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A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

theverge.com

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Re: A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

#11

Post by return0 »

yardie wrote: post #7
batbomb wrote: post #4

Conceivably, it's quite possible he had information which is subject to ITAR regulations, including data about sensors, mirrors. At the very least, he probably had sensor vendor specifications which are trade secrets and often covered under NDAs.

Did you bother to read the article? He was detained coming into the country. Just call a spade a spade. Trump wrote a shitty, racist executive order and people from all walks of life who happen to have one thing in common, a Muslim sounding name, are caught up in it.

There is zero indication this had anything to do with the ban, he was not held detained , but his phone was. I think it's part of his job, and the verge is creating straw men

Re: A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

#12

Post by pjc50 »

batbomb wrote: post #4

Conceivably, it's quite possible he had information which is subject to ITAR regulations, including data about sensors, mirrors. At the very least, he probably had sensor vendor specifications which are trade secrets and often covered under NDAs.

Are you implying they searched him for ITAR violations on the way back into the country? I'm confused.

Re: A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

#13

Post by mindslight »

Especially with a USG-owned device, this seems like it would have been a ripe time to assert one's citizenship for entry and just let them steal the device.

The last time I traveled internationally, I purposely brought only an old laptop. To return, I zeroed the hard drive and physically removed it from the machine so the scum would have pretext to steal less of my property.

For my preparation I was rewarded with absolutely no thuggery, which is how the sheer majority of border crossings actually go. That's the insidious thing about the inverted-totalitarian threat model - these specific situations are inherently rare. If they were common, change would easily happen through democratic means. It is only through the majority of people believing that it cannot happen to them, are the injustices allowed to persist.

We really need a reboot for a modern OS model which puts cryptographic access control front and center, with support for secret splitting and the appropriate bottom-up foundation that allows for steganographic-secure machines. I can actually see this plausibly happening for proper personal computers, eventually. Unfortunately the average person's computing device has become a "cell phone" which, even ignoring the inherent pwntivity of Qualcomm integrated chips, is a software ecosystem funded primarily through commercial surveillance.

Re: A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

#14

Post by yardie »

return0 wrote: post #11
yardie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you bother to read the article? He was detained coming into the country. Just call a spade a spade. Trump wrote a shitty, racist executive order and people from all walks of life who happen to have one thing in common, a Muslim sounding name, are caught up in it.

There is zero indication this had anything to do with the ban, he was not held detained , but his phone was. I think it's part of his job, and the verge is creating straw men

You and I have very different definitions of detained then. 40 minutes? So everyone around him was detained in detaining room, with sleeping cots, but he wasn't? Please explain that one?

And ITAR has fuck all to do with reentering the country.

Re: A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

#16

Post by Mikeb85 »

This happens in Canada too, unfortunately (was in the news quite a bit not too long ago, and can be seen in action on that reality TV show about border security).

Best to wipe your phone, and not bring any sensitive documents across borders period.

Re: A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

#17

Post by DanBC »

hacknat wrote: post #3
virmundi wrote: post #2

As a white man, I'm a bit concerned about coming back into my own country. The only social media accounts I have are here and reddit. Will the guards at the gate accept that I don't have a Facebook or twitter account?

I think if you don't have the apps installed they'd probably would assume you were telling the truth. As a white man, you probably don't have much to worry about.

They detained the former Prime Minister of Norway, a very white guy, because he'd been to Iran for a conference.

Re: A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

#19

Post by dang »

jjawssd wrote: post #5

You're right about white males. Nothing ever happened to Aaron Hillel Swartz. Or is he a bit too dark for your taste?

Please don't post flamewar-style comments here.

You've posted a lot of uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to HN. We ban accounts that do that, so please stop doing that.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13629908 and marked it off-topic.

Re: A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

#20

Post by caminante »

Here's the Customs and Border Patrol policy in question [0] (see page 31).

The EFF has a nice write-up on this topic [1]. It sounds like there's a "border search exemption" that bypasses the Fourth Amendment. The rationale was to ensure duties were paid and screen for "bad guys," drugs, weapons, diseased fruit, etc.

[0] https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/privacy...

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/12/law-enforcement-uses-b...

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