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I agree with you completely. Banning the devices is really not going to do anything but piss off customers (maybe make a few feel safer).

by wapz 10y ago

kobeya 10y ago
It's going to put laptops in the baggage where they can be pulled out and their data dumped for dragnet surveillance.
- jerf 10y ago
  As much as I enjoy a good conspiracy theory, there's just not enough time for that, with the timing as tight as it is. A particular target with a focused scan, sure. Mass surveillance dragnet? No way. Not unless the NSACIAFBI have a way of dumping a hard drive without turning on the machine at speeds faster than a disk can even dump itself. (Try pouring out your biggest spinning rust drive out over any port that can keep up with the drive. It takes hours nowadays. SSDs can bottleneck at the port instead of the drive, but you can't count on your target having one yet, nor can you count on the fastest ports being available. And we're certainly not going to mass-disassemble laptops to dump their drives.)
  - Terr_ 10y ago
    On the other hand, installing simple "retro-reflector" bugs for future use is a possibility. [0] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/06/building_retro_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/06/building_retr...
  - X-Istence 10y ago
    Keep you busy at CBP, keep the bag from the belt when you first land... plenty of opportunities to physically attack the device when the person can't keep it on them and keep an eye on it.
    - jerf 10y ago
      To both of your who replied, yes, there are various other attacks, but that's a different issue that what I was replying to. And, still, at bulk these things aren't feasible, or even necessary. You're not taking your cynicism far enough. Why does the government need to sorta kinda hope that you might maybe take a flight with your gear someday when they're already capturing all your email and web browsing anyhow? It's a ridiculous theory that you're only entertaining because our trust has decayed to the point that the mere fact that something is an accusation against our government is all but proof that it must be true, no matter how silly it is. No, the government is not going to set out to physically attack every laptop passing through an airport, because what would that give them that they don't already have, except huge operational costs and risk of detection?
GordonS 10y ago
> maybe make a few feel safer Or maybe make even more feel yet more in fear of terrorists. Which the cynic in me thinks might be the point

I agree with you completely. Banning the devices is really not going to do anything but piss off customers (maybe make a few feel safer).

by wapz 10y ago

I agree with you completely. Banning the devices is really not going to do anything but piss off customers (maybe make a few feel safer).

kobeya 10y ago

It's going to put laptops in the baggage where they can be pulled out and their data dumped for dragnet surveillance.

jerf 10y ago
As much as I enjoy a good conspiracy theory, there's just not enough time for that, with the timing as tight as it is. A particular target with a focused scan, sure. Mass surveillance dragnet? No way. Not unless the NSACIAFBI have a way of dumping a hard drive without turning on the machine at speeds faster than a disk can even dump itself. (Try pouring out your biggest spinning rust drive out over any port that can keep up with the drive. It takes hours nowadays. SSDs can bottleneck at the port instead of the drive, but you can't count on your target having one yet, nor can you count on the fastest ports being available. And we're certainly not going to mass-disassemble laptops to dump their drives.)
- Terr_ 10y ago
  On the other hand, installing simple "retro-reflector" bugs for future use is a possibility. [0] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/06/building_retro_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/06/building_retr...
- X-Istence 10y ago
  Keep you busy at CBP, keep the bag from the belt when you first land... plenty of opportunities to physically attack the device when the person can't keep it on them and keep an eye on it.
  - jerf 10y ago
    To both of your who replied, yes, there are various other attacks, but that's a different issue that what I was replying to. And, still, at bulk these things aren't feasible, or even necessary. You're not taking your cynicism far enough. Why does the government need to sorta kinda hope that you might maybe take a flight with your gear someday when they're already capturing all your email and web browsing anyhow? It's a ridiculous theory that you're only entertaining because our trust has decayed to the point that the mere fact that something is an accusation against our government is all but proof that it must be true, no matter how silly it is. No, the government is not going to set out to physically attack every laptop passing through an airport, because what would that give them that they don't already have, except huge operational costs and risk of detection?

GordonS 10y ago

> maybe make a few feel safer Or maybe make even more feel yet more in fear of terrorists. Which the cynic in me thinks might be the point