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Israel airport security stole my laptop

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Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#61

Post by boltzmannbrain »

desireco42 wrote: post #48
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…

I am sorry for what happened to you. I really am. I heard before that Israeli security can be scary if they sense you went to either Palestinian areas or some of their flags get triggered. But no excuse for them to do what they do. I hope you raising this issue help you get your laptop back. I personally worry that they might take my laptop from me and install some spyware, so I try not to carry one, or if I do, trav…

Thank you. It was an unfortunate learning lesson. Even if I do get my laptop back it won't be usable -- I have to assume they've gone through it and tampered somehow.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#62

Post by nsomaru »

PakG1 wrote: post #51
balls187 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Luckless.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#63

Post by notyourday »

projectramo wrote: post #43
notyourday wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel does profile based on the airline. It is a reasonably ( i would actually say very well ) known fact.

The #1 destination for passengers from Ben Gurion is Istanbul flown mostly by Turkish Airlines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_Airport#Top_destina... I assume they're very comfortable with Turkish Airlines at this point.

> I assume they're very comfortable with Turkish Airlines at this point.

Oh absolutely. That also means they are very good at identifying who does and who does not "fit" the standard profile of a regular flyer for that specific flight. OP tripped something.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#64

Post by ege_erdogan »

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…

Was there anything that prompted them to ask you to login? I travel through Istanbul a lot (being a native) and I often get asked to turn my laptop on (show the login screen and you are done) without any further questions. Just wondered.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#65

Post by iagovar »

boltzmannbrain wrote: post #61
desireco42 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry for what happened to you. I really am. I heard before that Israeli security can be scary if they sense you went to either Palestinian areas or some of their flags get triggered. But no excuse for them to do what they do. I hope you raising this issue help you get your laptop back. I personally worry that they might take my laptop from me and install some spyware, so I try not to carry one, or if I do, trav…

Thank you. It was an unfortunate learning lesson. Even if I do get my laptop back it won't be usable -- I have to assume they've gone through it and tampered somehow.

Chromebook + https://www.paperspace.com/ may be a solution

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#66

Post by kkapelon »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #52
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 t…

>I was boarding a plane to fly into TLV from Athens

I think you mean the other way around. If you are being asked all these questions the flight was from TLV to Athens. Right?

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#67

Post by onetimemanytime »

megous wrote: post #45
onetimemanytime wrote: post #16

Must've triggered something when they questioned you. Maybe you just made yourself non-Grata over there too by sharing this story. At least they should have said, wait, let's clone it and here is your laptop back. Unless they suspected you of economic espionage or whatever and didn't you to have it with you. Either way, unless charged with a crime it's theft.

> Unless they suspected you of economic espionage... This also may be a part of industrial espionage done by Israel.

Great point. His work may be of extreme value to Israel. And you can't argue with airport security

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#68

Post by slim »

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…

Contact your embassy. They will solve it

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#69

Post by LyndsySimon »

projectramo wrote: post #38
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…

I just assume there must be 1000s, perhaps 10s of 1000s of people who answer "software engineer" in any given month. None of this makes sense on the face of it. I wonder if you were connected to a network that was compromised and they tracked your computer? Also unlikely. Do you think the last person you talked to was just having a bad day and as you got annoyed you triggered them and they took it on you?

Disclaimer: I've never traveled to or through Israel.

As others have referenced, Israeli airport security use profiling extensively. The questions that are asked are almost (but not quite) irrelevant - they are trained to gauge a person's reactions, their unconscious biological responses, etc.

It seems likely to me that what they keyed in on wasn't the author's questions, responses, or even their general attitude, but the overall resistance to having their laptop searched. The distinction between "I resent this process and need my laptop for work" and "If they take my laptop I'm going to be in trouble" is probably below the threshold of their training. I'd even say it's possible that the author's reaction to having their laptop confiscated was part of the profiling technique.

The fact that they let them continue on to their flight tells me that they didn't perceive them to be a security risk at the end of the process.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#70

Post by srcmap »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #52
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 t…

I was there with Israel airport a few times. Almost every time I have company "letter" to "precheck" me with the airport security.

There was one time, the company missed issue me that letter. I had to go thru the 2 hours security hell which they inspected and questioned everything.

After that, I have decided that I would never go back to Israel again for biz or any other purposes. It is just not worth it.

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