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

arstechnica.com

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

#271

Post by crpatino »

dave_sullivan wrote: post #186
MichaelGG wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 med…

> "Real" spies and terrorists and whatever can obviously afford to setup enough cover. > 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. So we're not catching "real" spies and terrorists; we're catching nannies trying to get paid under the table; do you think maybe we've got bigger fish…

The people that voted for Trump get to gain a bunch of thankless, low-pay jobs that will no longer be allocated to illegal aliens. There might be bigger fishes to fry, but given that they never get invited when salmon is on the menu, they are happy to see the sardine cans comming in.

And if they cannot or will not take the nanny jobs for themselves, at least they get to mock the uppity mothers that voted for Hillary and now are forced to dump their careers to take care of their own children.

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

#272

Post by Sundiata »

graeme wrote: post #224
tptacek wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not a citizen, I think this is probably pretty simple: don't carry anything across the border that you would be uncomfortable being forced to unlock. There's nothing you can encrypt with a passphrase that is protected from a border search, unless you're comfortable being sent back home, losing your computer hardware, and not being allowed back to the US at least until the next Presidential administration, p…

Right. Since they may ask for social media passwords, would that imply making a travel profile for my travel devices that has password access to things like Facebook and a subset of sites I'd need, but not necessarily all 400+ of my logins? I don't care if they login to my Facebook (well, I think I don't). I just don't want to have them have everything , because then I'd have to change it all. To be very clear, not p…

What do you think would happen if you don't have facebook?

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

#273

Post by deong »

rebuilder wrote: post #267
deong wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter what you have in your password manager. If you're not a US citizen, they can demand your facebook access. If you don't have it, can't unencrypt it, or just feel like telling them to fuck off doesn't matter. You have no legal right to enter the country except with their permission, and they may well tell the person who didn't put their facebook passwords in the password manager to get back on a plane…

So basically, as a non-US citizen, if you don't bring a device that can log into your Facebook account, they might deny you entry? Of course rhey might deny you entry for any reason, and them caring so much about your social media accounts is probably a sign you're on a shitlist somewhere, so maybe it doesn't matter so much. I wonder, though, if you don't have FB etc. accounts, do they believe you?

I think the only way to interpret this that's even remotely practical to implement is that while they have the right to ask anything of anyone, in practice, it will likely be targeted. If they're asking, they probably already know quite a bit about you, including whether they think you match some social media profile they've red-flagged.

I'm certainly not suggesting that Trump isn't stupid enough to think having CBP attempting to guess whether 800,000 grandmothers every hour are lying about not knowing what Facebook is would be a plan he could seamlessly roll out, but I think any such plan would crater pretty spectacularly.

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

#274

Post by mars009 »

snowpanda wrote: post #73
xenophonf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CBP will begin asking everyone for Facebook logins. I don't understand how this doesn't run afoul of the Fourth Amendment. Surely one's social media qualifies as "papers" or "effects" even though they're digital artifacts and not physical. This just seems _incredibly_ invasive.

What if you don't have a Facebook?

I was thinking the same. Most likely: "You don't have facebook? What are you trying to hide?" xD

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

#275

Post by pc86 »

jacquesm wrote: post #165
tptacek wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they were not.

I suspect that part of the reason here is a tit-for-tat. The USA has a long history of being nasty to Canadians on the suspicion of them going there to work. Similar things happening to US visitors to Brazil and several other places. Having a Dutch passport this never was a problem for me when returning to Canada, even though I was actually working there.

Entering Brazil as a US citizen was an interesting experience. Long pseudo-interrogation, fingerprinting, the whole nine yards. It wasn't until later I learned they basically just decided to do to all US citizens what the US was doing to Brazilians (and certainly others).

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

#276

Post by iak8god »

Steuard wrote: post #255
iak8god wrote: post #251

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. This seems like a perfect use case for TrueCrypt hidden volumes or similar: https://www.howtogeek.com/109210/the-htg-guide-to-hiding-you...

I thought so, too. But the advice I've seen, quite strongly, is that you do not want to lie to federal officials about anything, ever. Even if you're just using a hidden volume on principle rather than hiding some terrible wrongdoing, the moment you say "No, I don't have any other hidden files on here" or "There, you have access to all my files now" you've committed a federal crime. If they spot the slightest evidenc…

> the moment you say "No, I don't have any other hidden files on here" or "There, you have access to all my files now" you've committed a federal crime.

So then you don't say those things. This covers the much more common (I'd imagine) case where a traveler is asked to turn on his device and enter the password, but possibly not the case where the traveler is being grilled/interrogated on the contents of his device.

But plausible deniability is one of the purported features of TrueCrypt hidden volumes. How would you prove someone had an encrypted hidden volume on his device?

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

#277

Post by MichaelGG »

knz wrote: post #91
MichaelGG wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 med…

Living with your SO under a tourism visa isn't a crime as long as you leave before your visa expires... And is it the role of CPB to prevent under the table employment? Surely there are better ways to address that issue if it's a concern. Building walls and inspecting social media seems like a political smoke screen for avoiding more effective enforcement measures - requiring farmers/factories/roofing companies to pr…

Right, but many times, especially if you're coming from a "worse" country, the agent is not going to believe you're going to return. So people lie about it, and thus get caught out.

Yes, it is the role of CBP to make sure you're coming under the right visa. It's no different than making sure you're not coming to stay while on a temporary visa.

No whether or not this is important or just silly politics is a different question. Same to the question of is this ethical/right/whatever. But there's zero doubt that this will enable CBP to be more effective. So arguments against it should focus on "yeah, this makes their job easier, but at what cost?" instead of pretending there's zero upside.

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

#278

Post by [deleted] »

iak8god wrote: post #189
Borealid wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel obligated to point out that: 1. my phone has a 200GB microSD card in it right now 2. 256GB microSD cards are readily available 3. phones with two microSD cards are available 4. I can easily purchase a 4TB hard drive that is roughly the same size as a pack of cards It's not terribly relevant, but you're dramatically underestimating the volume of data that can be reasonably stored by media carried on one's perso…

1,2,3) I kinda forgot they still make phones with SD slots :). OK, so the storage goes up by 10x, but still, there are multitude of more convenient and more secure ways to move that much data around. 4) Encrypt that drive and ship it. Why would anyone up to no good go to the bother of passing through border security with it on their person?

[deleted]

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

#279

Post by hughes »

tzs wrote: post #237

What happens if you try to mail or ship a smartphone across the border, as opposed to carry it with you when you are crossing the border? I'm wondering if you could ship your regular phone ahead, and use a burner while you are traveling. If that works, that could be an interesting business opportunity. Set up a series of phone exchange stations near major airports, where outgoing travelers can swap their smartphone f…

Creating a business with the purpose of circumventing border control is unlikely to be appreciated or permitted by authorities in any country.

Probably better off just leaving your smartphone at home and buying a device at your destination.

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

#280

Post by shitgoose »

venomsnake wrote: post #269

We barely stopped the last mostly male refugee wave at Vienna. For you islam may be just a religion but for EE it is dervishme, being second tier humans and the reason the renesaince in Eastern europe started 500 years later. If the refugees were vulnerable it is possible. But the majority of them are male. And some of them are draft doggers. If the Ukrainians start to run from Russia the reception will quite differe…

not to nitpick, but so far Ukrainians have been running from Ukraine to Russia - 2.6 mil since 2014 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainians_in_Russia)
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