I suggest mentioning in the title that it concerns the US-border, I travelled across a lot of international borders, that didn't care. Only some international borders are a problem, one of these, the US one.
I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again
21–30 of 209 posts
Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recommend having a few $5 Androids on ya, they are both fun to play with, handy, and will throw inquisitive 3 letter agencies for a loop.
Where does one find an android phone for $5? I must be misunderstanding?
My supermarket had a sale a few weeks where some shitbox Android was $5.99. I think they normally retail <$30
Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, carry multiple phones of the same model. I've been throwing my main phone anywhere besides in plain view and carrying a couple $5 Androids in my pockets instead when going thru TSA, better they try to search one of them than my main phone buried in my bag next to 2 others that look just like it.
Keep in mind that it's a felony to lie to a customs & border patrol officer. "Is this your main phone?" How will you answer that?
Given multiple phones, how do you legally establish which one is "main"?
Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again
#24The factory reset seems more practical to me than leaving your phone at home.
on a scale of 0-9, I'd put factory reset at about a 5. I'd wager there's still software out there that could do a raw read of the SD storage device's blocks. Unless Apple and friends have the device reset go to extra measures that tell the drive (at the chip-level, not the OS) "report all zeros" when read from, I think to increase your safety to "level 9" you should overwrite the disk by copying a large file several times until all the free space is consumed. Even then, flash drives have more physical storage than they report, but accessing those blocks would be pressing the edge of whats practical except in the most exigent situations.
Edit: I didn't realize virtually all phones' storage is encrypted nowadays.
Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again
#25Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, carry multiple phones of the same model. I've been throwing my main phone anywhere besides in plain view and carrying a couple $5 Androids in my pockets instead when going thru TSA, better they try to search one of them than my main phone buried in my bag next to 2 others that look just like it.
Keep in mind that it's a felony to lie to a customs & border patrol officer. "Is this your main phone?" How will you answer that?
"No, this is a cheap backup phone that I intend to throw away if it leaves my possession."
Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again
#27It would be nice if there were a feature built in to phones to facilitate this. Like, on the lock screen, an emergency wipe button that runs a procedure you specify (log you out of everything, obfuscate which services you subscribe to, etc) and this way as you're going through customs, you can gauge your risk and at any point you feel uncomfortable, you discreetly click your button before smoothly handing over your phone and password with a warm smile.
Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Is this the phone you use on a day to day basis"- felony if you lie.
Option 1: "No, I left my phone at home." Option 2: If you're at the US border and a US citizen, "Sir, I'm an American citizen and just want want to get home" -- citizens can't be blocked from re-entering at the border.
No, but they can be detained and harassed - just what happened to the fellow mentioned in the article.
Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recommend having a few $5 Androids on ya, they are both fun to play with, handy, and will throw inquisitive 3 letter agencies for a loop.
"Is this the phone you use on a day to day basis"- felony if you lie.
"No, officer, its the phone I carry when I travel. I worry about it getting stolen."
Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again
#30I'm interested to see how Apple will react to this, given their history with the FBI. Right now, you can connect your iPhone to a computer and get all the information off it - doesn't matter if you are iTunes or Cellebrite. It'd be good to have a permanent way to disable this ability in the future, so that your phone data cannot be siphoned out, even if you provide the PIN. Of course, that's not the only way for data to be extracted, but all other options would be considerably slower and less practical.