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I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

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Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

#151
post #140
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a "guess". The last Android release that lacked support for block-device-level encryption was KitKat, which shipped in 2013. Any device being advertised with the "Android" trademark (to be fair: AOSP-based clone OSes like Amazon's have been slower to evolve) over the last two years has that support. Please don't hijack an important security discussion to engage in meaningless platform flamage. Users with And…

Android still lacks behind in regards of disk encryption. See this in-depth article that was posted on HN a while ago: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2016/11/24/android-... Also the parent post was talking about usage, not availability of encryption. So while recent Android versions most certainly offer encryption, it might not be enabled. iOS encrypted by default, as it should be.

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Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

#152
"And you can bet that countries like China and Russia aren’t far behind" - I am a Russian citizen and I cross the border of Russia very frequently and I cannot agree with the statement. The worse thing I've been asked about was "what is the goal of your trip". Getting your phone on the border of Russia is something impossible, it's just unimaginable. I've never been asked to show anything except for my passport. At least now and for the time before this moment.

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

#153
post #6
post #5

Earlier 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, it's a new one I've just bought for this trip". So what?

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that law enforcement actually knows you will have evidence. If the technology could remove everything that would be incriminating and leave benign data you would just be another non-techie traveler.

They don't need to know you have evidence. All they need to know is that you deliberately caused them to erase your device under the guise of unlocking it. Which means your device could have had evidence, and now you've made it impossible to prove that it didn't.

The burden of proof is still on them, no?

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone's should have a travel mode, where it backs up all your data to the cloud and wipes the phone clean.

Why does that need a special mode? Just back up your phone and factory reset it.

That's not the same thing, and nowhere near as helpful. Why would I want to wipe my phone every border cross if I don't have to?

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

#156
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does that need a special mode? Just back up your phone and factory reset it.

That's not the same thing, and nowhere near as helpful. Why would I want to wipe my phone every border cross if I don't have to?

admax88q said they wanted a mode where it wipes your phone. That mode is called "factory reset".

If what you want is a mode that wipes your phone only when a CBP agent looks at it, as other people have stated in the comments here, you'd probably be committing some sort of crime (e.g. destruction of evidence or lying to a federal agent).

The only truly safe way to cross is to not actually have your data when you cross, not to try and throw it away once you get singled out by agents.

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

#157
post #11

Phones should load different profiles based on the password provided, with some activity logged across profiles so none of them appear stale.

Phone's should have a travel mode, where it backs up all your data to the cloud and wipes the phone clean.

What if the agent forces you to give them the password for "untravel mode", which restores data to your phone from the cloud?

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

#158
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't bring my personal phone when traveling, because last time my 700$ iPhone was broken by stupid CBP agents" - that, or any reasonable excuse should work. EDIT: "I bring dumbphones when traveling because battery lasts two weeks, unlike iPhone" "I heard that there are lot of thieves in the country I visited, so I was afraid to bring my real phone" "I heard that airport X-ray machine can brick iPhone" "I really l…

Almost all of those are lies. Lying to a federal agent is a felony.

I really have a dumbphone because the battery lasts more than one week..

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

#159
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Please hand over your personal phone, not any replacements you carry as decoys"

"I don't bring my personal phone when traveling, because last time my 700$ iPhone was broken by stupid CBP agents" - that, or any reasonable excuse should work. EDIT: "I bring dumbphones when traveling because battery lasts two weeks, unlike iPhone" "I heard that there are lot of thieves in the country I visited, so I was afraid to bring my real phone" "I heard that airport X-ray machine can brick iPhone" "I really l…

Why does anyone feel it's necessary to explain why they have the phone they have? There are plenty of people who use cheap phones, and not just as decoys. Why would they exist otherwise?

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again

#160
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the same thing, and nowhere near as helpful. Why would I want to wipe my phone every border cross if I don't have to?

admax88q said they wanted a mode where it wipes your phone. That mode is called "factory reset". If what you want is a mode that wipes your phone only when a CBP agent looks at it, as other people have stated in the comments here, you'd probably be committing some sort of crime (e.g. destruction of evidence or lying to a federal agent). The only truly safe way to cross is to not actually have your data when you cross…

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