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What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

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Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#141

Post by WildUtah »

crispyambulance wrote: post #74

If some CBP knuckle-dragger wants me to unlock my phone so he can browse through it looking for whatever as I stand there watching while asking me insipid questions, that's not a huge deal. The real problem here is downloading of data from the phone. Once that data is off-loaded, the government can make it a part of their "Seven-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon-Osama-Bin-Laden edition" game, stored forever, perpetually looking…

The government has everything you put on Facebook already. And everything you backed up to Apple or Google photos. And your emails.

If there's something else they're interested in, don't carry it over the border.

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#142

Post by gph »

Zak wrote: post #123
Turing_Machine wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Or, to simply stop traveling to countries that refuse to play nice with the rights of foreigners. " Which countries would those be? As far as I know, every country (or quasi-country, such as the EU) asserts the right to carry out a full inspection of anything crossing its border.

I think this is more an issue of practice than theory. Every country might claim the authority to search phones, but if they never actually use it, there is no concern entering those countries in a practical sense.

And considering that something like 0.01% of travelers into the US are ever affected by this, you could say in a practical sense there is no concern here either. That's basically a rounding error worth away from 0%.

In fact it sounds more like they generally target specific individuals based on their politics or whatever red flag gets thrown on them from the system. That's certainly dangerous in a way, but in essence harmless to the vast majority of us.

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#143

Post by ronnier »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #92
ronnier wrote: post #9

> 4,444 cellphones and 320 other electronic devices were inspected in 2015 And recently I'm hearing about this -- it largely went ignored during the previous administration but now it's a major concern, articles on HN, my Facebook feed, Reddit, ...

I had read about it on HN multiple times during the Obama administration too. As well as heard about it from the ACLU and EFF, as well as other places. A HN post from 2014, with 258 upvotes, linking to an ACLU notice from 2014. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6993995 That's just the first HN post I found, there were multiple other front-page HN posts over the past few years. An EFF alert from 2013: https://www.e…

Looks like I was wrong. Good thing to be wrong on.

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#145

Post by bflesch »

mikeash wrote: post #121
bflesch wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this type of argument only comes from egocentric people. Nobody cares about what you are doing, and you will most likely not be screened. If you are arguing online about civil rights you are not exactly the type of person they are trying to catch at the border. In my country of origin there is no way to train with military weapons. People travel to other places and learn it there, all while being indoctrinate…

I bet people can train with trucks in your country, right? We've seen that those can be potent weapons. Why does your argument not apply to the other scenarios I listed? If I'm unlikely to be screened at the border, then surely I'm unlikely to be screened at an internal checkpoint, or to have my house searched. I'm not likely to suffer from government key escrow. The only thing that's ridiculous is making arguments f…

These kinds of searches are also needed within the country, but the profiling heuristics can be implemented much better at centralized border crossings.

As I said, your profile obviously does not fit that of a terrorist, and I can tell that from two comments on hacker news.

If someone with a criminal record travels a wartorn country for 8 weeks they better be thoroughly searched when they come back and monitored afterwards.

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#146

Post by pjc50 »

pavelmelnichuk wrote: post #130
tptacek wrote: post #3

Worth 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…

The question is where is the line? Say I have sensitive or proprietary information on my laptop that is in an encrypted drive. Do I have to unlock my laptop, or do I have to unlock each encrypted file itself?

There isn't a line. You have to do what they say you have to do, or else [consequences as above]. Your sensitive or proprietary information is not an obligation on them.

The one possible exception might be if you're carrying information that requires a US security clearance to view. I'd normally expect that to come with an ID card that causes CBP to ignore you, but these are not normal times and you could end up in a fight between conflicting "security" services.

(The worst case of that I'm aware of was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms-to-Iraq )

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#147

Post by refurb »

ekiru wrote: post #84
biscuitsandbbq wrote: post #38

This 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…

Recognizing when people are lying is an important part of CBP's job. They're trained specifically to do it. It's unlikely that you're better at lying than they are at noticing that you're lie. Lying to them will end poorly.

You raise a really good point. CBP deals with people lying to them every second of every day. If you think a "oops! I must have forgotten the password" will work, you're in for a rude surprise.

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#148

Post by tajen »

hollander wrote: post #64
RubberSoul wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder what the best options are for cheap phones and laptops that can be used while traveling. Also, does having saved passwords in a computer (for servers, email, GitHub, etc.) mean that CBP could use those passwords to search computers inside the United States? Or is their search power limited to information actually stored on the machine's hard drive.

Put your passwords in a password safe like Keepass, and keep that somewhere in the cloud, PGP-encrypted as an extra layer of security, with a private key that is encrypted as well. Create a special private key for this purpose alone. Download that file when you entered the US and decrypt it. When exiting, you might wipe the disk if you want to be sure they won't search it when you leave.

Or don't go to USA. Other countries need to develop their conferences and ecosystems.

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#149

Post by dave_sullivan »

soft_dev_person wrote: post #67
jacquesm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current best practice for border crossings --- really anywhere in the world --- is simply not to carry anything you're unwilling to unlock for Customs. Or, to simply stop traveling to countries that refuse to play nice with the rights of foreigners. The whole idea that this sort of thing is even anywhere near acceptable behavior revolts me.

Yeah, I pretty much decided to never travel to the US again the first time I heard you may be compelled to unlock your Facebook profile for the customs. Not because I have something particular to hide, but as a gay person in a hostile world I have learned to care about my privacy. Not a huge loss for me, not a huge loss for the US, but it accumulates.

I agree with you.

Asia and Eastern Europe are off the list for me too. China is willing to kidnap people out of Thailand [1]; people being arrested over political tweets [2]; Russia can poison people [3], shoot them [4], or have them accused of fake crimes[5].

I really hope the U.S. never comes close to this and hope I see this trend reversed in my lifetime. But people should be aware that it can happen in a modern society and is already happening in large parts of the world.

[1] http://time.com/4371283/hong-kong-bookseller-china-detention...

[2] http://mashable.com/2016/11/26/zunar-arrested-malaysia/#AHwL...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/world/europe/russia-vladi...

[4] http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-unaccountable-de...

[5] http://www.dw.com/en/russian-court-finds-alexei-navalny-guil...

Re: What could happen if you refuse to unlock your phone at the US border?

#150

Post by ashark »

WildUtah wrote: post #82
RubberSoul wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder what the best options are for cheap phones and laptops that can be used while traveling. Also, does having saved passwords in a computer (for servers, email, GitHub, etc.) mean that CBP could use those passwords to search computers inside the United States? Or is their search power limited to information actually stored on the machine's hard drive.

If your phone is logged in to email or Facebook, they can download the total contents and history of your accounts.

There doesn't seem to be much difference between making you unlock your phone (and thus all the services it's connected to) and just making you sign into your social/cloud accounts at a kiosk. Are they doing that yet? If not, they will soon, barring a successful and crystal-clear court ruling in the meantime. I guess it's time to start re-thinking having persistent available-anywhere remote access to any of our own data. That's going to suck.
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