7 ms·

If it doesn't already exist someone should make an Iphone and/or android app that will let you lock your phone before you go through customs, and only allow you

by mixmax 13y ago

If it doesn't already exist someone should make an Iphone and/or android app that will let you lock your phone before you go through customs, and only allow you to unlock it at a specified time and/or place. For instance 5 hours after landing at the location of your booked hotel. That way you won't be able to divulge information held on your phone, even if you wanted to.

Spearchucker 13y ago
Overkill. Cross borders clean. I reset my phone every time I cross any border. And then resync everything I need on the other side. I have a TrueCrypt volume I download to my travel laptop. It's small but contains what I need when abroad.
- josefit 13y ago
  Unfortunately they still might ask you to fire up your laptop, give the password, find the truecrypt volume and then ask you the password for that.
  - e_proxus 13y ago
    You can use a TrueCrypt hidden volume for that. Fill up a normal volume with some plausible data and use the hidden volume for your actual files. http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/hidden-volume http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/hidden-volume
    - pearjuice 13y ago
      If they were actually on you, they would find the hidden volume too.
  - Spearchucker 13y ago
    Sorry, my post was a bit sparse on detail. I keep a TC volume (file) on three separate public file shares. My laptop is clean. I download and install TruCrypt, and download the TC volume once I'm through customs. When I say clean, I mean that there's no trace of anything on any of my devices while I cross a border. That means there's no TrueCrypt, and no TrueCrypt volume on my laptop at all. Why should there be? We have the Internet.
    - hiroprot 13y ago
      Of course, after they have your personal details, they'll now do an Internet search and find this post. You just gave them your game plan ;)
      - Spearchucker 13y ago
        Indeed I did. But how would anyone prove that this scenario isn't just hypothetical?
        kbradero 13y ago
        well done sr
- tghw 13y ago
  Sorry, but I fail to see how an app locking you out is more overkill than wiping all of your devices every time you cross a border.
  - Spearchucker 13y ago
    Depends on what you mean by overkill. Effort? Then yes. Security? Then no. If the data is there but inaccessible you can be detained until it is. If the data isn't there to begin with, there's no reason to detain you.
    - tghw 13y ago
      I'd call that more of an effectiveness thing than overkill. And it would be possible for an app to not unlock the phone until it enters a certain geofence, like the hotel.
      - Spearchucker 13y ago
        That wouldn't work in the UK, where not providing plain text when asked carries a prison sentence.
        tghw 13y ago
        The app wouldn't accept a password, just a time and location to unlock. I'm not sure if that's better, but it technically sidesteps that issue.
        Spearchucker 13y ago
        I said plain text, not password. And it doesn't side-step anything because when you're in front of a judge and explain why you cannot provide plain text, they'll take your phone from you, get it to the location you tell them, and if none of that yields plain text, you go to jail. Two years, they give you for that.
        13y ago
- drderidder 13y ago
  The US has outlawed encryption in the past, and tools they once touted as promoting democratic freedom in oppressive regimes are suddenly seen as evil, so you'd probably need to remove all signs of TrueCrypt on your laptop as well.
tokenadult 13y ago
You've crossed a lot of borders before, haven't you, mixmax? I thought about this proposal of yours for a while as I was eating breakfast, and I remember the ways that tangible property of travelers can be handled at a border. First of all, if a particular kind of tangible property is declared to be contraband by some country, it can be seized at the border. There is nothing you could do about that, if you want to visit that country, except not bring along the property. Another treatment of some kinds of property is charging a tariff, even if the property will remain in the traveler's possession after leaving the country. I have seen this done. Some items carried by Americans were dutiable in Taiwan even if they were not items that would be sold in Taiwan. (This was in the 1980s.) The customs duty for some items, by the tariff laws Taiwan then had, were equal to the full retail price of the items (mostly consumer electronics, as in the case I observed). Or the property could be held in bonded storage at the airport until you finish your journey. That happens for some items in some countries too. To sum up, just because you can lock your phone doesn't mean you will be able to travel around the world with your phone. Try that in North Korea. Try that in some other places, and see what happens. Countries can control the entry of tangible property into their territory if they so choose.
- pyre 13y ago
  I think that @mixmax was mostly referring to the US border.
dylangs1030 13y ago
Haha, you can do that already. Disable that feature that restores your phone after x number of failed passcode attempts, and keep inputting wrong passcodes until it's locked for x hours. I don't think it has an upper bound but I could be wrong.
- C1D 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure the cap is one hour and even if its not if he wanted to lock it for 5 hours he would have to wait 1 hour to try again and then 2 hours and then 3, etc.
  - X-Istence 13y ago
    The cap is not 1 hour ... it is MUCH much longer. At one point I had gotten ahold of my friends phone while he was passed out drunk. He slept pretty much all day, every time the counter ran out, we locked it again. He ended up having to wait 18 hours to finally get to it, since he didn't have his computer with iTunes on it with him. He'd get text messages/calls and he wouldn't be able to answer them!
    - C1D 13y ago
      That's hilarious. I allways though the cap was 1 hour because that was the furthest I had gotten before my sister saw me locking her phone :).
Spoom 13y ago
That will result in two things: you will be detained further, and they will seize your device.
primitur 13y ago
Border Control Agents have been issued with devices that can copy the entire contents of your cell phone in a few minutes - the entire contents, using JTAG, of every storage device onboard. If you've got bits encrypted, great - but there's a lot of stuff you can't encrypt in iOS and Android, in general, unless you work really hard at it ..
- superuser2 13y ago
  Don't know why this was downvoted. http://www.cellebrite.com/mobile-forensic-products/ufed-touch-ultimate.html http://www.cellebrite.com/mobile-forensic-products/ufed-touc... This device, advertised to law enforcement agencies, plugs into the phone (or sometimes connects by Bluetooth), exploits it, recovers deleted data, and copies all your texts, contacts, browsing history, GPS history, etc. to a flash drive for the operator. If it's an iPhone it can't exploit, the operator can copy some plists from your iTunes library (which you'd also have with you at a border crossing) onto the device, bypassing the PIN. Locking your phone or deleting data is pretty much worthless if you're trying to hide from well-equipped law enforcement agency.
  - throwaway99783 13y ago
    I've worke for a few companies that make these products. They largely depend on public exploits. If you have a fully up-to-date iOS device the odds are lower that someone using one of these kits can image it without a passcode. The companies that make these kits are really dumb and employ bottom-of-the-barrel developers that aren't really capable of writing good code, let alone finding jailbreak-type bugs in mobile stuff. They also don't have the money (or the contacts) to buy the bugs, so, stick to phones that can't be jailbroken and you're probably safe against these imagers...
    - primitur 13y ago
      Sorry, but no. You may be correct about the incompetent developers of these devices, but the truly competent developers simply use JTAG and do a block-by-block NAND/Flash transfer. There is no protection against this.
coldtea 13y ago
So they just have to confiscate the phone?
hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
> That way you won't be able to divulge information held on your phone, even if you wanted to. Bad. If you have nothing to hide, this will make it look like you have, and now you're in deep shit. From the stories I'm reading lately, chances are that if you answer with such non-sense (sorry, I can't access the information in MY OWN PHONE) they will have someone from border control beat the information out of you.

by mixmax 13y ago

Spearchucker 13y ago

Overkill. Cross borders clean. I reset my phone every time I cross any border. And then resync everything I need on the other side. I have a TrueCrypt volume I download to my travel laptop. It's small but contains what I need when abroad.

josefit 13y ago
Unfortunately they still might ask you to fire up your laptop, give the password, find the truecrypt volume and then ask you the password for that.
- e_proxus 13y ago
  You can use a TrueCrypt hidden volume for that. Fill up a normal volume with some plausible data and use the hidden volume for your actual files. http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/hidden-volume http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/hidden-volume
  - pearjuice 13y ago
    If they were actually on you, they would find the hidden volume too.
- Spearchucker 13y ago
  Sorry, my post was a bit sparse on detail. I keep a TC volume (file) on three separate public file shares. My laptop is clean. I download and install TruCrypt, and download the TC volume once I'm through customs. When I say clean, I mean that there's no trace of anything on any of my devices while I cross a border. That means there's no TrueCrypt, and no TrueCrypt volume on my laptop at all. Why should there be? We have the Internet.
  - hiroprot 13y ago
    Of course, after they have your personal details, they'll now do an Internet search and find this post. You just gave them your game plan ;)
    - Spearchucker 13y ago
      Indeed I did. But how would anyone prove that this scenario isn't just hypothetical?
      - kbradero 13y ago
        well done sr
tghw 13y ago
Sorry, but I fail to see how an app locking you out is more overkill than wiping all of your devices every time you cross a border.
- Spearchucker 13y ago
  Depends on what you mean by overkill. Effort? Then yes. Security? Then no. If the data is there but inaccessible you can be detained until it is. If the data isn't there to begin with, there's no reason to detain you.
  - tghw 13y ago
    I'd call that more of an effectiveness thing than overkill. And it would be possible for an app to not unlock the phone until it enters a certain geofence, like the hotel.
    - Spearchucker 13y ago
      That wouldn't work in the UK, where not providing plain text when asked carries a prison sentence.
      - tghw 13y ago
        The app wouldn't accept a password, just a time and location to unlock. I'm not sure if that's better, but it technically sidesteps that issue.
        Spearchucker 13y ago
        I said plain text, not password. And it doesn't side-step anything because when you're in front of a judge and explain why you cannot provide plain text, they'll take your phone from you, get it to the location you tell them, and if none of that yields plain text, you go to jail. Two years, they give you for that.
        13y ago
drderidder 13y ago
The US has outlawed encryption in the past, and tools they once touted as promoting democratic freedom in oppressive regimes are suddenly seen as evil, so you'd probably need to remove all signs of TrueCrypt on your laptop as well.

tokenadult 13y ago

You've crossed a lot of borders before, haven't you, mixmax? I thought about this proposal of yours for a while as I was eating breakfast, and I remember the ways that tangible property of travelers can be handled at a border. First of all, if a particular kind of tangible property is declared to be contraband by some country, it can be seized at the border. There is nothing you could do about that, if you want to visit that country, except not bring along the property. Another treatment of some kinds of property is charging a tariff, even if the property will remain in the traveler's possession after leaving the country. I have seen this done. Some items carried by Americans were dutiable in Taiwan even if they were not items that would be sold in Taiwan. (This was in the 1980s.) The customs duty for some items, by the tariff laws Taiwan then had, were equal to the full retail price of the items (mostly consumer electronics, as in the case I observed). Or the property could be held in bonded storage at the airport until you finish your journey. That happens for some items in some countries too. To sum up, just because you can lock your phone doesn't mean you will be able to travel around the world with your phone. Try that in North Korea. Try that in some other places, and see what happens. Countries can control the entry of tangible property into their territory if they so choose.

pyre 13y ago
I think that @mixmax was mostly referring to the US border.

dylangs1030 13y ago

Haha, you can do that already. Disable that feature that restores your phone after x number of failed passcode attempts, and keep inputting wrong passcodes until it's locked for x hours. I don't think it has an upper bound but I could be wrong.

C1D 13y ago
I'm pretty sure the cap is one hour and even if its not if he wanted to lock it for 5 hours he would have to wait 1 hour to try again and then 2 hours and then 3, etc.
- X-Istence 13y ago
  The cap is not 1 hour ... it is MUCH much longer. At one point I had gotten ahold of my friends phone while he was passed out drunk. He slept pretty much all day, every time the counter ran out, we locked it again. He ended up having to wait 18 hours to finally get to it, since he didn't have his computer with iTunes on it with him. He'd get text messages/calls and he wouldn't be able to answer them!
  - C1D 13y ago
    That's hilarious. I allways though the cap was 1 hour because that was the furthest I had gotten before my sister saw me locking her phone :).

Spoom 13y ago

That will result in two things: you will be detained further, and they will seize your device.

primitur 13y ago

Border Control Agents have been issued with devices that can copy the entire contents of your cell phone in a few minutes - the entire contents, using JTAG, of every storage device onboard. If you've got bits encrypted, great - but there's a lot of stuff you can't encrypt in iOS and Android, in general, unless you work really hard at it ..

superuser2 13y ago
Don't know why this was downvoted. http://www.cellebrite.com/mobile-forensic-products/ufed-touch-ultimate.html http://www.cellebrite.com/mobile-forensic-products/ufed-touc... This device, advertised to law enforcement agencies, plugs into the phone (or sometimes connects by Bluetooth), exploits it, recovers deleted data, and copies all your texts, contacts, browsing history, GPS history, etc. to a flash drive for the operator. If it's an iPhone it can't exploit, the operator can copy some plists from your iTunes library (which you'd also have with you at a border crossing) onto the device, bypassing the PIN. Locking your phone or deleting data is pretty much worthless if you're trying to hide from well-equipped law enforcement agency.
- throwaway99783 13y ago
  I've worke for a few companies that make these products. They largely depend on public exploits. If you have a fully up-to-date iOS device the odds are lower that someone using one of these kits can image it without a passcode. The companies that make these kits are really dumb and employ bottom-of-the-barrel developers that aren't really capable of writing good code, let alone finding jailbreak-type bugs in mobile stuff. They also don't have the money (or the contacts) to buy the bugs, so, stick to phones that can't be jailbroken and you're probably safe against these imagers...
  - primitur 13y ago
    Sorry, but no. You may be correct about the incompetent developers of these devices, but the truly competent developers simply use JTAG and do a block-by-block NAND/Flash transfer. There is no protection against this.

coldtea 13y ago

So they just have to confiscate the phone?

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago

> That way you won't be able to divulge information held on your phone, even if you wanted to. Bad. If you have nothing to hide, this will make it look like you have, and now you're in deep shit. From the stories I'm reading lately, chances are that if you answer with such non-sense (sorry, I can't access the information in MY OWN PHONE) they will have someone from border control beat the information out of you.