Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Israel airport security stole my laptop

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 103 posts

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#51

Post by PakG1 »

balls187 wrote: post #37
so_tired wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> incredible outreach initiative in the AI research community as of late -- e.g., DL Indaba in Africa Geez. You are not "outreaching" some minority tribe here. You are selling your expertize for good money. Israel is the 2nd biggest VC market in the world (maybe 3rd after US, China?). Sorry about your laptop though. There is current incredible outreach of Israelis to tourists who have had a bad experience while visit…

> Luckily your plane did not blow up. He'd be lucky if his plane did blow up, since it's such a rare occurrence.

I believe that's what the word unlucky is for. Lucky is for positive rare occurrences, unlucky is for negative rare occurrences. I'll admit I have no clue what normal/average occurrences would then be.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#52

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

boltzmannbrain wrote: post #2

Curbside security guard asked a couple basic questions ("How long were you in Israel? Where are you traveling to?"). The guard at the first security gate inside asked ~20 questions (4-8 is normal). I think answering that I'm a SW engineer to "What do you do for a living?" made her suspicious. I was then directed to a side security area where they searched my bags and discovered my laptop. A few guards then escorted m…

What you experienced is not rare at all for travel through Israel. Answering that you're a SW engineer is not suspicious, it's how you answer that they're trained to look at. The questions are basically irrelevant. You and your equipment got flagged.

Once when I was boarding a plane to fly into TLV from Athens, I got about 200 questions in the space of 5 minutes, from 3 different people. When I mentioned who I used to work for, they asked me what that kind of work entailed, what did my office building look like, what city was it in, where was I living at that time, why was I living somewhere else, etc. I got the same questions multiple times, spaced apart.

They don't actually give a crap what my old office building looked like. They're looking for responses that appear delayed, evasive, made up.

After the questions I had to follow them to another room to have my bags meticulously inspected and scanned. They then checked my bags for me (breaking my zipper in the process - and no, the airline didn't do jack about it) and finally let me board. After I was on, they barged on and insisted some older passenger who had been sitting quietly leave the plane immediately while it was on the tarmac, and left.

Traveling through Israel is a pain in the ass.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#53

Post by dylanz »

I was traveling through Istanbul and there were multiple tiers of security before reaching my plane. One of the checkpoints was run by private security, and they took my laptop out of my bag and asked me a ton of questions. They asked me to open my computer and log in so they can review data in my machine.

Lucky for me, my laptop was completely out of battery, so when they opened my MBP, all they saw was the red blinking battery symbol. They mumbled to each other under their breathes, handed me my laptop, and waved me through.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#54

Post by PakG1 »

sodosopa wrote: post #28

This is particularly why I leave my good MacBook at home and depend on a decent Chromebook and a throwaway Gmail acct. I can use Citrix or an Amazon Workspace if I need something more secure. If I lose it or if it’s stolen, I’m out $200-400 instead of $1200 and my data.

Dang, I'll have to start considering something like this. And keep all my data on the cloud instead. :(

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#55

Post by boltzmannbrain »

isostatic wrote: post #29
boltzmannbrain wrote: post #2

Curbside security guard asked a couple basic questions ("How long were you in Israel? Where are you traveling to?"). The guard at the first security gate inside asked ~20 questions (4-8 is normal). I think answering that I'm a SW engineer to "What do you do for a living?" made her suspicious. I was then directed to a side security area where they searched my bags and discovered my laptop. A few guards then escorted m…

Curbside questions? I haven't been for a few years but don't remember any of those, just the usual "I'm asking you this because I think someone may have planted a bomb in your luggage" inside the terminal. I haven't had anything approaching that level of interrogation (can you show me any evidence of what you've been working on) since my first trip in 2010 -- which was before my first Erez stamp (that's the border po…

Taxi. I've traveled to Israel a few times now and the extra questioning seems standard.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#56

Post by Zak »

walrus01 wrote: post #17
alex_duf wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the thin client hardware is compromised you're back to square one

if people are breaking into your hotel room while you're not there to install rootkits in its bootloader, hardware keystroke loggers, or similar (google "evil maid attack"), you're probably the target of somebody with the capabilities of a nation-state intelligence agency. at which point all bets are off.

Breaking into a hotel room and installing a rootkit on a laptop does not require anywhere near that level of sophistication.

In many cases, obtaining a hotel room key requires only entry-level social engineering. How do I know? I've received keys for my own hotel rooms from the front desk with essentially no verification. Adding a rootkit to a laptop depends on how well-secured it is, but that's often little more effort than inserting a flash drive and rebooting it.

These things require the resources of an individual and skills that can be learned from a google search.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#57

Post by Fnoord »

walrus01 wrote: post #17
alex_duf wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the thin client hardware is compromised you're back to square one

if people are breaking into your hotel room while you're not there to install rootkits in its bootloader, hardware keystroke loggers, or similar (google "evil maid attack"), you're probably the target of somebody with the capabilities of a nation-state intelligence agency. at which point all bets are off.

Which might very well be true as "software developer" is very vague. Same with security expert. Use the term "consultant" instead

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#58

Post by nyolfen »

ilsec_throw wrote: post #39
boltzmannbrain wrote: post #2

Curbside security guard asked a couple basic questions ("How long were you in Israel? Where are you traveling to?"). The guard at the first security gate inside asked ~20 questions (4-8 is normal). I think answering that I'm a SW engineer to "What do you do for a living?" made her suspicious. I was then directed to a side security area where they searched my bags and discovered my laptop. A few guards then escorted m…

What is your goal in this publicity? On the surface, it seems like yet another dispute with unreasonable customer service and you are using the shame tactic to get your way. This is airport security in Israel. It's not security theater. It's the real deal. There is something in this story that is missing. You may not know what it is, but those people are really good at their jobs. Was that really your laptop? Were al…

if getting shaken down is part of the risk of flying through israel then it’s a public good to let others to know. this reflexive defensive crap is par for the course i suppose.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#59

Post by boltzmannbrain »

dylanz wrote: post #53

I was traveling through Istanbul and there were multiple tiers of security before reaching my plane. One of the checkpoints was run by private security, and they took my laptop out of my bag and asked me a ton of questions. They asked me to open my computer and log in so they can review data in my machine. Lucky for me, my laptop was completely out of battery, so when they opened my MBP, all they saw was the red blin…

Wow they asked you to login? I have the Apple watch feature for auto-login, but took my watch off as soon as they grabbed my laptop.

Yes I went through several tiers of security as well, each with different organizations it seemed (airport, private, gov't).

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#60

Post by TomVDB »

PakG1 wrote: post #54
sodosopa wrote: post #28

This is particularly why I leave my good MacBook at home and depend on a decent Chromebook and a throwaway Gmail acct. I can use Citrix or an Amazon Workspace if I need something more secure. If I lose it or if it’s stolen, I’m out $200-400 instead of $1200 and my data.

Dang, I'll have to start considering something like this. And keep all my data on the cloud instead. :(

95% of what I do on my laptop (other than random web surfing) is hobby stuff that can go to Github.

That 5% (taxes, paperless office) happens on my MacBook.

So I’ve start to do the same thing: MacBook for US travel, $40 laptop for international travel.

Works great.

Post reply on HN