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It seems to me that few people are talking about what actually happens to phones/laptops when they're unlocked by a password given by the passenger. There's a
by crispyambulance 9y ago
It seems to me that few people are talking about what actually happens to phones/laptops when they're unlocked by a password given by the passenger.
There's a HUGE difference between...
A) A derpy mall-cop DHS agent casually browsing through your laptop/phone for a minute or two, looking at emails, pictures etc.
B) The contents of hard-drive/flash/phone being copied to a government server, stored in perpetuity, and subject to n-th degree content searches forever.
A is just annoying, B is vastly more concerning.
- eximius 9y agoAnd you don't know, can't know which it is since they can remove the device from your presence. So you have to assume the latter.
- crispyambulance 9y agoYeah, I would make that assumption if they confiscated the device and said "we'll send it back to you whenever." But why do I feel that "derpy DHS agent browses computer for a few minutes" is far, far more likely in a scenario where the device is taken to a back room? Is it really impossible to know anything about what is done with devices in the back room?
- eximius 9y agoLet's say they had your device for 15 minutes. Thats enough to disassemble and copy a bunch of data and reassemble. Unless you have whole drive encryption they only need to copy the user folders (typically). Or your machine might have been in a queue and only looked at for 2 minutes. Or they might have not looked at it at all. Now pick a few different timeframes and you tell me how hard it is to know?
- cryptonector 9y ago15m seems like too little unless the traveler is a high-priority target. CBP is often crushed.