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1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

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351–360 of 553 posts

Re: 1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

#351

Could we have something like time-delay passwords? Like the time-delayed vaults they (allegedly) have in banks? Then you could say: "Even if I agreed to give you my password, you wouldn't be able to unlock my device with it for another 24 hours".

That’s just begging them to detain you for a day. Time delays only work for the entity in power. The bank has your money, you’ll just have to wait to get it. But the border people have power, not you; they can make you wait if they want.

I understand that even in the USA, to detain someone for 24 hours you need something like a warrant or some kind of special permission from the judiciary. I mean, if it's got to the point where the border force (?) can just detain you on a whim, I have a much better way to keep my data safe: by not flying to the USA.

Re: 1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

#352
"May I search your laptop?" "Certainly." "But... this is practically empty." "Yes sir. I FedEx'd my SSD to the destination."

I have a small SSD in the primary disk in my T420s, it has just enough to get me through the flight. I keep the primary in the UltraBay with a simple adapter, takes one reboot and no tools to put it back in place. Done. Happy searching! I can't log into anything even if I wanted to because I physically do not have my password store https://www.passwordstore.org/ with me. (https://github.com/chx/ykgodot I wrote this trivial script to automate yubikey neo with pass)

Alternative: encode the entire primary disk https://github.com/cornelinux/yubikey-luks and FedEx the yubikey. Yanking the disk is better, though.

Re: 1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't solve the problem, because you could be detained until the data is accessible again.

No you can't be detained indefinitely (unless they have evidence to charge you with a crime). You could have your devices confiscated, and as a non-citizen, you could be denied entry.

I believe you can be detained indefinitely, and without probable cause, by border agents.

Re: 1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It completely depends if you are white or not. If you are white, and speak politely, the agent will care deeply about your concerns, including potential firing as an example. If you are not white, and especially if you appear black, Latino or Arab, then your comment will definitely hold true.

Careful, you're showing everyone you're a racist asshole.

By calling the border police racist?

Re: 1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

#355

Tangentially relevant, I made a pam authentication module for Linux a while ago, that addresses this issue. It allows for the creation of duress passwords. Here is the repository: https://github.com/rafket/pam_duress

That is neat! I would think using it at a border crossing would constitute hiding something...right?

Re: 1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

#356

Crazy question: is it more effective to have your laptop couriered to you after you've arrived and cleared customs?

Your laptop has to clear customs too, and it won't be in your possession with this plan.

If the laptop is not in your possession when it has to clear customs wouldn't this mean they cannot ask you for the password and such, then this would limit what they could do? Though they could still seize it, but at least without the knowledge of passwords and social media.

Re: 1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

#357
post #328

If you are refusing to enter the password, access to the device, or to disable travel mode, then good luck to you. IANAL, but the border agent doesn't care if the data is technically in the cloud, rather than on the device, because it restores when you unlock it. In addition to removing the data from the device, cheers, don't you also need to be able to honestly say you can not provide access to it? Ways to honestly…

>don't you also need to be able to honestly say you can not provide access to it?

It's been said further down, but they can't possibly have carte blanche to compel that you reveal all data you have access to anywhere, which is what this would require.

Re: 1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

#358
post #328

If you are refusing to enter the password, access to the device, or to disable travel mode, then good luck to you. IANAL, but the border agent doesn't care if the data is technically in the cloud, rather than on the device, because it restores when you unlock it. In addition to removing the data from the device, cheers, don't you also need to be able to honestly say you can not provide access to it? Ways to honestly…

For this to really work, you need to also prove to a border agent that you can't access it. In that sense, Travel Mode sort of defeats the purpose -- all the border agent needs to know is that Travel Mode exists, and then ask you to turn it off.

Yeah, but you have to login to a cloud service to turn it off, which they can't necessarily force you to do supposedly.

Re: 1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

#359
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better, the feature should _always_ show both "Enable Travel Mode" and "Disable Travel Mode" buttons so that it's not possible to tell whether or not it's enabled. Disabling travel mode should prompt for a password, then return a message like "all vaults protected with this password are now enabled" no matter what the result of the operation is.

So if you're in Travel Mode and you don't want them to know, you'd intentionally put in the wrong password to unlock? I agree that sounds like the best option. It's a lot like TrueCrypt's concept of having an encrypted drive with one password, and another, hidden encrypted drive in the same file with a different password. No-one can prove you have the second hidden one.

Yes, exactly. It would be impossible to tell whether you even had any Travel-Mode-hidden vaults without exhaustively testing every possible password.

Re: 1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders

#360

Crazy question: is it more effective to have your laptop couriered to you after you've arrived and cleared customs?

I like the idea of shipping your devices, but what if you need your device during the trip up to customs? One thought comes to mind is ship a one-time passcode to your final destination and only that can unlock it at customs? It may appear you are actively hiding something from them and you end up in a lot of trouble. Or during the questioning, you don't hide anything and provide the address the one-time passcode is stored, which will use up valuable resources to go retrieve it. Maybe that would be too much trouble for them and let you go or you just added 8 more hours and expenses you have to pay to retrieve it.
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