Travelling paranoidly to or via the US

[oldgeek]

I know that there is a LOT of IFs in my idea. IF one could rent, borrow, whatever a laptop when arriving, and IF one had access to a fairly decent internet connection, then could one have an iso in the cloud to put on a usb drive to boot from with the os and all programs and files at the ready? All those IFs could take care of the laptop situation at least. Maybe. Probably not.

[neuro]

@gmb

burner phone

CBP Agent: Hello, can I see your passport?
You: Sure.
[hands over passport]
CBP Agent: Are you here for business or pleasure?
You: Pleasure.
CBP Agent: And what do you do for a living?
You: I’m a [HIGHLY TECHNICAL ROLE REQUIRING LARGE DEGREE OF COMPUTER LITERACY].
CBP Agent: And can I see your cellphone, please?
You: Sure.
[hands over an Alcatel 10.54]
CBP Agent: Aaaaaand this is your only phone?
You: Sure.
CBP Agent: And you’re a [HIGHLY TECHNICAL ROLE REQUIRING LARGE DEGREE OF COMPUTER LITERACY]?
You: Sure.
CBP Agent: And you only have numbers in here for your [CLOSE RELATIVES]?
You: Sure.
CBP Agent: And there’s no calls in the call history?
You: Sure.
CBP Agent: And you get by in your [HIGHLY TECHNICAL ROLE REQUIRING LARGE DEGREE OF COMPUTER LITERACY] without a smartphone?
You: Sure.
CBP Agent: Can I see your laptop computer please?
[hands over a Toshiba Satellite 110CS]
CBP Agent: Follow that agent over there through that door, thank you.
You: Shit.

[garethgreenaway]

Sounds strange, but has anyone considered sending necessary electronics, eg. notebook, smart phone, etc. overnight via FedEx or UPS? Obviously with insurance and all that. I know a few people that were doing that before all this nonsense started. The having the simple burner phone for emergencies.

[garethgreenaway]

What about backing up your entire home directory somewhere at home and also to an encrypted thumb drive, wipe it off the notebook. Keep the thumb drive somewhere secure, then copy it all back once you get to your destination.

[sil]

@garethgreenaway

Keep the thumb drive somewhere secure, then copy it all back once you get to your destination.

Assuming we’re worried about border patrol, then “in my bag” isn’t secure, right? Because if they’ll unlock my laptop and rummage through it, then they can just as easily plug my USB stick into a computer and rummage through it too. (And “it’s encrypted” just means “they ask for the password”.) It is a speed-bump; an extra step that one could take that they might not bother to think of or bother to do. But I’m not sure that would be all that much more useful than backing up my entire home directory to the file /opt/whole-encrypted-backup.xz on the laptop? (Which is in itself not a bad idea.)

[sil]

@garethgreenaway

Sounds strange, but has anyone considered sending necessary electronics, eg. notebook, smart phone, etc. overnight via FedEx or UPS? Obviously with insurance and all that. I know a few people that were doing that before all this nonsense started. The having the simple burner phone for emergencies.

I hadn’t actually considered that, mainly because it’s an expensive pain in the arse, but that’s actually a pretty reasonable idea if you need the laptop and the data and are worried, because it neatly sidesteps the “what if they tell me to unlock it” problem, because you aren’t there to be told.

[gmb]

@sil

I hadn’t actually considered that, mainly because it’s an expensive pain in the arse, but that’s actually a pretty reasonable idea if you need the laptop and the data and are worried, because it neatly sidesteps the “what if they tell me to unlock it” problem, because you aren’t there to be told.

Nooooope. Nope. Stuff coming over the border is subject to inspection by customs. Meaning that there’s a chance that it gets opened, booted, cloned without you knowing (however small a chance).

[sil]

Ya, but there’s no password. They can clone the disk without it, but they won’t be able to decrypt the disk…

[gmb]

IIRC, the rule is “once they have hands on your hardware, all bets are off.”

Why couldn’t they clone the disk, install a BIOS-level keylogger…

[Edit] Speling.

[sil]

Anything they can do to a shipped laptop, they can do to a laptop in your bag as well, apart from “copy the data off it” because the data is (presumably) not on the one in your bag. There are plenty of cases of people being told to unlock a device and then the device is taken away out of their sight…

(although we’re getting a long way into tinfoil-hat territory here.)

[gmb]

[quote=“sil, post:30, topic:11083”]
There are plenty of cases of people being told to unlock a device and then the device is taken away out of their sight…[/quote]

Can you cite some for me? I’ve been struggling to find meaningful data (my friends who have crossed the border recently have had no problems whatever, but have been by-and-large from the same subset of the population as me).

@sil

(although we’re getting a long way into tinfoil-hat territory here.)

Very much so.

[sil]

@gmb

Can you cite some for me?

First, their explicit guidance says they can take your phone, search it, and copy the data on it, and they’re allowed: https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/inspection-electronic-devices-tearsheet.pdf

The NASA chap we mentioned in the episode was told that unlocking his phone was mandatory, and they took it away from him for half an hour. A Canadian photojournalist had his devices taken away from him for hours. Etc, etc, etc.

[gmb]

@sil

The NASA chap we mentioned in the episode was told that unlocking his phone was mandatory, and they took it away from him for half an hour. A Canadian photojournalist had his devices taken away from him for hours. Etc, etc, etc.

Knew about the first, didn’t know about the second. Ta.

[gmb]

@sil

A Canadian photojournalist had his devices taken away from him for hours.

FTA:

“[W]e believe that CBP took advantage of Mr. Ou’s application for admission to engage in an opportunistic fishing expedition for sensitive and confidential information that Mr. Ou had gathered through his newsgathering activities,” wrote American Civil Liberties Union attorney Hugh Handeyside in a letter to the CBP and the Department of Homeland Security last week. The ACLU is helping Ou respond to the matter.

So that one, at least, was^Wis believed to have been targeted (which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, FWIW; there’s a long history of journos and those associated with them being stopped and searched at the border — e.g. Glen Greenwald’s partner being stopped in the UK a few years back post-Snowden).

That’s not to argue that there’s not a danger that we’ll all get caught by it at some point. But I guess the question for many folks is: in just what level of tinfoil hattery do we need to indulge? For you and me, @sil, it might be minimal, because we’re largely inoffensive to the state, and so it’s unlikely we’ll get flagged for searching (watch this conversation be the straw that’s too much for the border-crossing dromedary). For someone who’s been to the mid-east, or is of the right ethnic group to be stereotyped into the “we need to search this person” bucket, it’ll be far, far more important to be able to be open and honest and secure at the border. Which rather brings us back to our original starting point.

[sil]

@gmb

watch this conversation be the straw that’s too much for the border-crossing dromedary

Yeah, that’s sorta the point here. This is not targeting this bloke because he’s a known terrorist, or because he hangs around with known terrorists; he’s an investigative journalist who says things that the government doesn’t like. At what point has one retweeted enough anti-Trump memes that one goes on that list?

[gmb]

@sil

Yeah, that’s sorta the point here. This is not targeting this bloke because he’s a known terrorist, or because he hangs around with known terrorists; he’s an investigative journalist who says things that the government doesn’t like. At what point has one retweeted enough anti-Trump memes that one goes on that list?

Good point. To use a phrase that you’re fond of, there is no bright-line test for “what upsets the government enough for them to make your life hard”.

There are apps out there now for twitter that will erase your public history a chunk at a time, so you can set yourself as private and then eliminate the history that you’ve left around online (after backing up, should that be your wish). Herein of course is why the government would want your passwords: to see what you tweeted in private.

And there’s a good argument for “the US govt would be dumb to do that, because other governments would retaliate in kind” but actually, from the point of view of governments around the world who thrive on this kind of thing, is that a bad idea?

(I’m riffing now, as though we were down the pub…)

[gmb]

On the subject of tinfoil hattery, there’s this, which basically not only goes with the “don’t take devices with you” strategy but also the “lock down all social media until you return home” strategy. It gets a bit too far into batshit territory for me (I recognise, though, that it’s easy to think that from a position of privilege). FTA:

[quote]On every social media site that supports it, I will enable two-factor authentication, using a second factor that will not be in my possession (and which I will have no way to remotely access) during my travel.
Before travel, I will change ALL my social media passwords to long strings of random characters which I cannot possibly commit to memory. These passwords will be placed in an encrypted store on a flash drive (or similar) and physically secured, offline. The password store will not be in my possession when I travel. It will not be connected to any computer, nor accessible over any network. Neither I nor anyone else will have access to the password store until I return home.
[/quote]

[gmb]

Also, seems like bringing a burner, or at least a cleaned-out phone is, as I think we suspected upthread, treated as probable cause for a further search: US Customs block Canadian man after reading his Scruff profile
. FTA:

“They said, ‘Next time you come through, don’t have a cleared phone,’ and that was it. I wasn’t let through. He said I’m a suspected escort. You can’t really argue with them because you’re trapped,” he says.

[sil]

@gmb

Also, seems like bringing a burner, or at least a cleaned-out phone is, as I think we suspected upthread, treated as probable cause for a further search

Ya. This is the “doing things to protect yourself makes you look like someone who wants to hide something” attitude which frustrates Tor users. Still unsure whether to bring a burner phone. Three days until I have to decide.

[gmb]

@sil

Ya. This is the “doing things to protect yourself makes you look like someone who wants to hide something” attitude which frustrates Tor users. Still unsure whether to bring a burner phone. Three days until I have to decide.

I confess, though my travels are just under 2 months away, I am completely and utterly unable to actually make a decision on this point. I’ll be interested to see which way you go…