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> Encrypt them with spacefiller data and start crossing borders, and then refuse to provide passwords and abandon them for sheer amusement. You don't get that
by psybin 10y ago
> Encrypt them with spacefiller data and start crossing borders, and then refuse to provide passwords and abandon them for sheer amusement.
You don't get that option. The first thing that happens to everybody who is attempting to enter the US and flagged is that they give you a form to write down all keys and passwords you might have, they will then unlock your phone and attempt to find anything that might be used to bar you from entering.
A common method of confirming a profiled person seems to be using the "I have not done illegal drugs" checkbox on the entry documentation, they will find any drug reference on your devices using the passwords they just discovered. If you answer "yes", you're a criminal and you are barred from entry. If you answer "no" and they find any reference to any recreational drug, no matter the context, you just lied to a federal officer and you are barred from entry.
One rejection is enough to ban you for life from ESTA, so for most people entering the US who don't have a temporary working visa, being profiled is the last time you'll ever be able to enter the united states. A woman I was speaking to was bumped back onto their flight for a 3 year old SMS on her phone where a friend asked if she wanted to come over and smoke a joint.
- qeternity 10y ago> using the "I have not done illegal drugs" checkbox on the entry documentation What? I have lived and worked all over the world, travel regularly to a bunch of countries, and have never once seen this. I could have missed it on some less frequent countries, but certainly it's not on any major country's entry card.
- psybin 10y agohttps://i.imgur.com/BMuAufo.jpg https://i.imgur.com/BMuAufo.jpg "Have you ever violated any law related to possessing, using or distributing illegal drugs?" "Do you have a physical or mental disorder; or are you a drug abuser" It's also on the customs forms for New Zealand, where you're asked along with questions about any drug paraphernalia you might be bringing in. They seem to be much more concerned about fruit than people slipping through with a bong though. Only country I've ever been set upon by fruit sniffing dogs.
- hrrsn 10y agoWe're pretty serious about our biosecurity here in NZ.
- nickonline 10y agoI've been pulled up by the kiwi's their basic problem was me not doing drugs in their country. Similar approach was used on my buddy "I'm glad you answered yes to pot, because if you'd declined I wouldn't have believed you and pulled you in anyway". So we were all pulled in an at that point I figured there was no reason to lie. I discussed all the drugs I'd done previously and they stated there was no way for them to prove I was (or was not) smuggling as trace amounts were found in the bag I admitted to carrying them in for previous ski trips. I stated it was illegal in my country but had no plans to do it in theirs. I was allowed in on the condition I didn't do illegal drugs in NZ... I accepted their terms and didn't do any gear while I was there.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dingaling 10y agoI was once taken into a room and questioned by US border personnel for eating a banana after passing US pre-clearance at Dublin airport. Technically still on Irish soil but within the US customs zone, apparently, and I had thus lied on my form when I said I wasn't tranporting fruit or vegetables into the USA.
- qeternity 10y agoPractically you were on Irish soil. Technically you were in a foreign trade zone of the United States :P
- alicorn 10y agoSerious question: I live in Sweden and have officially diagnosed autism/adhd, so I would have to answer yes to the first question. What are the chances that I will be denied entry purely based on that answer?
- rdslw 10y agoI will refuse giving keys to hdd/usb, pretending they are randomly empty. I will give it to the phone (and have nothing there). This prohibits them from barring me from entering, and allow them only to seize the hdd/usb.
- alasdair_ 10y ago>This prohibits them from barring me from entering In practice, you can be barred from entering the US for effectively any reason at all, unless you are a citizen. At the border you have almost no rights at all.
- psybin 10y agoYou say that, but put in the situation you'll find your bravado is significantly lessened.
- drvdevd 10y agoRight. The best scheme requires no bravado. You should be able to tell the truth: 1) use FDE with a LUKS-like scheme where the encryption header can be backed up and then removed (making sure you can restore it at your destination somehow). 2) Destroy the header before travel. Carry live media if you need to use the machine while traveling but keep it minimally provisioned (nothing personal on there). 3) Your machine essentially now contains random data (even to you), perhaps except the partition table and/or boot parition(s). Tell the authorities that you "fill your hardisk up with random data before traveling in case of theft." This is a true statement because: a) without the LUKS header your own data is essentially random, even to you and b) the scheme does protect your data in the event of theft. Thus you can safely utter it with no bravado. An even better scheme would use verified boot of some kind so that if the device is confiscated and returned, and its critical to you, you may have some way of proving the boot loader hasn't been tampered with. But I can't speak as to the difficulty of this.
- throwawayish 10y agoIt's just such a moot point. If you have relevant data, then you simply don't cross borders with a device containing such data (or with a computer at all). This is just common sense. This "plausible deniable encryption at the border" nonsense is just a cryptonerds imagination.
- HappyTypist 10y agoWhat if you don't hand over the password?
- hollander 10y agoYou apparently lose your phone, and you can be sure they will copy any content on it, even if it's decrypted. If you enter, change your PIN to something alphanumeric, especially when you're on Android. Just a number is easy to beat, even if it's 10 digits long. I think the latest iphones are safe enough. I don't know about Windows Phone, but don't think it's safer than Android.
- leereeves 10y ago> I think the latest iphones are safe enough. Not sure about that. After Apple refused to help, the FBI claims to have hacked that iPhone anyway, with a tool developed outside the government. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/27/fbi-apple-iphone-secret-hack-san-bernardino https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/27/fbi-apple...
- tomasf 10y agoYeah, but that's an iPhone 5C, which is three generations old.
- laingc 10y agoIt was an iPhone 5c. No Secure Enclave.
- yardie 10y agoBTW, what was the result of that? They paid hackers a ton of money to unlock old firmware, iOS 8.0, on an old phone, 5C.
- perryprog 10y agoThis was also a phone from a terrorist.
- dwightgunning 10y agoWhat does a ban from ESTA actually mean? I know that one can be ineligible for an ESTA. For example, if you've made a trip to Iran. However even if ineligible for an ESTA, a person can still go to a US embassy and apply for a regular visa, just like folks in non-ESTA countries.
- angry_octet 10y agoIt means, at the very minimum, a massive pain in the ass. Quite likely you will have significant difficulty gaining a visa.
- dwightgunning 10y agoOK. Seems the salient point is that once you've been denied entry once, returning in future becomes more challenging. That'll be the case regardless of whether you've been eligible for ESTAs or had to obtain visas via embassies in the past. The "banned from ESTA" phrasing had me scratching my head.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- hobarrera 10y agoWhat if I make sure my phone has 0% battery when crossing the border? Will they wait for it to charge, and THEN inspect it anyway? Or do they let you through.
- detaro 10y agoAs always with these things, the answer probably is going to be "depends". also, what kind of phone can't be immediately powered up when connected to a charger?
- sokoloff 10y agoMy iPhone (5S) can't.
- rublev 10y agoiPhone, takes a few minutes to power it once it's dead.
- alsetmusic 10y ago> also, what kind of phone can't be immediately powered up when connected to a charger? If sufficiently discharged, an iPhone requires about ten to fifteen minutes on a charger to power on. This is true of all models, going back to the original release.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoMy android [Acer E380] sometimes can't start without a few minutes on the charger, the battery is dying after the designed in service period.
- bonzini 10y agoMoto G2, takes about five minutes to go from 0% to 1% and does not turn on until then.
- hobarrera 10y agoMy question is really aimed at "will they bother to plug it in and wait", or would they just skip it.
- tritosomal 10y agoYou don't get that option. The first thing that happens to everybody who is attempting to enter the US and flagged is that they give you a form to write down all keys and passwords you might have, they will then unlock your phone and attempt to find anything... Actually, I have all the time in the world before my next flight, so I do get that option. You see, even if I'm forced to write down a password, if that password decrypts a 3TB file filled with shit data that LOOKS like it's still encrypted somehow, and then throws errors on further attempts to decrypt, the goal is achieved. I have old laptops I'm ready to throw in the garbage. I have old, dying hard drives I can partition with nonsense. If that's all I'm carrying, then border patrol can merrily spin their wheels on it, and it will never contain anything valuable, despite appearances, because it is junk and contains junk by design. For phones? Well, if all I'm carrying is a 1990's candybar phone with a 4 digit pin, and I "unlock" it for someone, and it shows "NO SERVICE" because I never paid money to activate service on that phone, even though it's the only phone I'm carrying, the goal is achieved. If I'm carrying a trashy 2008 edition smartphone, and I unlock the bootloader, and reflash with a custom ROM that contains 500 garbage contacts with (555) 555-5555 numbers and John Doe as the name, and then encrypt an SD card with a FAT partition that contains a single 4BG encrypted file that's really just random data, or maybe 9000 files with misleading file names, but all contain junk when decrypted, the goal is achieved. If I jail break an old iPhone C that I bought refurbished, second-hand for $50 and then I activate it's password protection as the number 1234, but never place a SIM card in the slot, and load it with thounsands of random images from the internet, and tons of fake notes that look like Base64 data, and that's the only phone I'm carrying, the goal is achieved. Your tangent about drugs is an unrelated digression. Staging junk devices with garbage data, for the purpose of sacrifice to security theater, is fun, easy, and anyone can do it if they've got the next week or two to pack their bags.
- hueving 10y agoYou do realize you're wasting your time as well. It's not like you're allowed to get a coffee from Starbucks and visit the brothel while the agents search your things.
- tritosomal 10y ago
- bigbugbag 10y agoThe recreational drug thing is not something new, in the late 1990's a profiled guy coming to speak at a convention (linux convention ?) got his laptop vacuum and lab analyzed, results got back that at some point this 7 years old laptop had been in a place where there was marijuana according to the trace amount found. The guy got sent back. He had stopped smoking marijuana 4 or 5 years earlier.