What is actually needed is a dead man's switch: a secondary password that, when entered, destroys the security enclave/TPM to render the device unreadable
Then the border guards send you home. What mission has been accomplished?
Social Media Needs a Travel Mode
81–90 of 228 posts
Re: Social Media Needs a Travel Mode
#82One thing I wonder about is how quickly a travel mode would become grounds for denial of entry.
They could. CBP can deny any non-citizen entry for just about any reason. They could just start denying all non-citizens all the time, so why don't they? Because it would hurt business, tourism and other countries would retaliate and refuse US citizens entry. That is the power we have. The time to start using Travel Mode is now, before demands for passwords becomes stand procedure at the border.
Re: Social Media Needs a Travel Mode
#83To be effective, this would need to become a kind of norm for overseas travelers, the same way traveler's checks used to be. The idea would be that just as you don't carry a bag with your birth certificate, stock certificates, property titles, and jewelry with you, you also don't carry a 10 year archive of every email you've ever sent or a detailed list of every person you've ever spoken to. In particular, it needs t…
> I think it's crazy that people walk around with phones that have access to years of email communications
The one anti-pattern on every website is using your primary email address for both notifications and password resets. There is zero reason why you'd ever want an email address you have authed on your phone to handle Facebook/Twitter password resets, but the only way to avoid this is if you're willing to give up receiving whatever notifications you'd normally want to receive via email on your phone.
Re: Social Media Needs a Travel Mode
#84There is no technical solution to this. If you want there to be no searches of your phone when crossing the border, speak to your representative in Congress and your Senator. If they don't listen, then vote for someone else or even better, run yourself. The only way this is going to change is with a change in the law.
I appreciate the sentiment here and think that tech as an industry could do with a lot more humility about its intersection with public policy. I feel like I know the people involved in this proposal well enough to say that they agree with this as well. The point of the travel-lock proposal is that it's actually common sense. Everyone should want this feature. It is actually weird that we walk around all the time wit…
Yes, for that at least, I agree completely. I'm not sure how much the idea would do for border crossing, but just as a general mitigation of risk, it's extremely sensible.
Re: Social Media Needs a Travel Mode
#85Why not go further with the idea of a Travel Mode toggle and have it be tied to the device itself. This cuts out any possibility of any data being left on the device from being analyzed easily, social media or otherwise. Google and/or Apple could add this as a new menu toggle similar to Airplane mode. Once switched on, while in an airport, prevents the device from being unlocked. Then by utilizing geofencing, once th…
What if the border agent takes your phone outside? It would go something like: > Tell me your password > OK, not sit here while I go out to unlock your phone.
I doubt that border agents will want to walk every phone outside and then come back in. It is security through inconvenience.
But I guess there could be an option to extend the range of the original airport geofence.
Re: Social Media Needs a Travel Mode
#86Nice idea. But it's treating the symptom rather than the root problem.
Re: Social Media Needs a Travel Mode
#87One thing I wonder about is how quickly a travel mode would become grounds for denial of entry.
They could. CBP can deny any non-citizen entry for just about any reason. They could just start denying all non-citizens all the time, so why don't they? Because it would hurt business, tourism and other countries would retaliate and refuse US citizens entry. That is the power we have. The time to start using Travel Mode is now, before demands for passwords becomes stand procedure at the border.
The time to start using Travel Mode is now, before demands for passwords becomes stand procedure at the border.
Sure. I'm pretty sure I want to activate such a feature for my email on my phone just in general.
Re: Social Media Needs a Travel Mode
#88Most Americans don't travel so this likely won't happen in the US; even less travel internationally.
Re: Social Media Needs a Travel Mode
#89This is completely naive. Firstly, social media's only incentive is to make your data as widely available as possible (in the interests of ad revenue), and maintain a good relationship with the government in their jurisdiction. Every other existing "privacy" setting on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc is already obfuscated to the point of unusability, for this reason, and "travel mode" would be no different. Secondly, lets im…
People who care deeply about these issues work at Facebook and Google.
Please clarify: I take your answer as a (fair) response to the first objection, but what about the other ("third parties would just start capturing and storing posts while you have "travel mode" off, and sell that to CBP, or whoever else wants to pay for it")?
Does that possibility worry you? Wouldn't that also put you in a position where you’re lying at the border?
edit: readability
Re: Social Media Needs a Travel Mode
#90Why is it a bad idea to have fake FB/Gmail/Twitter accounts?