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New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

• pstuart 8y ago
  Remember kids, this is what we get as long as we support the War on Drugs. It's not about "I just want to get high", it's about removing insidious incentives for the destruction of democracy.
• moate 8y ago
  Not that I ever had are reason to go there, but we can officially strike NZ of the list of places I'll be visiting. I hope this sort of malarkey doesn't become the norm. This seems rife for abuse. If you have good enough information to demand to rifle though someone's phone or computer, you have good enough information for a damn warrant.
  • Iwan-Zotow 8y ago
    > I hope this sort of malarkey doesn't become the norm. Ha-ha-ha, sweet, sweet summer boy...
  • natch 8y ago
    Given the abusive way special courts can be set up as rubber stamps that never deny warrants, a warrant would do nothing to make me feel better about this.
  • WaylonKenning 8y ago
    A warrant? It's the border. There's no need for a warrant to inspect your suitcase. A sovereign country has the right to inspect things crossing the border.
• Isinlor 8y ago
  Dual boot with one clean system and one actually in use that switch depending on the password given :) ?
  • mahesh_rm 8y ago
    Anybody knows if there are existing ready libraries for setting this up on Mac / iPhone?
    • diegorbaquero 8y ago
      Doubt it, and surely must be really hard to create given the how closed the OS ecosystem is. But I'd love such thing!
      • mahesh_rm 8y ago
        Indeed. It's been a few months I have been looking around for this sort of honeypot booting system, with no results!
  • chris_mc 8y ago
    Poor truecrypt.
• jackhack 8y ago
  It's troubling to watch one of the most amazing places on earth transform itself into a totalitarian purgatory. Access to physical phone/laptop is only the first step -- mark my words. Big Brother's bureaucrats are never satiated. Next, we will have demands for passwords and unrestricted access to : email, facebook, photo sharing, hacker news posts, social media, etc. I see sudden spike in the market for burner phones. ANd a long-term opportunity for a company that can create a "burner" social media profile.
  • HarryHirsch 8y ago
    totalitarian purgatory Nitpick: in Catholic dogma purgatory is a place of purification, those in purgatory know that they are there for a reason and only for a certain time, afterwards they enter heaven. Hell on the other hand, is for eternity and ugly. That's why the two are easily distinguished in their iconography, both involve imagery of flames, but souls in purgatory look joyful and those in hell look despondent.
    • deleted 8y ago
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    • robertely 8y ago
      Honestly, thank you for explaining that. It's nitpicking, but i don't think learning is ever a bad thing.
    • mark212 8y ago
      sounds almost exactly like going through customs at the border.
      • Drdrdrq 8y ago
        Which one, purgatory or hell?
        • pas 8y ago
          They share a common border.
• JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > We're not going into 'the cloud'. We'll examine your phone while it's on flight mode This law isn't too bad as far as a compromise bill goes. The problem is a lack of accountability. Three fixes and I'd be okay with it: 1) Officials must document their reasons for finding a "reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing"; 2) Travellers should be able to challenge the search in a court proceeding to occur no later than close of business the next day (traveller must surrender their phone to the court in the interim, but is free to leave the airport after that); and 3) Searchers cannot (a) copy data from the phone while searching, (b) turn off airplane mode or (c) take more than [2] hours to conduct their search.
  • natch 8y ago
    Not saying I agree with your "not too bad" assessment. But your list is incomplete without considering the violations of third parties who have shared items in confidence that are now on the local device. So: 4) All third parties (meaning people other than the traveler) who have their privacy violated in the process must be informed immediately of the full details of the privacy violation. Which communications, pictures, etc. were viewed and or copied and by whom, and how to follow up on these violations.
    • JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > All third parties (meaning people other than the traveler) who have their privacy violated in the process must be informed immediately of the full details of the privacy violation This isn't a requirement when e.g. police search an office and so wouldn't seem appropriate in this case. NDAs, explicitly or implicitly (through statute), tend to exempt courts, regulators and law enforcement.
      • natch 8y ago
        I think you're thinking of cases where there is a search warrant and the potential harm to third parties has been weighed against the needs of the investigation, which should be predicated on a robust assessment that determines that this particular case justifies the harm. I don't think leaving the decision up to the agent at the point of entry, or basing it on some kind of random selection, is as robust as a good quality court issuing warrants. Though I'm contradicting my point elsewhere in this discussion about being generally skeptical of such courts.
• plink 8y ago
  Privacy Commissioner John Edwards had some influence over the drafting of the legislation and said he was "pretty comfortable" with where the law stood... "You know when you come into the country that you can be asked to open your suitcase and that a Customs officer can look at everything in there." Evidently, severe brain damage is no hindrance to securing a commissioner's appointment in New Zealand.
  • davezatch 8y ago
    Devil’s advocate: what _is_ wrong with that logic? If we accept that customs can search our persons or luggage as a condition of our entering a given country, what is it about digital materials that makes them off limits?
    • mseidl 8y ago
      Also there could be explosives/drugs and other stuff in Luggage. What is the threat of shit on my phone?
      • grkvlt 8y ago
        Your `/docs/plan-to-hijack-airnz-plane.txt` file might be seen as slightly dodgy?
        • sib 8y ago
          The problem is, `/docs/plan-to-hijack-airnz-plane.txt` can easily be downloaded from the cloud once you're in-country, so you can just not keep it on your phone. This is a significant difference compared to bring in explosives (as an example), where searching your luggage would actually be effective. Again, this law will primarily inconvenience / harm law-abiding folks, while not preventing the "bad guys" from doing what they want.
    • tokyodude 8y ago
      Digital Materials are an extension of your brain, a window into your files, a key to your bank account and safe deposit box. The government doesn't get to access those, the shouldn't get to access my phone?
• rectang 8y ago
  Is there a SaaS provider specializing in storing encrypted images of phones? The idea being that before you travel, you upload the encrypted image and wipe the phone, then after passing through customs you restore.
  • JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > before you travel, you upload the encrypted image and wipe the phone, then after passing through customs you restore That sounds like willfully evading customs, which is a serious crime.
    • seba_dos1 8y ago
      I wipe some of my phones on regular basis and sometimes restore their data from backups (or not).
      • JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > I wipe some of my phones on regular basis and sometimes restore their data from backups I do too. But if you systematically do that before going through customs, with the intention of denying a customs agent the data, that's a different intent. Intent matters when it comes to the law.
    • toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Have a citation? Because if that's the case, everyone is suggesting evading US customs, out in the open: https://www.google.com/search?q=wiping+phone+prior+to+customs https://www.google.com/search?q=wiping+phone+prior+to+custom... It's even in Basecamp's international travel manual: https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/international-travel-guide.md#tldr-dont-travel-with-work-data https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/internation...
    • pythonaut_16 8y ago
      I'm not so sure it's that clear. (I'm not a lawyer) If you can lawfully download a phone image over the internet while in the country and you can lawfully enter the country with no or limited digital information on your person then I don't see how backing up your phone in a different country (where New Zealand has no jurisdiction) and legally downloading the backup in New Zealand is evading customs. Another (presumably) legal scenarios would include backing up all of your data, carrying no phone into the country, and then purchasing one while there. Is that "evading customs"?
• no1youknowz 8y ago
  If this becomes the norm, then I can see a startup offering "convincing" email, browser history, social media profiles, photos and telephone call lists to present to customs. Give those pesky 5 eyes poison data of a fictional life via a 2nd phone.
  • greedo 8y ago
    The problem with this approach is that just like a cover used by a spy, you'd have to memorize all the details. One slip would blow this phony profile, then you'd be in jail for making false statements to a govt. agent...
  • gcb0 8y ago
    this already happens. one case I know about: tatoo artists travel the world for work as guests in different studios. most do so under tourism visa sice its only a couple months each place. their managers (and online forums) already have a list of things that can be in the luggage and in their phones and instagram feeds so that they really do look like tourists. security theaters is security theater.
  • tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    It would probably be easier not to bring a phone and just buy one when you arrive.
    • jermaustin1 8y ago
      I already do this when traveling. I have my travel phone which I pop a SIM card into when I land, and I have my normal phone which I leave at home. I don't do it for privacy reasons, but just in case I lose a phone, I'd rather lose my crappy Motorola with a few contacts in it and a few chat apps, than my iPhone X with my entire life in it...
    • daemin 8y ago
      But that looks awfully suspicious, so they might ask you for passwords to your online social media accounts etc.
• AllegedAlec 8y ago
  This wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be when I read 'digital search'. It's still a huge disaster of a law, though. It's an unnecessary invasion of normal citizen's privacy, while not stopping actual criminals.
• deleted 8y ago
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• tomp 8y ago
  > "A lot of the organised crime groups are becoming a lot more sophisticated in the ways they're trying to get things across the border. Is this the new "think of the children"? The reasoning seems to be, criminals would rather carry their "digital crime-thingys" across the border saved on their phones, than upload it (encrypted) somewhere on the internet... Or is NZ planning to build a Firewall as well (better than China's)?
  • fghtr 8y ago
    No, this is the old Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
• Random_BSD_Geek 8y ago
  There go my plans to visit New Zealand.
• ph33t 8y ago
  waiting for kimdotcom to weigh in ...
• adamc 8y ago
  Anyone who cares will just use a burner phone when they travel.
• dawnerd 8y ago
  There’s a border patrol show on Netflix and they show a few phones being searched. It’s pretty clear it’s not about terrorists and bad people having bad files in the cloud. It’s about people coming on a tourists visa and working. They’d find all sorts of emails talking a out a job. I don’t think that’s a valid excuse to search devices though. If anything I think it proves work visas need to be more accessible so people don’t have to lie their way in for a job.
  • clubm8 8y ago
    >There’s a border patrol show on Netflix and they show a few phones being searched. It’s pretty clear it’s not about terrorists and bad people having bad files in the cloud. It’s about people coming on a tourists visa and working. They’d find all sorts of emails talking a out a job. Yes, those are non-citizens requesting entry. This sounds like it applies to everyone - including NZ citizens. And regardless, searches need to be proportional. Full blown cavity/strip searches at random could cut down on the importation of illegal drugs, but civilized countries require a reasonable suspicion for invasive searches. Why not apply that logic to digital devices?
    • hfdgiutdryg 8y ago
      Why not apply that logic to digital devices? They did, at least according to the article. But it's a low hurdle, and cops quickly figure out the script to bypass restrictions like that. It's no different than the mishandling of trained drug sniffing dogs so that they alert at the handler's command, rather than at drugs/bombs/money/whatever. Countless cars are stripped at border crossing and the side of the road because a cop didn't like someone's attitude.
• jjcm 8y ago
  I really want phone makers to allow me to unlock into separate enclaves on my phone. I.e. If I use 1234 as my unlock pin, it goes to my normal phone. If I use 5678 instead, it unlocks to a separate user account with its own notifications, pictures, apps, etc., similar to a truecrypt hidden partition.
  • chooseaname 8y ago
    But then you'll find yourself in a situation where you could possibly be lying to the customs officers.
    • lolc 8y ago
      Out of curiosity: Is lying to customs officers illegal in New Zealand? I've lied to a great many people, including police officers on duty. They can't take me in if I wish them "a good day", or can they?
      • stephen_g 8y ago
        I'm not sure about verbally lying to customs officers, but in my country (Australia) I know that lying on your customs declaration is an offence (making a false statement on an official document or something like that). The flight attendants have to read out a little script including that after they hand out the declaration/entry cards. I expect NZ is similar.
      • hugh-avherald 8y ago
        It's not only illegal to lie, it's illegal to fail to answer truthfully. Customs and Excise Act 1996 s 185.
      • prawn 8y ago
        Entering the US, an honest slip-up can count as a lie and see you barred indefinitely.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
• splaty 8y ago
  "A lot of the organised crime groups are becoming a lot more sophisticated in the ways they're trying to get things across the border. So they've realised they can bring data into a country on a smart phone with a password. Law enforcement will really be screwed once organised crime figures out the other options.
• Entalpi 8y ago
  So, it might basically be ”worth” it to just smash your device(s) instead of refusing and paying the fee. Im not gonna do that, just raising an interesting point.
  • djsumdog 8y ago
    It's probably more worth it to turn around and not enter the country; unless it's your country .. in which case if you have the money, it's probably better to refuse and see if you can get a court case started to challenge it.
• fluxsauce 8y ago
  > The new requirement for reasonable suspicion did not rein in the law at all, Mr Beagle said. > > "They don't have to tell you what the cause of that suspicion is, there's no way to challenge it." This makes me particularly uncomfortable. There should be reasonable grounds. > Border officials searched roughly 540 electronic devices at New Zealand airports in 2017. That does seem low, out of what I assume is hundreds of thousands of travelers. With that said, it still doesn't sound reasonable.
  • WaylonKenning 8y ago
    Yup, out of 3.733M annual visitor arrivals.
• xoa 8y ago
  I hope the spread of this sort of thing helps push forward general implementations of owner customizable Views and associated triggers of our systems and data rather then the long standing default of binary access/no access. All the technical foundations for this exist right now, and in the case of Apple in particularly they've already got it all together in every modern iDevice. They've got a well hardened and integrated HSM, data siloing and per-file class based hierarchal encryption ("Data Protection"), large amounts of sensors, biometric readers capable of discerning multiple inputs, and an interface amenable to adaption so that even regular users could intuitively understand a View system. Plus for mobile there is an entirely non-security related aspect which is growing in the public consciousness: our limited attention and mental focus budget. With all that what I'd like to see is a simple interface to create arbitrary numbers of custom Views with associated triggers. The default one would be as we have it now: everything you load is visible at all times after unlock. But then you could create a new one, and select which apps (and in turn associated data in that app silo) appear and which preferences are accessible, then have a "This view will be made active when..." with nice UI for various key conditionals (time, geography, speed, network connection, biometrics, and/or password). It'd then be easy to ensure that while traveling between locations only maps, ride hailing and airline apps would be available for example. If anyone stole the device, or for that matter compelled it in any other way, none of my financials or private info would be available. I couldn't even be compelled to do it at that location, it'd be genuinely out of my control, backed by the same hardware crypto system providing standard FDE. This isn't even about government fully or even in large part, in dangerous parts of the world just as modern device net locks reduced the value of stealing a device a spread of "tourists and the like literally cannot be made to transfer money or the like on the street" could reduce the incentives for certain crime. And again it'd be a very grokable common sense feature for the attention issue too. These days information overload and things trying to grab for some of our mindshare is a huge source of stress. I'd love if my devices, rather then always being a matter of adding on, started being able to actively help me subtract instead. I could compartmentalize work apps to only even "exist" away from home, no temptation or notifications even show up. And vice versa, entertainment distractions vanish as I enter certain locations. "Willpower" is something of a limited resource too and in practice often comes down to essentially planning ahead to avoid temptations in the first place, not going to the grocery store when starving for example. Our digital devices should be, at our individual direction, automatically helping us as humans. I think that'd be a valuable next step anyway, but the fact that vastly more powerful and user friendly coercion code type systems could be made widespread too would also be helpful in taking back some of the privacy digital can also take away.
• microcolonel 8y ago
  I mean, they're not blocking VPNs, they're not blocking the transfer of encrypted files. Why on earth would it matter whether or not they did a "digital search"?
• titzer 8y ago
  How does this work for employer-provided devices? I'd be violating my employment contract and could be fired for providing customs with my password.
  • mrweasel 8y ago
    I have the same issue. I believe that technically my employer could be in violation with some of the contracts we have with some of our government customers.
  • deleted 8y ago
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  • ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
    I worked in a role that had rather strict rules about our devices and data. We were given a different phone and laptop to take when traveling, and VPN'd back to the office once there to access our files. The devices were just entry level Blackberry/iPhones and Thinkpads (this was a decade or so ago) with nothing on them except a local copy of the corporate contact list. No email accounts set up, no calendar set up, etc. We were to VPN in for all that stuff when not local (tether laptop to phone if not on wifi and needed email). If we were questioned at all about it (I never was, but others were), we were told to give them a business card from our direct Manager, and contact them with any questions. I have no idea what the Managers were trained to say or how they dealt with it as I was pretty low in the totem pole, but I assume there's standard practices out there for this.
    • hugh-avherald 8y ago
      Not criticizing you but that's terrible advice. Not only is it pointless, it exposes the traveller to criminal prosecution. Why would a customs officer acquiesce?
  • deleted 8y ago
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• boobsbr 8y ago
  > The updated law makes clear that travellers must provide access - whether that be a password, pin-code or fingerprint - but officials would need to have a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Does the Law in NZ have any provisions against self-incrimination? The US has the 5th Amendment, some countries in the Americas signed the American Convention on Human Rights. How does NZ deal with this issue? Can't it be considered that providing a password to a safe or personal device is akin to being a witness against oneself?
  • debacle 8y ago
    The 5th amendment doesn't apply to non-citizens and doesn't mean as a US citizen that your device can't be confiscated on potentially frivolous suspicions.
    • css 8y ago
      In America the Bill of Rights applies to all people, irrespective of immigration status when dealing with criminal law. Immigration law is administrative, not criminal, which is why this behavior is allowed to occur in the States.
    • logfromblammo 8y ago
      The 5th amendment doesn't apply to citizens, either. It applies to the government. And the instructions to the government make no mention of citizenship status. "...nor shall [any person] be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..." The 4th amendment likewise applies to the government, and makes no mention of citizenship. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The 14th amendment: "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The government, of course, holds that physical searches at border crossings are reasonable searches, and therefore do not require warrants. Since Riley v. California (2014), SCotUS established that searching the data contents of electronic devices is unreasonable to do after an arrest, and therefore requires probable cause and warrant. They still have not applied that to searches of border-crossers' electronics, and different federal appeals circuits currently hold different positions on it. Hopefully, SCotUS will soon rule that forensic analysis of electronics at border crossings requires individualized suspicion, but the current nominee debacle does not give me much confidence.
• redleggedfrog 8y ago
  All these laws should come with a stipulation that, if nothing is actually found on a device that actually helps law enforcement protect the civilians, after say about 5 years the law is rescinded. Really, such laws should have to come up for re-approval at an interval anyway. Anyone who has something to hide will either be smart enough to hide it or not bring the device altogether. Really all they're doing is annoying those who are not a threat.
  • vinceguidry 8y ago
    Law enforcement organizations have exactly zero qualms about simply concocting up cases that serve their political aims.
  • lolc 8y ago
    As if criminals as a class are smarter than the average. Oh they will be caught by this! Example: The amount of people that have felt the urge to show me pictures of their baby marijuana plants is scary. They carry those pics everywhere on their phone! And it's not even like they need those for work. Don't go around saying how it doesn't work. It makes the life of criminals harder. So it absolutely works. People will be caught by this. The question is: Is it worth it to lose the right to remain silent over it? In my view: Never.
• nimbius 8y ago
  seems like this is relatively easy to circumvent. Taking a laptop means running tails or having a second partition, something simple/windows to boot up. Customs just wants to see a desktop im guessing. as for file searches on the phone, its a bit more complicated... 1. run syncthing on your phone, send your data to the cloud. 2. wipe/factory reset the phone. now you're ready for that inspection. 3. restore/load once on the ground and in your hotel.
• sirmike_ 8y ago
  So have a travel flip phone or ship to US ahead of visit.
• exabrial 8y ago
  I expect a new feature of phones to include plausible deniability mode pins soon, where you type in a certain pin and it unlocks to a faux account that shows you texting your mom about broccoli recipes.
  • ixwt 8y ago
    I highly doubt a company such as Google or Apple will be doing this themselves into their phone OS. I could see this happening in a privacy oriented Android image though.
• arriu 8y ago
  This sounds troubling and it's a little disappointing to see comments suggesting "factory resets before travel" or "dual booting". These are not things anyone really wants to have to do. Also, this issue raises some more questions: 1) It sounds like they might use a device to scan your hardware automatically, potentially opening the door to copying files for permanent record 2) It is a small step from here to install tracking software on your device (as China is doing in some places)
  • craftyguy 8y ago
    Other than fixing the actual problem (the overreaching legislation/government), the only other solution seems to be using a burner phone when traveling. I would absolutely not trust any device handed to an official, even if it was factory reset and I had a backup.
  • qiqing 8y ago
    How do we know that they aren't installing software? It may just be a matter of time before someone reports an incident in which another one of these nations do install something.
• ravenstine 8y ago
  I have been thinking of going back to live in NZ to be a software engineer there, but now... uh, no. Such a shame, as it's a really nice country with very smart people. Granted, it's been very "totalitarian" when it comes to immigration for a long time. Not that I don't think they have the right to do this, but when I went to live there with my kiwi girlfriend, I had to give them actual copies of letters she and I sent each other and get a chest X-ray to prove that I'm not just taking advantage of their socialized medicine. So this sort of scrutiny isn't totally out of character for NZ, but the digital search is where it gets intolerable. If NZ wants to innovate on anything or to have more movies filmed there, they'll have to do it mostly by themselves, or pay ass-loads to import skilled workers. EDIT: I made a correction to a part that probably gave people the wrong impression. This was not meant to claim wrong of NZ. I love NZ, and they have every right. I only take issue with the digital search.
  • WaylonKenning 8y ago
    As a New Zealander, I'd say we're unashamed in trying to balance the welfare of our citizens with growth opportunities from new immigrants. If you're likely to be a drain on the public healthcare system, then you're not likely to get permission to live here. Why? It's not fair to those people who have already paid into the system, to subsidise someone who hasn't. And we are picky. There's no visa lottery here. A points-based system with high thresholds. And that's OK. Same as Australia. Same as Canada.
    • debacle 8y ago
      You are picky because NZ is likely the trendiest place to immigrate to in the last 30-40 years. It would be silly + unfair to current NZ citizens if you guys weren't picky.
    • kleim 8y ago
      In France we have a special health insurance policy dedicated for treating illegal immigrants ("AME: Aide Médicale d'État"). Yup... Too bad that many people will call you a racist if you ever start to say it is unfair for people who already paid into the system.
• superkuh 8y ago
  A lot of people here are saying you should just put your data online and then download it later. But should you do this you probably will be using a third party as your host (most people don't host from home even if they should). In the USA at least under third party doctorine that means none of that data is 'private' anymore and can be accessed without a warrant. I don't know about NZ but I bet it's the same.
• cc-d 8y ago
  "New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5000 Customs fine" That headline reads as if it is from some dystopian cyberpunk novel. We've reached the age where governments are conducting "digital searches" at whim without just cause, gaining access to everything that makes you "you", and claiming it's for your own safety.
• yholio 8y ago
  This is an important issue cryptographers and security minded people often overlook: the strongest cryptography is irrelevant if it opens you to such social harassment. What we need is practical cryptography. I have found practical success by booting from an encrypted Linux partition that has absolutely nothing relevant on it, with a weak password I can always enter when requested by big guys with guns. Unbeknown to them on the same partition there sits another encrypted volume, at some offset from the outer's partition start. If I fail to enter the correct password for the outer partition, Ubuntu drops into the command line of the initrd, that is equiped with all the tools you need to mount the real, offset partition: cryptsetup -o 100000000 create boot /dev/sdc3 So instead of having a nice GUI into which you directly enter the uber-secret password, you press enter a few times in the GUI, drop to command line, issue a single command and only then enter the uber-secret password. A mild nuisance in your bootup process, once you get the hang of it. It's impossible for any court forensic team, let alone an airport goon, to prove there is actually another partition inside the outer encrypted partition, unless you mount common volumes and cross-contaminate. An important caveat is to properly defragment the outer partition and fiddle with the offset and the size of the inner partition to prevent any conflicts, then avoid writing in the outer partition.
  • artursapek 8y ago
    You should write a blog post explaining how to set this up in a little more detail.
    • androidgirl 8y ago
      I'd be interested in hearing more about this as well.
    • zymhan 8y ago
      https://www.linuxvoice.com/hidden-encrypted-volumes-keep-data-safe-and-secret/ https://www.linuxvoice.com/hidden-encrypted-volumes-keep-dat... https://askubuntu.com/questions/63594/mount-encrypted-volumes-from-command-line https://askubuntu.com/questions/63594/mount-encrypted-volume...
• deleted 8y ago
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• komali2 8y ago
  >"It is a file-by-file [search] on your phone. We're not going into 'the cloud'. We'll examine your phone while it's on flight mode," Customs spokesperson Terry Brown said. They will see my genitals and the genitals of many other people. Not sure how not going accessing my off-phone backups is supposed to be better. This is a shame, my partner and I have been spending the last couple months seriously considering new Zealand as a new home, after we tire of SF, specifically because we felt that legally it was going down a better path than the USA.
  • clubm8 8y ago
    >This is a shame, my partner and I have been spending the last couple months seriously considering new Zealand as a new home, after we tire of SF, specifically because we felt that legally it was going down a better path than the USA. What made you think this? Have you been keeping an eye on the news regarding NZ? For example, they allowed American billionaire Peter Thiel to obtain citizenship despite not meeting the residency requirements: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11790034 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&... Unsurprisingly, countries where laws can be bent or broken by the rich tend to not respect individual rights.
    • komali2 8y ago
      And in doing so created a huge push by the New Zealand immigration peeps to incentivize other tech workers to come in. They even put up stalls at tech conferences, which was where this idea came from at all for us. Way they told us is there's even specialized visas. The fact that billionaires do as they please is a global fact I have long gotten used to.
      • clubm8 8y ago
        >And in doing so created a huge push by the New Zealand immigration peeps to incentivize other tech workers to come in How so? He never even revealed the citizenship - it was discovered by NZ based investigative journalists.
• Lordarminius 8y ago
  My issue is with the fine. Presumably,refusing to submit my phone to search is an criminal offence, the mind bending part is that I can get out of this by paying money to the government. I can see how a terrorist or drug dealer could be happy with this. This sucks all round
• r1ch 8y ago
  I don't know how others feel, but if I kept control of the device I would feel much more comfortable with this process. The fact that they can make me unlock the device then take it out of my sight and do unknown things to it means I can no longer trust the device or any of its files (eg private keys, access tokens, etc that may be stored on it). If they sit down with me and allow me to maintain control of the device while they ask to see recent chats and emails etc I would feel much more comfortable (though don't get me wrong, I still see the whole process as a huge overstep and invasion of privacy).
  • justtopost 8y ago
    Oh yeah, being forced to knowingly show my privates to a stranger is slightly better than the stranger taking that look on their own without my knowledge and consent. Both are still bad.
    • beart 8y ago
      I think this analogy is wrong. It is more like the difference between showing a stranger a picture of yourself naked vs handing the stranger a hard drive with naked pictures of yourself. In both cases, you know they are doing it but it is only in the former case where you can be slightly more informed of exactly what they are doing with that information.
    • sib 8y ago
      The difference is that, if they take your phone away, there is nothing stopping them from putting child pornography (or terrorism plans, or a keylogger) on it without your knowledge.
  • capdeck 8y ago
    But then it doesn't make any difference -- they'll tell you to do what they'll do anyway. And if you refuse -- the same punishment applies (fee, prison, etc...)
    • BraveKenny 8y ago
• keeptrying 8y ago
  I have a strong feeling this will negatively affect tourism in the long run.
• LeonM 8y ago
  > "It is a file-by-file [search] on your phone. We're not going into 'the cloud'. We'll examine your phone while it's on flight mode," Customs spokesperson Terry Brown said. What files are they looking for on the device? I mean, it's not like a terrorist will have a plan_to_place_bomb.doc file on their device, so what's the point? What file could there possibly be on any device that will threaten the security? And how is scanning devices going to prevent you from downloading that file after you go through customs?
  • komali2 8y ago
    Mostly texted instruction to drug mules I'd expect.
  • stevenwoo 8y ago
    One possibility is to catch dumb criminals who have draft messages stored locally via email client that have illicit content 2012 source - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/11/12/heres-the-e-mail-trick-petraeus-and-broadwell-used-to-communicate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/11/12...
• lolc 8y ago
  I wonder ho such policies work when you're hauling a device for somebody else. "Oh sorry this is my husbands's phone. And that laptop? It's my daughter's." Or simply: "Oh my, I just got a new PIN and now I forgot it." Is it permissible to punish somebody for not knowing or for forgetting? And if not, who has the burden of proof? I find that these questions have no good answer. For this reason alone I regard laws that take away the right to remain silent as flawed in principle.
  • ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
    Being that it's a country, I'd guess they'd be fully within their rights to deny entry on the suspicion that you are withholding your password. It's not really seen as a 'punishment', since no one has the 'right' to visit New Zealand who isn't a citizen.
    • lolc 8y ago
      I think this regulation applies to citizens as well. The article said there could be a fine too. So citizens could get punished for not knowing a password. As far as I understood.
  • TACIXAT 8y ago
    Under US law you can be compelled by a court to unlock (provide passwords / decrypt) a device if the contents of the device are known (the helpful search term for this is forgone conclusion). Otherwise it should be covered under the 5th. As for "forgetting" a password in this case, you will be held in contempt of court if they don't believe you, which can mean indefinite detention.
    • drewmol 8y ago
      IIRC there are some historic high court rulings setting a precedent that detaining a defendant for not furnishing some information (combination to a lock) violates their protection against compelled self incrimination / right to remain silent but if it was a physical object (key to a lock) that did not necessarily voilate same rights. This has now led to digital age cases where the prosecution suggests a password should be analogous to a key, not an idea. On a quick search, I couldn't find the relevant cases or discussion...
• post_break 8y ago
  Can you just reset your phone to factory when your plane touches down? Restore once you get through customs?
• throw2016 8y ago
  Going through your personal papers is totalitarian and the definition of a police state. The fact that this is being openly done in 'democracies' with no shame makes the word meaningless. Where are the protests, free press in arms, academics, ngos and call for sanctions by the 'international community'? Is anyone going to bomb New Zealand and the US for violation of human rights and restore democracy? So much for 'our values' and the western tradition of 'enlightenment, freedom and democracy'.
• lgregg 8y ago
  It’d be nice if you could have the equivalent of a docker image for your phone.
• Reason077 8y ago
  Hmm, a “digital” search at customs? When I first read the headline, I thought of something else...
• iamben 8y ago
  What is this actually addressing? Why are digital devices being searched? What are they looking for? What has the world come to that this is a thing?
• jacquesm 8y ago
  I wish them much good luck with my elderly dumbphone, it has extremely little on it that wasn't there when it rolled out of the factory. Besides that, way to go to ruin your international reputation (not that anybody cares). Paying $5000 to be allowed to break the law is interesting too: so it's about the money? Or do you get fined and then you still have to cough up the contents of your devices?
• CretinDesAlpes 8y ago
  Alright, the only solution I see is to bring a Nokia 3310 or an alternative cheap smartphone with nothing on it if I travel to NZ.
• gameswithgo 8y ago
  welp, not going there anymore.
• jerkstate 8y ago
  it's a border - nations have the sovereign right to impose entry restrictions, especially for foreigners. the restriction and surveillance of their citizens within their country are far, far more troubling to me.
• dieterrams 8y ago
  Some of the arguments I’m reading in defense of digital search point out that the things luggage search was originally supposed to find would now be stored on your phone. I accept that argument in principle, but practically, since it’s so easy to keep any illegal materials on the internet and retrieve them post-security, how does digital search still make sense?
• hugh-avherald 8y ago
  The fine seems a very odd way to enforce it. If my phone had the details of the people I've been assigned to assassinate and calendar invites from the chaps I'm going to buy cocaine off, I'd probably just pay the fine.
  • drewmol 8y ago
    >calendar invites from the chaps I'm going to buy cocaine off, I'd probably just pay the fine. Maybe they considered this ;)
• robbiemitchell 8y ago
  It's not about security. If it were, you wouldn't be able to bypass it with a $5k payment.
  • al_chemist 8y ago
    You don't bypass it. Paying $5k means you also lose your phone: > If people refused to comply, they could be fined up to $5000 and their device would be seized and forensically searched.
• jliptzin 8y ago
  This happened to me driving from the US into Canada with my significant other on a short vacation. After some routine questioning, the agent asked for our phones and passwords. Naturally, I hesitated and wanted to know why he needed to go through our phones. He didn't give a reason, but said if I refuse they'd hold us until their forensics team cracks the phone password anyway. I wanted to make a bigger deal about it but didn't want to ruin our vacation so I complied. They took the phones in the back for about 45 min, who knows what information they downloaded or uploaded during that time, then gave it back to me while interrogating me like I was a drug lord because there was a text message from a year earlier about a friend's girlfriend doing cocaine. It was extremely unnerving, they went through all our private pictures, messages, dropbox files, email, notes, dating apps, etc. It ruined the vacation for me, and I've stopped visiting Canada because of how disgusted I felt afterwards. I know Canada is not the only country doing that, so from now on when I cross an international border I wipe my phone (after backing up) and just have a few pictures and messages on there. Incidentally though, that's the only time it's happened to me.
  • 3pt14159 8y ago
    There are bad agents everywhere. Just a numbers game after a while. I've done that border tons of times with no issue. Though, I will say that I take protective measures before I travel anyway. It's pretty easy to log out of an iCloud account and there is nothing on my computer that I care about that isn't backed up somewhere.
    • EugeneOZ 8y ago
      It's not bad agents, it's bad laws.
      • komali2 8y ago
        It's both. See above about the agent commenting on a girl's tinder messages. They also are horribly racist to non English speakers.
      • SirYandi 8y ago
• S_A_P 8y ago
  Serious question- has there been a string of incidents in NZ that prompted this legislation? I certainly try to stay current with world news, but I definitely could have missed something. I think my follow up question is what exactly are the authorities thinking they will find here? Ive yet to see any sort of organized crime/terror organization leave detailed roadmap of their nefarious plans in the notes app of their phone. I mean, maybe in the next Austin Powers movie that will be the case...
• qwerty456127 8y ago
  > It is a file-by-file [search] on your phone And what are they going to look for?
• lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Freedom isn't free! Have to keep fighting for it. Or figure out / be lucky enough to become part of the ruling group. Edit: I also find it funny when people get passionate about their "free" country's national anthems when they're one bad underpaid, undereducated border patrol agent away from not having any rights.
  • keyme 8y ago
    Who's the ruling group? AFAIK, everyone passes through the same border agents...
    • pavel_lishin 8y ago
      The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread. And anyway, my understanding is that if you're rich enough to charter a private jet, or to own one, you skip a lot of the border formalities.
      • keyme 8y ago
        No you don't... It's just another agent. Granted, this one sees very little traffic each day, so probably less inclined to annoy you out of spite. Perhaps if you carry a diplomatic passport, that's a different story altogether.
        • pavel_lishin 8y ago
          I'm sure that agent feels empowered to call people coming off private jets a slut after demanding to examine their Tinder history.
        • ilrwbwrkhv 8y ago
          that is not true. in a private jet you don't need to go through security or customs at least in the eurozone. check out the podcast: https://www.npr.org/2016/10/25/499213698/whats-it-like-to-be-rich-ask-the-people-who-manage-billionaires-money https://www.npr.org/2016/10/25/499213698/whats-it-like-to-be...
• wild_preference 8y ago
  Happened to a female friend flying from Toronto to visit me in Mexico. Because she had a connecting flight in US, a US agent went through her phone. (Classic mistake of entering the US unless absolutely neccessary) Guy was reading her Tinder messages and accusing her of being a prostitute. He brought up some saucy messages and would say things like “girls don’t do this kind of stuff for free...” Finally handed her back her phone with a comment like “well, maybe you are a good girl ;)” He was fixated on some message where she commented how much a meal might cost at some restaurant and used that as an excuse to ask personal questions about sex and prostitution.
  • komali2 8y ago
    These are the same agents that I watch scream in "special person talk" (think Trump mocking the reporter) at confused Chinese tourists. I see it every time I fly international here. Great first impression our border agents are giving people.
  • MaxBarraclough 8y ago
    Their unprofessionalism is almost as disturbing as the policy.
    • cultus 8y ago
      It's the rule rather than the exception with border guards these days, both US and Canadian. It's a job where bullies get to bully. It attracts a certain kind of person.
  • Eridrus 8y ago
    That's both disturbing and pretty much the level of professionalism I expect from CBP. I wish someone were to cataloging these sorts of incidents, rather than just reading about them in HN threads.
  • DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Sadly, the motive there was probably he found her hot, would hit that, was aggravated at reading her Tinder messages and finding her even more hot because of it and was pissed off that there was no way in hell he would ever get a shot at being with her, so he felt some need to piss all over her, blame her for making him hot and bothered with no immediate means to get relief, yadda. This is an essential element of situational crap that I am referring to when I complain about sexism in the world. Meanwhile, other people seem to think I mean "Men who firmly believe women should be barefoot and pregnant and who have some conscious intent to prevent them from having real careers." or some nonsense along those lines.
• capdeck 8y ago
  So, if you have lastpass app on your device (or, for the example sake, some other password manager that allows local access to passwords) can they ask you for the password to lastpass? Also, the device is in "plane mode", but they will read your facebook password from lastpass and off they go on _their_ desktop computer -- looking at your FB profile, history, etc...
• tjpnz 8y ago
  As a Kiwi I've had some horrific experiences at the mercy of NZ customs. Aside from the usual drug swabs of phones and cameras they on one occasion managed to delete all the images I had stored on an SD card which they decided to search - they of course denied all responsibility. I would advise anyone traveling to New Zealand to leave their electronic devices at home.
  • jliptzin 8y ago
    I just won't go. Thanks for the tip.
• woofcat 8y ago
  I recently had to go to America for a wedding, due to these types of policies I always go through my phone and clean almost everything out of there. Photos, logout of Google, clean up downloads, etc. I don't have anything to hide, however having some random customs dude go into Google Photos which has over a decade of my life documented doesn't seem exactly ideal.
  • the_snooze 8y ago
    "I have nothing to hide" is just another way of saying "My friends and family are stupid for trusting me." Your devices don't just contain information that's sensitive to you.
    • coldtea 8y ago
      And even he has lots of things to hide, he just doesn't know it. If he didn't he'd made his emails and all photos and file public.
    • woofcat 8y ago
      Yeah I think you really misunderstood my post. I was simply saying, I don't have photos of me doing lines of Cocaine off strippers. However I'm still concerned about the boarder patrol looking through my shit. Holy fuck HN can sometimes go off on a tangent.
  • pavel_lishin 8y ago
    People who have nothing to hide still shut their bathroom door. And besides, laws change. I have nothing to hide today; who knows in three months?
    • DougN7 8y ago
      This is exactly right. The Jews in Germany probably thought they had nothing to hide before the Nazis came to power.
      • 8y ago
• m_eiman 8y ago
  Wouldn't it be possible to conveniently hide your usual filesystem from the border officers by using the new APFS shared-filesystems-in-single-container feature, without having to pre-allocate and waste space for an additional hidden data partition? Just install macOS like you normally do, set it up with a user and some basic data. Then create a new partition in the same container and install what you normally use (or even clone the first one, if that's possible). Then set the basic one as default boot source, and hold alt on boot to select the other one to get work done. A light version of the "hidden encrypted volume" solution, without any risk of overwriting your files.
  • mark212 8y ago
    very clever and it would almost certainly work. But what do you do for your phone?
    • dalore 8y ago
      Backup your phone to the cloud, factory reset. Restore when you get to the destination. A bit of a hassle, and after you restore to factory reset you will need to add the basic contacts, info if you need for travelling. And any messages/updates on the phone in the meantime will be lost when you restore from backup. Will need to download the backup so most likely need a good wifi connection. Or you could save it to your laptop in that aforementioned hidden partition. You could do it on the plane so the window of using factory reset would be short. And restore just after customs. Is there a better idea?
      • lostlogin 8y ago
        > A bit of a hassle Something went wrong with iOS12 for me, and so I reinstalled several times. It isn’t that bad. The only niggles for me were re entering a couple of wifi networks and making the damn thing silent and blank again (why are keyboard clicks on by default?).
  • chrisper 8y ago
    It's probably obstruction of Justice.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• alanfranzoni 8y ago
  This is very stupid, imho, because it works just as long as people don't know about it. If I'm a "digital criminal", tomorrow I'll simply bring an empty laptop or phone and have my backup sent to my destination (or directly from the network). Pointless and annoying.
• systems 8y ago
  what happens, if you get yourself a travel phone, a non smart phone, that doesnt have facebook, or instagram do they still give you trouble, like over why you dont travel with your regular phone?
• timwaagh 8y ago
  I wouldn't like this. but for sure i'd do the exact same. a lot of criminals are dumb or not careful enough. they will catch a few baddies no doubt.
• rwcarlsen 8y ago
  Only the wealthy can afford privacy. It has been true for a while, but this just makes it explicit.
• mderazon 8y ago
  Wow this is some dystopian shit. I had no idea. If someone has access to your phone they can always find something. I wonder if there's a technological solution for this other than wiping the phone clear?
• mavdi 8y ago
  We immediately need a phone and laptop feature called "Border crossing mode". Once you can perhaps active anytime but only gets deactivated once you're physically in a predefined location.
  • trhway 8y ago
    that mode should be almost always on - the CBP in US can do all that fun stuff to you at any time as long as you're closer than 100 miles to any US border - including ocean. So, for example, CBP can do anything they want to anybody in San Francisco. Granted, for now they do that mostly to "brown" people - well they need to start somewhere to get us into that shiny totalitarian future and of course the start is always with the most vulnerable.
    • moonka 8y ago
      ACLU has a good explanation here about the 100 miles to the border. It covers 2/3 of the population. https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
    • john_kuszmaul 8y ago
      Perhaps that mode could be called full disk encryption? All humans inside the US border have the fifth amendment right to remain silent, so handing over encryption passwords to the CBP is a choice. Unfortunately, the 5th amendment doesn't apply in New Zealand - if you remain silent at a NZ airport while customs ask for your password, they will impose a $5000 fine on you. The only viable solution I see is to only travel to places that do have 5th amendment protection or similar (which would immediately rule out Britain, Ireland, Australia, and now NZ as well).
      • trhway 8y ago
        While I agree with you on the 5th in application to passwords, the judges, at least some, in US - dont.
      • lostlogin 8y ago
• PerilousD 8y ago
  If you are carrying a phone and laptop out of the country in this day and age with all of the contents of your digital life on it then you're an idiot. Last couple of trips I used a postpaid phone and a cheap chromebook. They want the phone keep it. They want the laptop keep it. I sure as hell dont want it back after they've planted who knows what on it after their "investigation".
• theshrike79 8y ago
  What if I have confidential information or software that can access confidential information on my phone. Now when the rent-a-cop futzes with my phone, it's a GDPR violation. But am I to blame or the border agent?
• newscracker 8y ago
  > But Mr Beagle said "serious criminals" would simply store incriminating material online. > "You'd be mad to carry stuff over on your phone. Of course, intelligent criminals would never have incriminating communications or evidence carried on a device across international borders. What's more, they would know that there is such a law and hence have their devices wiped clean or get devices with minimal information to support whatever cover they're using. Lawmakers and law enforcement must be idiots to imagine that serious crime could be prevented or caught by this measure. > Privacy Commissioner John Edwards had some influence over the drafting of the legislation and said he was "pretty comfortable" with where the law stood. This just shows how government appointed officers behave like puppets of the government, and rarely side with common people on big issues (such as mass surveillance). Similar to DRM, these measures inconvenience the innocent while doing nothing to prevent the bad people from doing bad things. The balance is tilted heavily towards abuse and harassment of the innocent. Being one of the Five Eyes [1] countries, I'm not surprised that New Zealand does this kind of thing. The lesson is loud and clear: if you're traveling, backup your phone online, wipe it, and then carry it with minimal personal information. Otherwise all your personal communications, including sensitive/intimate photos and private messages, will be taken by border patrol for their personal use. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
  • wang_li 8y ago
    >if you're traveling, backup your phone online, wipe it, and then carry it with minimal personal information It would be nice if phone vendors provided a mechanism to backup my phone, wipe it, then some time later merge the backup with the contents of the phone. Would be nice to be able to leave the primary contents of my phone at home while a travel and then merge my travel photos and messages and such back in when I restore my original contents after returning home.
    • newscracker 8y ago
      That was on my mind when I wrote that — it's not possible to merge data, and there's no point in not using the device while traveling and avoiding taking photos or sending messages (that aren't saved on some cloud platforms). One alternate solution, if you feel safer after the border crossing event, could be to use the native cloud backup feature of the phone maker. Backup the phone on the cloud, wipe it, set it up with a new email address, and then once you cross the border safely, restore from the cloud and start using it. You wouldn't have to worry about merging data then. But the issue here, at least for me, is that I don't want to backup my data on the phone maker's cloud.
• ryall 8y ago
  This is so easy to get around that it's only going to persecute regular people. As the comments above can attest to, there's multiple ways of circumventing these searches. And we've given it what, 5 minutes of thought? Imagine what you could come up with if you actually had something to hide.
• ljm 8y ago
  I wonder sometimes if policies like these are monumental cases of the XY Problem in action. For example, the government/border agency decides that travellers must give up their phones and account passwords. In fact, other governments/agencies see this as leading by example and tag along for the ride. The justification we hear is 'national security' and, since the first thing we were aware of was the solution itself, we treat it as viable without much scrutiny and proceed to fill in the blanks about what 'national security' means to us: is it terrorism? drug trafficking? illegal immigration? some other hot button topic? It begs the question and the frustrating thing is; we know the real answer: governments just love authority and surveillance. Yet still, how about some other questions... What is a better solution to preventing terrorists from hijacking your plane? It would make sense to address the circumstances that actively encourage terrorism, no? That's foreign policy. Drugs crossing the border? How about checking for the physical presence of them as opposed to forcing people to incriminate themselves for recreational drug usage? Illegal immigration? That means a lot of things to a lot of people and, if my experience in Canada is anywhere near representative, it might actually be more successful if it wasn't so strict. In no case does getting unrestricted access to your social media accounts, your collection of nude selfies, entire history of messages going back years, etc. actually aim to tackle the real problems. All the reasoning does is save the government the job of justifying its pathological obsession with your private life.
• jhabdas 8y ago
  Fuck law-abiding taxpayers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prf12hxu65o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prf12hxu65o
• thewizardofaus 8y ago
  I'm curious - this is hypothetical. What if you were a millitary contractor and had work on your laptop. And they asked to search it and hand over password. What would happen then? Assuming they would need clearance to view certain files.
• illusivesaint 8y ago
  Damn it's hard advocating others HOW IMPORTANT digital privacy is even if you have nothing to fear nothing to hide because it sets the standard so low to anyone to be vulnerable to be molested. Bad people are going to find ways to find ways to take advantage of a system in place, but at least we can try to make it a safe for those innocent.
• adpoe 8y ago
  Last time I traveled internationally (~10 years ago), I had to buy a separate international cell phone. Not for privacy reasons -- but instead because my US-based phone wouldn't work in some of the other countries I'd be in. (At the protocol level, I suppose.) Assuming it's not prohibitively expensive, why not do the same thing, now? I agree that this is a troubling policy. But it seems simple to get around, if you were interested in doing so. It's also possible that this suggestion is naive, and feel free to let me know why, if so. =)
• ilrwbwrkhv 8y ago
  Is there no legal recourse for us? I understand one can travel with a burner phone or backup, wipe, restore etc but if one wants to travel without doing something a drug dealer would do, is there anything else that can be done? Is there no collective legal recourse for us?
• navs 8y ago
  What if most of your information is online, in some cloud platform and you don't have the app installed on your phone? My iPhone isn't logged into any cloud services and the only apps I have installed are Google Maps and Gmail. I don't log into my Apple account and don't have the Dropbox app installed. Much of my data is stored in an S3 bucket. Simply giving an officer my phone means I'm surrendering my Gmail account and local phone data i.e. contacts and reminders. Not terribly worried about that. To really investigate my digital presence they'd need access to my Dropbox, AWS account, personal email etc. Can they request that information despite not having any trace of it on my phone. How deep do they go?
  • aspett 8y ago
    The article mentions that the searches are done in flight mode - so no cloud snooping.
• rstuart4133 8y ago
  As others have noted this is easy enough to thwart if you prepare, it will only catch the unsophisticated. So they aren't going to catch terrorists with this, but it probably will catch a few people intending to work while on a holiday visa. But it would be nice if the phone manufacturers made it easier to side step. Android is close already: it has multiple users. If it allowed you to hide a user (so you had to type in a name, for example), it would be mostly there. One thing I really wish they would provide is a decent backup service, ie something that allowed you to backup everything on the phone, to an encrypted binary blob. Mainly I want this because having a backup that allows me to restore my data if the phone gets destroyed would help sleep easier at night, but of course it also solves this problem too: backup the phone to a hidden cloud account, factory reset it, restore it on arrival.
• trizic 8y ago
  During my layover in Germany, after scanning my bag the security agents wanted to see if my DSLR was actually a camera. They did this by requesting to see live image through the LCD screen. Thankfully it was charged but I wonder how things would have gone if I ran out of battery.
• contingencies 8y ago
  Same in Australia now: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6213007/Police-want-mobile-laptop-passwords-jailed-refusing.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6213007/Police-want... It's like it's a pan five eyes scheduled implementation.
• mr_toad 8y ago
  The only terrorist incident to ever occur in New Zealand was perpetrated by French government agents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior They were caught by a normal homicide investigation, as almost all murders in New Zealand are. No special terrorism laws, border searches or secret warrants. This is not just a pointless invasion of privacy in the name of security theatre, it’s a needless waste of time and money.
• arnonejoe 8y ago
  Simple solution. Set up remote desktop and also travel with a burner phone.
• tempodox 8y ago
  > ...organised crime groups are becoming a lot more sophisticated in the ways they're trying to get things across the border. So if it can be got across the border digitally, why would they put it on their phone that can be seized and searched? The efficacy of this law wrt. the new challenges we face is at best questionable.
• amaccuish 8y ago
  Am I excempt as I have an NZ passport?
• glandium 8y ago
  Kind of related: How Face ID could be a game-changer for aggressive US border agents https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18113431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18113431
• felixis-1 8y ago
  Probably a naive question: The whole point of this kind of search is to find something. But what is that "something"? What do they expect to find? Anyone even remotely serious of doing something bad is not going to have it on their phone just like that. What do they even expect to find?
• Friedduck 8y ago
  Seems the new normal is to wipe your devices of anything you don’t want made public regardless of country. I give pause when pondering international business travel. I can’t very well wipe my laptop, nor could I hand it over given what’s on it. Put everything on a VM and move it off the device for border crossings?
• Lio 8y ago
  “Excuse me sir but I believe your wife is quite hot and you maybe in possession of some personal photos me and the boys would like to have a good look at.” Of course they don’t have to tell you why they want to look at your phone or what they’re doing with the stuff they’ve copied off it. It’s basically a pant sniffers charter.
• bparsons 8y ago
  For anyone who goes back and forth between the US and Canada -- get a Nexus card. It is the best 80 bucks you will ever spend. You fly through security, both on land and in airports, and you even get expedited through domestic security screening. It has made flying 10x better for me.
• yannovitch 8y ago
  Oh, you feel how does time really fly reading that. How can so many changes happen in such a short amount of time ?? I traveled all around Europe, South East Asia and US/Canada only ~5 years ago with all my hard drives (and as such, a copy of all my pictures, documents, but some movies and music too), and most of the time, the fact that I carried 4 or 5 2.5"hard drives on me was just considered funny, once I explained that it was hard drives with work & personal stuff on it.