Here's what I want to know: what happens if I just spike my phone on the ground?
Congrats, you've established probable cause and likely done nothing but break your screen and mess up the phone casing.
What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
41–50 of 494 posts
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#42Worth remembering: US citizens can play chicken with CBP and lose nothing more than their computer/phone hardware (perhaps having it returned 6 months later). But non-citizens, possibly including LPRs, cannot: if an alien attempts to cross the border with a device they can't unlock "because they don't have the corresponding 2FA token with them" (as one friend suggested they do), they'll be detained, their devices con…
I feel any parent with a teenager who's tried to monitor her Facebook account can see where this is headed.
This policy is incredibly ignorant of how online communities work and where communication is going. The only thing I can see happening is terrorism-minded individuals actually creating and maintaining clean Facebook profiles as a smokescreen. That's an easy win and great distraction as communication moves to non-centralized, encrypted, expiring messages.
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#43Here's what I want to know: what happens if I just spike my phone on the ground?
That's a paddlin' (detention).
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's unworkable. OK, maybe Facebook. But going without social media is no longer workable. Too much depends on it: family, friends, education, work, etc. However, what is workable is keeping your social media clean. Compartmentalize anything questionable, anything potentially embarrassing etc, using pseudonyms. And compartmentalize those pseudonyms on separate hardware, and avoid linkage through IP address, activit…
Unless you call hacker news social media then you can definitely do it. I do it. I just call or text the people I care about when I'm thinking of them. Nothing is needed from social media.
Yes, I love giving in to chilling effects that modify my behavior out of fear of consequences!
Or perhaps a government shouldn't be party to my social life?
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#45Worth remembering: US citizens can play chicken with CBP and lose nothing more than their computer/phone hardware (perhaps having it returned 6 months later). But non-citizens, possibly including LPRs, cannot: if an alien attempts to cross the border with a device they can't unlock "because they don't have the corresponding 2FA token with them" (as one friend suggested they do), they'll be detained, their devices con…
As an aside, you can have facebook logins, without having facebook installed on your phone, and you can make your profile unsearchable.
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet another reason never to sign up for Facebook.
That's unworkable. OK, maybe Facebook. But going without social media is no longer workable. Too much depends on it: family, friends, education, work, etc. However, what is workable is keeping your social media clean. Compartmentalize anything questionable, anything potentially embarrassing etc, using pseudonyms. And compartmentalize those pseudonyms on separate hardware, and avoid linkage through IP address, activit…
I would respectfully have to disagree with you concerning social media.
- I've been in IT 20 years and have no social media
- I meet my friends in person, since they're all local, save 2, and we prefer to talk or text
- I've never had a potential employer bat and eye or even care that I have zero internet presence. In fact, many have said they prefer it because I'm not distracted whilst at work. Besides, I enjoy being something of an anachronism where this is concerned. Granted, my stance is my own and I encourage others to do what works for them. I have considered that when I travel I may be harassed because the powers that be will assume I am lying since everyone else seems to have social media accounts.
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#47If your border crossing strategy involves a wiped/clean/factorydefaults device, always, always, always put a zip bomb[1] in place.
Name it something helpful like "do_not_open_this_file.zip".
They can't say you didn't warn them ...
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#48Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#49This happened to me crossing into Canada and to be honest I really wasn't expecting it. I had tons of very private pictures and messages on there stretching back years. I really didn't want to turn over my password so that 3 border agents could look through all that stuff in some back room, but at the same time I knew there wasn't anything illegal on there. Anyway, I was with my partner and didn't want to ruin her va…
Or instead of going through a bunch of effort in order to risk pissing off border agents with shenanigans, you can buy a dirt-cheap Android phone for travel. Bonus: then you don't have to worry about it being stolen, lost, or broken, either. It'd be a sensible move even without the border search risk.
Incidentally, is this limited to phones? Are they only searching these accounts because they're authed to the phone they make you unlock? Or are they saying "oh, OK, so you're traveling without a phone. Please step over to this kiosk and log into your Facebook account" as well?
Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?
#50Worth remembering: US citizens can play chicken with CBP and lose nothing more than their computer/phone hardware (perhaps having it returned 6 months later). But non-citizens, possibly including LPRs, cannot: if an alien attempts to cross the border with a device they can't unlock "because they don't have the corresponding 2FA token with them" (as one friend suggested they do), they'll be detained, their devices con…
I feel any parent with a teenager who's tried to monitor her Facebook account can see where this is headed. This policy is incredibly ignorant of how online communities work and where communication is going. The only thing I can see happening is terrorism-minded individuals actually creating and maintaining clean Facebook profiles as a smokescreen. That's an easy win and great distraction as communication moves to no…
This isn't to catch terrorism. Though they'll probably get a few idiot "extremists", this will mostly stop people coming in under false pretenses. It's bizarre how people don't think ahead to their border crossing and are willing to admit they are going to live with their SO, or work as a nanny -- while under a tourism visa.
It'll be very effective at this. Most people aren't going to establish a plausible social media profile after they figure out they're going to the US to live/work/whatever.
"Real" spies and terrorists and whatever can obviously afford to setup enough cover. (Though there is the case of a spy getting discovered because she used her real frequent flier number while traveling under aliases.)
At best, this might put a chilling effect on Facebook and other things like that, which is probably a net win for humanity.