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I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

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Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

#11

Post by koolba »

alextheparrot wrote: post #9
koolba wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can hold you indefinitely for effectively whatever reason they'd like (or really no reason). If they say they're not letting you go until you unlock your phone, you get to decide if you want to stay there in the interests of your privacy.

Sorry, my question was can they do that for my account information as well? Could they setup kiosks for me to sign into Facebook? The author in the post advocated uploading my data into the cloud and factory resetting my phone, though I don't believe this will work if they can just ask me for my Facebook.

I think they could, they just don't do it yet.

The author is arguing that they wouldn't know the usernames or even the services themselves of your accounts and as such could not ask for them. I call bullshit on that (see my top level comment on this).

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

#12

Post by marcuskaz »

67726e wrote: post #2

The article claims that they can hold you indefinitely if you do not turn over your password. What could happen if I smashed my phone?

If you don't cooperate, they don't have to let you into the country. They can simply tell you to turn around and go somewhere else.

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

#13

Post by AlexB138 »

I wonder how possible it would be to create a jailed environment on Android or iOS that can not access any of the data on your phone and could be entered by putting in a false password. That would allow you to enter your "password" on-demand and then only present a jailed process to those seeking to violate your privacy. It could appear to be a full experience, but not actually contain any personal data, or contain false data.

I imagine it would be illegal, but there may be a market for it.

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

#14

Post by koolba »

psynapse wrote: post #10
marcuskaz wrote: post #5

You most likely will need your phone when you're traveling, an easier solution is to remove all apps and data on the phone and then reinstall when you get to where you want.

This is how I would do it. Take a backup and upload (encrypted) to the cloud. Factory reset in transit. Get where you are going, download and apply. You might need some of your important numbers written down I suppose.

If your tin foil hat is on tight, you wouldn't trust the phone after it's in their possession as they could have placed a rootkit on it.

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

#15

Post by thehoff »

alextheparrot wrote: post #9
koolba wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can hold you indefinitely for effectively whatever reason they'd like (or really no reason). If they say they're not letting you go until you unlock your phone, you get to decide if you want to stay there in the interests of your privacy.

Sorry, my question was can they do that for my account information as well? Could they setup kiosks for me to sign into Facebook? The author in the post advocated uploading my data into the cloud and factory resetting my phone, though I don't believe this will work if they can just ask me for my Facebook.

If you have 2FA then some of those accounts may not be accessible without your phone. For instance, if I didn't bring my phone with me (which I use to authenticate) I wouldn't even be able to log in to my email.

Or, taken a little further, I don't even know my email password anyways. Its locked in a password manager which requires 2FA. I would myself be locked out of almost all of my accounts if I didn't bring my phone.

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

#16

Post by Mahn »

koolba wrote: post #4

From the article (emphasis mine): > This may upset Customs and Border Patrol agents, who are probably smart enough to realize that 85% of Americans now have smart phones, and probably 100% of the Americans who travel internationally have smart phones. They may choose to detain you anyway, and force you to give them passwords to various accounts manually. But there’s no easy way for them to know which services you use…

You can always claim that you don't know the password because you use an offline password manager that you don't have with you. Also, use 2 factor authentication of course.

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

#17

Post by donald123 »

Mahn wrote: post #16
koolba wrote: post #4

From the article (emphasis mine): > This may upset Customs and Border Patrol agents, who are probably smart enough to realize that 85% of Americans now have smart phones, and probably 100% of the Americans who travel internationally have smart phones. They may choose to detain you anyway, and force you to give them passwords to various accounts manually. But there’s no easy way for them to know which services you use…

You can always claim that you don't know the password because you use an offline password manager that you don't have with you. Also, use 2 factor authentication of course.

One can refuse whatever way they want, but he/she can be detained and the device forfeited. And for non-citizens, they can be denied entry to US.

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

#18

Post by donald123 »

marcuskaz wrote: post #12
67726e wrote: post #2

The article claims that they can hold you indefinitely if you do not turn over your password. What could happen if I smashed my phone?

If you don't cooperate, they don't have to let you into the country. They can simply tell you to turn around and go somewhere else.

For non-citizens, yes. But they cannot deny entry for US citizens, and they cannot detain citizens indefinitely.

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

#19

Post by xemoka »

thehoff wrote: post #15
alextheparrot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, my question was can they do that for my account information as well? Could they setup kiosks for me to sign into Facebook? The author in the post advocated uploading my data into the cloud and factory resetting my phone, though I don't believe this will work if they can just ask me for my Facebook.

If you have 2FA then some of those accounts may not be accessible without your phone. For instance, if I didn't bring my phone with me (which I use to authenticate) I wouldn't even be able to log in to my email. Or, taken a little further, I don't even know my email password anyways. Its locked in a password manager which requires 2FA. I would myself be locked out of almost all of my accounts if I didn't bring my pho…

And that makes resetting it a non-starter too doesn't it?

Re: I’ll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you

#20

Post by fauigerzigerk »

"They may choose to detain you anyway, and force you to give them passwords to various accounts manually. But there’s no easy way for them to know which services you use and which services you don’t use, or whether you have multiple accounts."

So next year that's what they will know.

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