords and keys for all devices they own. This is so they can immediately use the content on them to reject you from the country. It's presented to you in such a way that you are to believe you have no option but to fill out the form. You're offered the ability to talk to your embassy, but are told that is a useless opportunity that won't get you anything of value.
- 0xffff2 10y agoSince no one is explicitly saltating it, this only applies to non-citizens, right? What's the process when a U.S. citizen is "taken aside"? I would categorically tell them to fuck off. Do I face jail time instrad of refused entry?
- psybin 10y agoNon US citizens. Ask a lawyer.
- rosser 10y agoUS citizens can't be denied entry. They can, however, have their devices seized upon entry, and can enter the country, only to proceed directly into custody, whether CBP or someone else's.
- ubernostrum 10y agoIn general, a US citizen can be detained for some time, interrogated and searched in an unpleasant fashion, have property they carry with them seized, and be subjected to (illegal, but it happens regardless) retaliatory prosecution under nuisance-type charges for being uncooperative or for being perceived to challenge the authority of the CBP employee, but cannot be denied entry to the United States.
- rdslw 10y agoMight be slightly off-topic, but I'm still curious about one experience: On return flight from US I refused to use full body scanner. I got 'thorough pat' (called that way probably to scare us, although it wasn't so bad), also my carry-on was checked in detailed way.Interesting things happened further, I have two stage flight. 1. On first landing in Germany, while moving by foot to next connection, I was picked by Germany border officers from all passengers going through corridor, and examined for about 5 minutes, also my carry on was scanned. Nothing serious, but happened first time ever (try of 20 I would say) 2. on final destination, while I picked my checked bag, it was marked with stickers, and I was picked by border people of my country, also asked, both bags checked. 3. At home I saw TSA notice inside of my checked bag. Last thing wasn't unusual, I would say I had it on 30% flights from US, but all three items in a row connected somehow (?) to the full body scan refusal, were a little bit too much for a pure coincidence.
- HappyTypist 10y agoAs someone who refuses body scans every time and have never had anything happen (Other than a brief secondary that involved waiting for 5 minutes and a "Sorry, you're good to go"), I don't think refusing the full body scanners has anything to do with it
- ninjin 10y agoLikewise, I have refused scanning in the US, England, and the Netherlands, for the last 8 years and don't have much to report. As much as I hate security theatre, I try to be polite and when asked for the reason I opt out I state that it is political, the devices don't make us safer, and I'd like them to hire more personnel instead ("just like you fine Sir"). In the US, apart from an occasional sigh, my worst experiences have been being insulted by an agent at SFO and an agent putting my shoes with the soles down on my laptop at ORD despite me asking him not to. I do however find that agents in the UK are much less cooperative with "nutcases" such as me, with one officer stating that I made her feel "uncomfortable" by standing as opposed to sitting while waiting since I insisted on seeing my belongings as they take no responsibility for them.
- lolikoisuru 10y agoThat title is editorialized. Cock.li is not an anonymous email server, it's a regularemail service.
- rdslw 10y agoThis makes it even more interesting. Also this creates us cool insight how to do them DOS: let's bring old hdd/sdd drives with random on it, and let them spend their CPU to break it. Sensible recycle for the environment and freedom.
- psybin 10y agoThey can use a $5 wrench attack. Breaking encryption isn't something that happens in the real world.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- matheusmoreira 10y agoRubber-hose cryptanalysis is standard procedure in United States airports?
- Zak 10y agoWhat we're reading about here is the mild version of it: they won't beat you, but they'll take all your stuff and you may or may not ever see it again. Most people will comply. It's not going to work against anybody who has anything really valuable and knows they're a target, but that's not the point.
- throws9001 10y agoProbably they are not really after the data here. This is way to intimidate people and to discourage others from participant in projects which are not appreciated by the US officials. This kind of publicity is actually beneficial for the officials. More people see what kind of trouble you maybe get into should you start contributing to Tor or other similar projects.
- 109981283091 10y agoThe bizarre thing is that once upon a time these "contraband" checks were a thing at the East German (communist) border. You would be checked for unwanted newspapers, literature etc. At the time the U.S. was vehemently against the practice ...
- PythonicAlpha 10y agoWhen you compare things, you will end up, that today those people have for more elaborate techniques for spying on us. When the people which have done it in East Germany, look at what is done in the West today, they have tears in their eyes, because what they did was Kindergarden in comparison.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago... but now they've had to destroy the village to save it, again. Drats. Those were some nice freedoms.
- mirimir 10y agoThe safest option is traveling light. Just a cheap notebook and phone, containing no sensitive data, which you will abandon if compromised/confiscated. That way, you attract little attention at borders. Keep your data online, securely encrypted, and buy equipment "anonymously" for cash.
- Anderkent 10y agoThe safest option, and what I recommend to all my friends, is to simply take vacation somewhere else. Lots of countries around in europe and asia that actually welcome visitors. Especially if you'd need a visa to visit the USA; seriously, not worth the effort.
- tajen 10y agoExactly, I refuse to go to USA even for conferences I'm invited to speak at. Many countries invite you without compromising your phone or telling you that drugs you've done are a national security threat. Plus if you have ever watched porn on your phone or laptop, you can be blackmailed with jail time. USA just doesn't desire people like us.
- morganvachon 10y ago> Exactly, I refuse to go to USA even for conferences I'm invited to speak at. And unfortunately, it's only going to get worse. Our new glorious leader is extremely nationalist and isolationist, and I truly fear it won't be long before we're as bad as NK; no one in or out except those personally approved by the president. Not necessarily during his reign, but perhaps in the next 20 years or so. A year ago if anyone had told me what I just wrote, I'd have laughed in their faces, but it seems at least half the citizens of this nation feel the same as him, that America should be a walled-in island and fuck the rest of the world.
- hueving 10y ago>Plus if you have ever watched porn on your phone or laptop, you can be blackmailed with jail time You lost me here. Porn isn't illegal in the US. Are you thinking of the new UK porn laws?
- nraynaud 10y agoUSA: make East Germany great again.
- aaronmdjones 10y agoI was wondering why I could not resolve cock.li from where I am right now; and thought this may be related, but it turns out the DNSSEC signatures have expired[1] so my resolver is rejecting the answers. [1] http://dnsviz.net/d/cock.li/dnssec/ http://dnsviz.net/d/cock.li/dnssec/
- gexcolo 10y agoThis is probably because I had set up DNSSEC on my nameservers, but my registrar doesn't yet support DNSSEC for .li. I plan on moving to another registrar once the domain is closer to expiry. I guess I'll try to do something sooner than that to remove the DNSSEC entries that my nameserver is returning.
- jimnotgym 10y agoWow a page full of horrifying border control experiences. Perhaps all those people who like to say Schengen free movement is a bad idea might want to reconsider?
- throwanem 10y agoPerhaps we in the US simply need to rein in our border guards, and have done for quite a long time. The experience of other nations proves it is possible to arrive at a satisfactory medium between the extremes of Schengen and Stasi. I'd hoped under Obama we'd do so, but lots of people hoped for lots of things under Obama that didn't happen. Under Trump it doesn't seem likely we'll improve on the current situation; if anything, I'd expect it will get worse. But perhaps the man will surprise us.
- scarlac 10y agoIn practise, the Schengen agreement does not entirely protect you from the security checkpoints in the airports. It just frees you from the passport control. I used to love to fly but now actively avoid it. I've been groped, accused, shoved, stolen from, stripped down and set to wait enough that I simply don't enjoy it anymore. All that said, I still find the US TSA even more ridiculous and slow.
- nraynaud 10y agoSome countries have enjoyed the Schengen agreement to mean "now our entire country is a border zone where customs have special powers". But it's true that I prefer going to a neighboring country by train without any border stop than the ridiculous and demeaning airport experience.
- aestetix 10y agoWhy do we only hear stories about this from the US and not from China or Russia?
- Asooka 10y agoRussia aren't interested in pointless security theatre, if they're interested in you, you just wake up at an enhanced interrogation facility, or you have all your stuff searched without anyone notifying you. Both also have tighter controls on what gets posted. I'd say Russia also have a big interest in appearing better than the USA, so they can just tell their citizens: "Look at the kind of shit they do in the USA; while when you enter our great country of Russia, you just come in peacefully". Back in the day part of anti-USA propaganda was "USA treats blacks in horrific ways, we treat everyone equally".
- mjolk 10y agoI think it ultimately comes down to the type of person working in airport security -- in Russia, you interact with police or military affiliated staff when you "enjoy" special attention. In the US, you're dealing with a very numerous staff of people without special training being paraded as a type of "elite security" for the country. Anecdotally, at the US border, I've had TSA deny a small wooden children's toy because they got drunk on a fiction that I could break it or combine it with other items to make some sort of weapon (a ridiculous idea), and, on another instance, deny a carabiner because they believed I could use it as a sort of "brass knuckles" (also ridiculous and demonstrative that none of the involved parties were even passingly familiar with punching (as a carabiner would simply cut into the puncher's hand)). At the Russian border, I misheard an important question and answered incorrectly, and the treatment was professional and grounded in reality (confirmation of the type of work I do, my documents, and my purpose for being in the country). On the American side, the workers have big imaginations and are incentivized to invent things to catch. On the Russian side, they're looking for suspicious outliers.
- paradite 10y agoBecause if you are anti-China, you will probably not want to travel to China in the first place. And if you are pro-China, then you have nothing to hide and is of no interest to the custom.
- mhomde 10y agoQuestion, say that I travel with an reset telephone, can you be forced to "install" it, complete setup and enter account information so it syncs it with your icloud/google/microsoft acocunt?
- nraynaud 10y agothe issue is: "do you want to cross this border or not?". If you want to cross, unless it's your country, you have to comply with everything, without any oversight or appeal. You're outside of every single Constitutional protection, in an international zone.
- bitexploder 10y agoKind of hard for them know if you have that or not. As a visiting non-citizen you have no real recourse, though.
- snuze 10y agoAlthough unlikely, they might be interested in seeing it turned on to make sure that it's a functional telephone.
- 2ion 10y agoI've always been guarding against such things whenever I passed through a non-free or otherwise questionable country's air ports: Laptop contents were pruned of everything, leaving just the base OS, and data was stored redundantly on dedicated servers connected to the internet. I then would connect via SSH or VPN, unlock the encrypted partitions and download whatever I needed. The only countries where I got treated in an appropriate, respectful manner at airports were Japan (both entry and exit as a foreign citizen) and Germany. UK (Heathrow) and VAE just had idiots and bullies for security and were my worst experiences. Which I'm assuming is entirely intentional. Going for the headphones even is really a bit stark I'd say. Needlessly to say, I don't fly to or via these countries whenever I can avoid it at a good price.
- oskarth 10y agoI've lived for more than a year in both Berlin and London, flying a lot to and from their respective airports. The difference is indeed huge. I've never had any major issues personally, but I know several people who've had major problems (detained for hours and invasive body search, etc) at London airports. When I left my job in London a few months ago it was such a relief to know that would probably be the last time for a long time I had to spend time at one of London's airport, LHR/LGW/LTN/STN. The only pleasant one is LCY, which is really nice but unfortunately quite local (lots of Swiss flights). Whenever I land at TXL or SXF in Berlin there's a sense of liberty. They are both very primitive airports, but I literally feel the absence of Stasi there, at least for now. People in Berlin have quite an intimate and visceral relationship with surveillance due to their recent past, so you can feel the counter forces of that in the atmosphere.
- TillE 10y agoThe UK was fine several years ago. Now (since Cameron?) they make US citizens fill out a card and give you a weirdly personal interrogation. Yeah, Berlin is much more relaxed. Usually they just wave you through, and last time I entered the border guard gave me some friendly advice about renewing my passport and other documents.
- deleted 10y ago
- Havoc 10y agoYip. Traveling to the US is ironically the one place where I'd be concerned about my rights & freedom. Their tourist harassment force really needs to relax.
- hackits 10y agoIronically we have a company memo a couple of weeks back advising all employees if traveling to the US to wipe all data on their laptops (Even paid for new SSD's), and download everything via the cloud when we arrive over VPN. I think the guys and I just cleared out as much stuff as possible and then had to images on the server (clean) and (business).
- finid 10y agoAll of my devices are encrypted. Though I'll be doing some key rotation as a result of this, I'm confident none of the devices will be able to be decrypted. That's what I always advice folks to do.
- finid 10y agoKali Linux has a nuke option for Luks-encrypted devices [1]. Just not sure if that patch has been updated. [1]: http://linuxbsdos.com/2014/01/09/a-kali-linux-cryptsetup-patch-that-can-nuke-an-encrypted-disk/ http://linuxbsdos.com/2014/01/09/a-kali-linux-cryptsetup-pat...
- rwmj 10y agoGood job they've seized those dangerous headphones and USB cables ... It makes no rational sense because if you think the headphones are more than they appear to be (eg. they have a secret memory card), then why not seize every other solid item -- pens, toothbrush, even the suitcase itself could be suspicious. So the conclusion is this is just designed to intimidate and inconvenience.
- lolikoisuru 10y ago>Good job they've seized those dangerous headphones and USB cables ... You need to seize them if you want to hide spying devices in them.
- awqrre 10y agothey might have seen with scanners that no electronics were present in his pens, etc..
- Steeeve 10y agoAs an American citizen who travelled extensively up until TSA made me too miserable to continue, I am absolutely embarrassed about the travel situation in the United States. I grew up in the land of freedom, and grew up hating overzealous and pointless "security" associated with the iron curtain. We have freedom of speech, which inherently means freedom of thought. At one point we were the bastion of freedom and hope, and a leader in this regard. Nobody should fear harassment because they happened to speak at DEFCON anymore than one should fear harassment because they spoke at Jesus camp, or the science fair for that matter. We SHOULD be encouraging people to come here and talk about things that might get them in trouble in their home countries. We SHOULD take a position of leadership and protect the basic inalienable rights of all people regardless of their citizenship, alliances, or thoughts. I am absolutely appalled at the state that our government has arrived at. I am stunned that after such a strong revocation of the previous leadership that Obama's generation sought to increase security theater, decrease freedom, and decrease the rights afforded to our own citizens and our visitors. The enemy of our freedom isn't thousands of miles away in some terrorist training camp. It's the people we freely elect who have seemingly no forethought and no historical understanding of our fundamental values. A leader isn't someone who looks to cover his ass at every opportunity. A leader is someone who stands up, tells people there is something wrong, and pushes us back to the values that we were raised to be proud of. You don't have to be president to be a leader. Every police officer, every border agent, every engineer, janitor, and unemployed citizen can stand up at some point and see enough is enough. People need to stop arguing about politics and stop worrying about the boogey man. People need to start caring about freedom and they need to stop the culture of fear. Sorry... This whole discussion hit a sore spot for me. I have always been a proud american and this kind of behavior just flies in the face of the values I was raised to embrace.
- tallanvor 10y agoI'm an American expat who tries to return to the US as little as possible, primarily because of the shit I've been put through. As a US citizen, I shouldn't be submitted to invasive search after invasive search just because I had to buy a last minute ticket back to the US because a close relative either died or was close to death (seriously, my mother died less than an hour after I got there). The way I see it, if the shit I have to go through is that bad, the stuff they put non-Americans through is probably 10 times worse, and I'm embarrassed and pissed off that "my" country treats people that way. In no way do our boarder guards represent my beliefs, values, or integrity.
- known 10y agoFacism?
- ergot 10y agoWorth listening to Jake Appelbaum's 'digital anti repression workshop' [1]. In this he explains why he takes the hard-drive out of his laptop and just uses a TailsOS thumb-drive for his computing. It would be actually hilarious when staff ask to peruse the contents of your computer for contraband, only to discover the laptop doesn't have a hard-drive. [1]: part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHoJ9pQ0cn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHoJ9pQ0cn8 [#]: part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9fByRmAHgU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9fByRmAHgU
- lolikoisuru 10y agoBringing up jake here won't be very effective since HN quite strongly sides with the people who orchestrated the character assassination campaign.
- ergot 10y agoQuite apart from all the drama surrounding him, I just wanted to share one of his many informative talks. (I was wondering why it got downvoted and thanks for clarifying)
- lolikoisuru 10y agoNo problem m8.
- lucb1e 10y agoPlease refrain from certain political posts here when the person you're responding to merely linked videos to technical ways of defending yourself.
- lolikoisuru 10y agoI made a comment on why his post was getting downvoted to hell. The person even thanked me for clarifying to him why it happened. Pull your head out of your ass and see that there are more to things than your biases.
- RichardHeart 10y agoI don't foresee any event which would cause the right to be free from unreasonable searches at the border to be acquired. I guess the only hope is the supreme court?
- mjolk 10y agoHe runs services for 4chan that were used to send threats. Unreasonable is hard to quantify, but to be careful, this shouldn't be confused with a routine traveller.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- andrewpi 10y ago> I guess the only hope is the supreme court? It's already been litigated, and there are multiple Supreme Court holdings that say that the government does not need reasonable suspicion to search you at the border.
- grkvlt 10y agoThe fact that it is an international border makes all searches reasonable by definition, I believe.
- vowelless 10y agoThis is ridiculous! Some colleagues and I get back from Barcelona in December and while I didn't have any problems [1], my colleague who is Indian born, but with a green card, was questioned for 30 or so minutes. Gladly he didn't have his electronics seized but as a permanent resident of this country, one would have expected some better treatment. American border security has been among the most draconian one since I set foot into this country in 2007 [2]. I don't have high hopes from the next 4 to 8 years either. Conferences should start moving outside of the US. I don't see a point in non-Americans wanting to vacation in the US either -- there are a lot of other great places in the world. [1] I am born in the Middle East, with a name that raises all the alarm bells for the DHS and was on the NSEERS list. I was detained in 2010 for a few hours in DC on my way back from the Middle East (everything short of a full cavity search was done). As soon as I got my green card, I applied for Global Entry and now don't have to interact with any border security agents on my way back into the country. [2] In my early days, my boarding pass would have SSSS either hand written or printed on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_Security_Screening_Selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_Security_Screening_S...
- kevin_thibedeau 10y agoI once knew a Mexican green card holder whose name was a soundex match to someone on the most wanted list. Suffice to say re-entering the US was a challenge for him.
- lrem 10y agoA friend of mine happens to have a somewhat similar surname and come from the same country as a known terrorist. He just gave up and refuses to travel to USA any more, despite being a senior engineer in Google.
- pyro2927 10y agoJust flew back to the US from Spain last week and had SSSS on my ticket. Fun times...
- paradite 10y agoRelated discussions on border control: U.S. government begins asking foreign travelers about social media https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13242620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13242620
- gexcolo 10y agoI'm the author of the OP's post. When I left the U.S. one of the questions that I was asked (that I refused to answer) was whether I used any social media and what the accounts were. The sites that they listed as examples were Facebook and WhatsApp, which I found particularly interesting.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoThe porn on the burner phone trip back seemed to defuse the agents. So maybe a strategy could be to have all your important work be encrypted, but have the a decoy boot which you reluctantly unlock after acting all nervous which contains legal porn in an open browser.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dman 10y agoWonder if I can get TSA to do data recovery for some HDDs that I have that crashed.
- kps 10y agoHah. A couple years ago I flew across the border with a suitcase full of 9-track tapes. I did get a TSA inspection notice, but I strongly doubt they read them — I'm sure it was just a “WTF is that?” on the baggage x-ray.
- un-devmox 10y agoFor those that don't know who don't know who Vincent Canfield is (I didn't), it is worth reading up on the man as he is a fascinating if not controversial person with a flair for raw/abrasive humor and a confrontational manner. He faced extradition and criminal charges in Germany [0] and his email service, cock.li, was at the center of the terrorist hoax against US schools [1]. [0] https://twitter.com/gexcolo/status/715640881651564544?lang=en https://twitter.com/gexcolo/status/715640881651564544?lang=e... [1] http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-story-of-cockli-the-site-used-to-shut-down-the-la-school-district http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-story-of-cockli-the-sit... I would like to respond to a few comments: > Why do we only hear stories about this from the US and not from China or Russia? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13454966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13454966 As a proud US citizen, I understand the slight you are feeling. It's as if we are continually being picked on and singled out for every misstep. In these types of thread I always see comments like: > USA: make East Germany great again. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13454689 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13454689 > Yip. Traveling to the US is ironically the one place where I'd be concerned about my rights & freedom. Their tourist harassment force really needs to relax. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13455194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13455194 Which infuriate me! But, we (as US citizens) should be held to the highest of standards because at times what we preach as a country is contradicted by our actions. It's not good enough to say, "Well, this is an isolated incident," or "Look at what x_country does." To justify abusive over reaching actions by our government based on what another country does is not logical or constructive. What we need to do is improve ourselves as a country and by doing so maybe set an example for others.
- stefantalpalaru 10y ago> He faced extradition and criminal charges in Germany [0] That was actually an April Fools joke: https://cock.li/transparency/april-fools-2016.txt https://cock.li/transparency/april-fools-2016.txt
- tmaly 10y agoI was flying from Indiana back to New York last week. I got flagged for a search because they said my bag had some residue. Utter BS I have travelled with the bag for over 20 years. On the plane I was talking with the person next to me. I told her it was all security theater and she could not believe I could say that.
- brokenmachine 10y agoAny cash from your wallet would set off those ion scan detectors as well, since it has probably at some point come in contact with other cash that has at some point in time come in contact with drugs. They are ridiculously oversensitive to the point of being useless. The lady on the plane probably has no original thoughts beyond what Fox News has told her.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 10y agoReports of people being denied entry for political reasons even though they should be guaranteed entry: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/21/1623180/-Canadians-French-British-Denied-Entry-to-the-United-States-to-attend-Protest-March https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/21/1623180/-Canadian... (yes, it's dailykos, I'm sure there will be a claim of fake news)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- orbitingpluto 10y agoWhy would you cross any border with electronics with data on them? Especially if you went to 33C3? Especially in this climate? Why didn't you just SSH everything? You can easily resync your contacts/data on your phone after you cross the border. You can keep the few you must have on the recently reset phone. If you travel often, why don't you have a second phone for just this to save you time? I'd think most of us have tech junk piling up. It's less effort to reset or have a 'travel drive' than top go through all the paperwork to (maybe) get stuff back. Maximum laziness. If customs asks you to unlock your phone, nothing gets you through quicker then quick unquestioning compliance. (Of course the current climate is stupid and needs to change.)
- cpayne 10y agoI travel with my wife and 2 kids. I have NOTHING! And yet, I am hyper aware of how I might be perceived. It's one thing to fight the good fight! And its another to poke the bear. I don't agree with your "maximum laziness", perhaps the author was arrogant? Or ignorance? I love the idea of porn on a burner phone, but even then... (Legal) porn has a very different meaning in different countries. The author is really playing with fire. Scott Adams (Dilbert guy) suggested a few months ago a "Better Surrender Technique"[1]. Surely this could be applied to the U.S. Customs... [1] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147192672916/better-surrender-technique http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147192672916/better-surrender-t...
- orbitingpluto 10y agoWhen I said maximum laziness, I tend to think of things in maximizing the expected value of my time. Crossing the border with $3-4k in electronics? Say there's a 5% chance they demand passwords & access. I don't want some nosepicker TSA agent going through my stuff. Refusal to give access means I lose it. So E(X) is $150-200 worth of my time. That means an old i5 laptop. If I need anything I can grab an SSH key off the web somewhere that lets me get another SSH key somewhere else... Plus, you're more at risk of your stuff being stolen when traveling anyway. You shouldn't be risking all of your data getting taken away for good. Even if you comply, that doesn't mean they won't take everything away from you. That raises the potential loss significantly. And fuck Dilbert. I bet that guy has late stage syphilis by now. He's becoming increasingly deranged and disconnected from reality. Oh, the irony.
- WildUtah 10y agoThis story inspired me to get my own @cocaine.ninja email address. I'll be putting it on my resume and all official bank or government correspondence from now on.
- Fiahil 10y agoI wonder, would it be possible to ship sensible devices through another medium (fedex?) instead of taking them through border security? Sure it would be expensive, but at least you don't get confiscated $2k worth of electronics because your name sounds funny.
- beezischillin 10y agoOh, awesome. I'm planning to go visit my business partner in Texas in October, now I'm having serious doubts about the whole trip. (I am dual nationality, Hungarian and Romanian and I have a Hungarian passport which, theoretically, allows me to enter under the Visa Waiver program). By the way, I always travel with my Hungarian passport, because people at the border DO treat you differently. If you're on Romanian papers, you face way more harassment, more waiting and in general it's a lot more of a struggle. I find it incredibly obnoxious that the only who are affected by this entire BS are the people who, I'm quite sure, are not planning to do acts of terrorism, in fact, has anyone noticed that the ones who do are the only ones this sht never managed to stop? Btw, travelling within the EU has gotten a bit more annoying, too. When I left the UK at the beginning of April, last year, I pretty much got through without any issues, they haven't even bothered to look at my passport. I've not been searched, harassed, stolen from by border officials, etc., however in November, I've harassed, scanned, made to take my shoes off (your poison, brother), scanned to sht, and to top it off, the agent who was scanning my backpack stole out of it (2 PS4 video games, worth 20 quid, really?). I'm planning trips to US, Germany, Austria, Ukraine and France this year, however based on experience from last year and now this, I'm pretty much questioning if I should by now. I would've wanted to bring some of my photography equipment with me on these trips, so how risky would you think it would be to travel (for example to the US), if I had a mirrorless camera on me (Sony A6000), two batteries, 5 lenses, a tripod, a 13" laptop and two phones (always prefer to have a backup while traveling abroad)? Background info: I have no convictions, I don't do drugs, I haven't been arrested, I don't attend security conferences and in fact, I'm generally a nobody.
- snuze 10y agoYou should have nothing to worry about. Just follow directions and be cooperative. The people at the border get off on authority. Don't give them a reason to harass you.
- beezischillin 10y agoI try to be the nice to anyone in similar situations and not to obstruct stuff because we all have better things to do than to argue over stupid stuff at the border. Thanks for the information, you kinda put me at ease!
- london888 10y agoUS CBP and others often seem to see themselves as a kind of Special Forces detachment.
- isuckatcoding 10y agoCBP is cancer.
- dirkg 10y agoTSA, HS and Border protection are a bunch of unqualified, uneducated, underpaid thugs put in a position of absolute power with zero consequences, and rewarded for every 'criminal' they catch. What exactly do you think will happen? These are people whose dream job is becoming a cop and being allowed to wield lethal force on anyone with zero questions. The best part is most everyone in this country is so brainwashed they'll actually support this because it keeps us 'great'.
- dirkg 10y agoSo if a friend or family member from Europe wants to visit, they shouldn't travel with their personal laptops, phones etc? All this talk of 'keep your data on a private vpn server and ssh' is so far outside of what a normal person can do its ridiculous. I understand the concerns but 99.999999% of people aren't even aware of these things. And yet they can be arrested, detained indefinitely, and much much worse, for no reason whatsoever, and have their devices confiscated at the very least - and this isn't just a possibility now (as in its possible a black hole will spontaneously emerge and swallow us all) but a very likely probability. So what do we do? Not have any visitors, never travel?
- loydb 10y agoWe're heading to Italy in the Spring (from the US). I'll buy a cheap chromebook the week we leave, never use anything but incognito mode, and we'll rent phones in Italy once we're there.
- kn1ght 10y agoIf something like this were to happen to you, would you then use the electronics that you got back after the seizure? What's to stop them from implanting some malware into the firmware of the device that would then transmit your password/decrypt key and they can go through the encrypted data that they already copied.
- rwoodley 10y agoHmm... coming from the Chaos conference. Refuses to answer questions. Has a ton of equipment. Resides in Romania. And, get this: already involved in a terror hoax that shut every school in LA!! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3367044/Maine-college-drop-21-center-hoax-terrorist-threat-emails-New-York-Las-Vegas-issue-subpoenas-former-student-claims-knows-origin-posts.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3367044/Maine-colleg... What a sense of entitlement. Seems like the TSA was doing their job.
- vorpalhex 10y agoCertainly their job isn't to illegally deny him his right to representation or confiscate without returning his headphones? The CC conference is hardly some blackhat meetup. Likewise, Romania is by no means our enemy. So a guy, who has followed the law entirely, coming from a friendly country from a well known meeting, should be denied his basic legal rights and have his equipment confiscated... why exactly? What law did he break? How did TSA (or what you actually mean in this case, the CBP) "save us" from this gentleman?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- nulagrithom 10y ago"Involved" is a stretch. He runs an email service that was used to send the emails. One of his users sent the hoax emails.
- baybal2 10y agoAmericans? When will you fight and kill them?
- maerF0x0 10y agoWhat does one do if they dont have a lawyer's number on hand?
- beegeezuz 10y agoI was going to visit Defcon this year for the first in my life, never been to USA before. I think I'll take a rain check.