New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine • Hacker News Board

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#231

Post by komali2 » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

clubm8 wrote: post #129

komali2 wrote: post #98

>"It is a file-by-file [search] on your phone. We're not going into 'the cloud'. We'll examine your phone while it's on flight mode," Customs spokesperson Terry Brown said. They will see my genitals and the genitals of many other people. Not sure how not going accessing my off-phone backups is supposed to be better. This is a shame, my partner and I have been spending the last couple months seriously considering new…

>This is a shame, my partner and I have been spending the last couple months seriously considering new Zealand as a new home, after we tire of SF, specifically because we felt that legally it was going down a better path than the USA. What made you think this? Have you been keeping an eye on the news regarding NZ? For example, they allowed American billionaire Peter Thiel to obtain citizenship despite not meeting the…

And in doing so created a huge push by the New Zealand immigration peeps to incentivize other tech workers to come in. They even put up stalls at tech conferences, which was where this idea came from at all for us. Way they told us is there's even specialized visas.

The fact that billionaires do as they please is a global fact I have long gotten used to.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#232

Post by flog » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #64

I have been thinking of going back to live in NZ to be a software engineer there, but now... uh, no . Such a shame, as it's a really nice country with very smart people. Granted, it's been very "totalitarian" when it comes to immigration for a long time. Not that I don't think they have the right to do this, but when I went to live there with my kiwi girlfriend, I had to give them actual copies of letters she and I s…

You've described pretty much every country's immigration requirements, not just NZ. I've lived in NZ, the UK, and the US. Every one will ask for proof of health (TB, HIV, etc) and if you're attempting to gain a Visa attached to a GF then you have to prove it is bonafide, often with letters, shared bills/expenses, etc. That's nothing to get upset about.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#233

Post by jliptzin » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

This happened to me driving from the US into Canada with my significant other on a short vacation. After some routine questioning, the agent asked for our phones and passwords. Naturally, I hesitated and wanted to know why he needed to go through our phones. He didn't give a reason, but said if I refuse they'd hold us until their forensics team cracks the phone password anyway. I wanted to make a bigger deal about it but didn't want to ruin our vacation so I complied. They took the phones in the back for about 45 min, who knows what information they downloaded or uploaded during that time, then gave it back to me while interrogating me like I was a drug lord because there was a text message from a year earlier about a friend's girlfriend doing cocaine.

It was extremely unnerving, they went through all our private pictures, messages, dropbox files, email, notes, dating apps, etc. It ruined the vacation for me, and I've stopped visiting Canada because of how disgusted I felt afterwards. I know Canada is not the only country doing that, so from now on when I cross an international border I wipe my phone (after backing up) and just have a few pictures and messages on there. Incidentally though, that's the only time it's happened to me.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#234

Post by paradite » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

yholio wrote: post #210

paradite wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be very honest, I find the methodology very similar to what drug trafficker would do to hide their drugs. And I don't think this method will end well for all parties either way. If it works, customs officers cannot find actual illegal contents, and criminals walk free through customs. If customs officers somehow detects you are doing this, you risk obstructing security measures.

But that's true for all encryption and privacy technology, it has dual use. We as a society must find the right balance and say, ok, there's no reasonable justification for owning 1 pound of plutonium, but there is a legitimate case for high encryption and privacy. This forum largely believes that the balance struck by New Zealand - that you don't have the right to data privacy when traveling - is completely unaccept…

Let me ask you this hypothetical question instead:

What if we have a "physical encryption" technology that allows encrypting physical objects so that X-ray scanners, drug detecting methods or metal detectors cannot see through them?

Would customs be allowed to ask for the decryption key? Or should the customs just ignore whatever encrypted inside?

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#235

Post by mirkules » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #78

davezatch wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil’s advocate: what _is_ wrong with that logic? If we accept that customs can search our persons or luggage as a condition of our entering a given country, what is it about digital materials that makes them off limits?

I store information on my phone like my private thoughts, because I know that it’s an encrypted, secured device I always have with me. I wouldn’t store that information on paper — the best analogy is that it’s a backup of parts of my brain. When you go through customs, they can’t just search your brain. They can search your possessions, but they can’t mind dump you. That’s the critical distinction. It’s not my proper…

Continuing the "devil's advocate" perspective, perhaps the thinking that phones are an extension of the brain is the wrong way to think of them.

> I know it's an encrypted, secured device I always have with me

What if you didn't know that? What if you thought of it as just a suitcase?

If someone carries a notebook that contains printed pages of encrypted material, what is the expectation?

Whatever the answer to that question is, the expectation shouldn't change based on what medium the material is stored in.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#236

Post by kadendogthing » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

Nullabillity wrote: post #209

kadendogthing wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are classically Missing The Point. Historically, your luggage would contain personal pictures, credit card numbers, general banking statements, generally personal information, etc. The medium in which this information is stored and carried around has changed. The need to inspect what you're bringing into the country has not. These processes didn't originally come about because people wanted to inspect your 5 diff…

> The need to inspect what you're bringing into the country has not. True. It went from zero to.. zero.

I'm pretty sure it's extremely import to inspect what people are bringing into the country. Besides the financial... tools that people can bring into a country there's a whole host of other items that can negatively impact the country, and not just from a social aspect:

* Invasive species. This includes plants, not just animals.

* Drugs

* In times of known or potential epidemics, screening people for obvious sickness.

* Weapons or tools that could be used for the purposes of terrorism.

Why would you say that there's no reason to inspect what people are bringing into your country?

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#237

Post by S_A_P » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:54 PM UTC

Serious question- has there been a string of incidents in NZ that prompted this legislation? I certainly try to stay current with world news, but I definitely could have missed something. I think my follow up question is what exactly are the authorities thinking they will find here? Ive yet to see any sort of organized crime/terror organization leave detailed roadmap of their nefarious plans in the notes app of their phone. I mean, maybe in the next Austin Powers movie that will be the case...

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#238

Post by hugh-avherald » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #81

chooseaname wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you'll find yourself in a situation where you could possibly be lying to the customs officers.

Out of curiosity: Is lying to customs officers illegal in New Zealand? I've lied to a great many people, including police officers on duty. They can't take me in if I wish them "a good day", or can they?

It's not only illegal to lie, it's illegal to fail to answer truthfully. Customs and Excise Act 1996 s 185.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#239

Post by ravenstine » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

flog wrote: post #232

ravenstine wrote: post #64

I have been thinking of going back to live in NZ to be a software engineer there, but now... uh, no . Such a shame, as it's a really nice country with very smart people. Granted, it's been very "totalitarian" when it comes to immigration for a long time. Not that I don't think they have the right to do this, but when I went to live there with my kiwi girlfriend, I had to give them actual copies of letters she and I s…

You've described pretty much every country's immigration requirements, not just NZ. I've lived in NZ, the UK, and the US. Every one will ask for proof of health (TB, HIV, etc) and if you're attempting to gain a Visa attached to a GF then you have to prove it is bonafide, often with letters, shared bills/expenses, etc. That's nothing to get upset about.

Oh, I was not upset about it. Yes, I am not that experienced immigrating, so thanks for your insight. My impression of immigration to the US was that the process is really slow and inefficient but isn't as meticulous as other countries, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

I actually don't think there's anything wrong with NZ or any country doing those things. My point is that rooting through my computer, requiring me to hand over my credentials, is where I say no. Maybe they'll end up paying the price if enough educated people decide not to bother. I don't really know.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#240

Post by dumbfounder » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #169

grkvlt wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets not get too excited. There were about 40 million passengers transiting NZ airports last year, according to Wikipedia.[0] The article says roughly 540 devices were searched in the same time period. That's 0.00135% or basically a dozen people per million being searched. That hardly seems like totalitarian overreach. In fact it seems quite restrained and pretty reasonable - and presumably must be intelligence led,…

Wait until they get more efficient at it. This kind of thing can be highly automated with software that only has to within a tuned degree of certainty determine who else needs additional screening. You can tune this precisely on how many humans you have around at a given time and can facilitate the "Enhanced search" of the devices.

Has anyone taken a steganographic approach to this? Just have a bunch of pictures of cats (or something more believable, like porn) in a partition, then you overlay sensitive data (encrypted). So you don't have a mysterious partition that is easily found. Obviously you can't store a ton of data that way though. You could even take the same approach with the program itself, hide it inside something else. (I imagine it would still be detectable by someone sophisticated enough, but might make it more difficult)