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I've always preferred having a dedicated desktop that acts as a personal server and then a small cheap laptop that I use to remotely access it. While this pref
by KingMachiavelli 7y ago
I've always preferred having a dedicated desktop that acts as a personal server and then a small cheap laptop that I use to remotely access it.
While this preference is mostly driven by capitalizing on the performance/price/size difference between desktops and laptops, it has lots of advantages when it comes to these situations.
My Dell XPS 13 only has 128GB of storage so none of the data exists solely on that device; it acts mostly as a dumb terminal that I use to SSH to my desktop. I suppose upon booting the machine they could request SSH key passwords and then search my desktop but this seems unlikely.
While most of the issues with these border searches are privacy/ideology based. These types of security theatre can easily be circumvented.
Of course, just using Linux may get you detained for a bit which makes it all moot. Maybe having a business card saying I'm a systems administrator (which is true) would make Linux an easy explanation.
If these searches increase and become normal, I think it's only a matter of time before Apple implements a cloud based 'data refuge' that would allow users to temporarily offload encrypted sensitive data to the cloud while crossing borders and traveling to countries with weak or no privacy laws.
- RandomGuyDTB 7y agoDo you have a citation on how using Linux can get you detained?
- freedomben 7y agoI haven't heard of Linux getting people detained at border crossings, but it definitely gets you more scrutiny from other government organizations like the NSA[1]. [1] https://www.eweek.com/security/linux-lands-on-nsa-watch-list https://www.eweek.com/security/linux-lands-on-nsa-watch-list
- mef 7y agorelated: 1Password Travel Mode https://support.1password.com/travel-mode/ https://support.1password.com/travel-mode/
- BLKNSLVR 7y agoMy assumption is that this will become "the norm" for anyone that frequently travels across borders and deals with sensitive information. As another commenter mentioned above, in the age of the internet and almost ubiquitous connectedness to it, what need is there to transport files on a device that can be seized and searched? It's purely a limitation of the technical knowledge to make it easy to access data remotely. Package it up and sell it and you've got yourself a tidy little niche. Just watch out for governments asking for (or trying to create) backdoors. When I traveled overseas I factory reset my phone and just used a dummy gmail address on it, then put my normal account back on once properly in the country. It's a matter of managing the details required to "get everything back" with minimal time and hassle. I'm a boring person unlikely to get onto any lists, other than the fact I like the intellectual challenge of maintaining a level of privacy slightly above what the 'state' might want me to have. Too many people doing this, however, would cause a surveillance step-up to spot checking tourists / visitors mid-visit. That'll be an interesting law to try and pass.
- bengerbil 7y agoI travel similarly equipped - with the idea that I can't lose (or lose control of) data I don't have with me. This addresses the threats represented by border control, intranational security checks, theft of device, and unintended hardware acceleration (@9.8m/s^2). At most, a laptop or a phone is a cache of data that's already elsewhere.
- shoes_for_thee 7y agoIt's really the unintended deceleration you need to worry about.
- Havoc 7y ago>traveling to countries with weak or no privacy laws. Like Canada?
- andai 7y agoI'm genuinely curious which countries are not in that list.