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Israel airport security stole my laptop

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Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#71

Post by pintxo »

kkapelon wrote: post #66
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Israel has people on the ground around the world. Hard learned lesson after too many hijacked planes.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#72

Post by boltzmannbrain »

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…

> They're looking for responses that appear delayed, evasive, made up

Exactly. AFIK I responded normally.

Not to mention someone actually doing something malicious with their computer probably wouldn't tell security they're a SW eng.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#73

Post by CogitoCogito »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #69
projectramo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, bu…

> 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.

I’m having a bit of trouble understanding the rationale allowing continued travel, but not allowing continued travel with the laptop. Can anyone here shed a bit of light on this?

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#74

Post by house_atr »

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…

You get used to it. What you went through is nightmare for the initiated. But for Palis who have to get "filtered" through cage complexes and fondled and split from their families by aggressive guards who each hate them with every ounce of their soul, just to go the next town, your experience is light.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#75

Post by eikxyz »

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.

Bootloader on an SD-card, a condom and lots of codeine

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#76

Post by sodosopa »

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. :(

If you know how to secure a system, you could probably use owncloud or something like that too.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#77

Post by projectramo »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #69
projectramo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, bu…

As you point out

> 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.

And I agree with you. But 1000s of people must resent the process and need their laptops! If they picked up on that, they would have to confiscate laptops approaching 100% of the time they asked people questions about it.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#78

Post by peterwwillis »

kkapelon wrote: post #66
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, it was Athens to TLV. I should mention that this was an El Al flight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al#Airport_security_measure...

"El Al security procedures require that all passengers be interviewed individually prior to boarding, allowing El Al staff to identify possible security threats. Passengers are asked questions about their place of origin, the reason for their trip, their job or occupation, and whether they have packed their bags themselves. [...] Even at overseas airports, El Al security agents conduct all luggage searches personally, even if they are supervised by government or private security firms."

I've also faced heightened security traveling from TLV to other airports, featuring another barrage of questions and extra screening. But to their credit, they helped me skip some lines and get to the plane just before it left.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#79

Post by walrus01 »

Zak wrote: post #56
walrus01 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eff…

Breaking into a hotel room, and breaking into a hotel room without sufficient surveillance resources are two different things... Just off the top of my head, I can think of a few concerns. You'd need a rotating team of at least three persons to verify that the subject has left the hotel room, and isn't going somewhere for a very short time such as to the hotel laundry room, to a lobby snack bar, or such. You don't want to be surprised in the middle of installing a rootkit. Then you have to deal with the fact that the front desk staff might speak to the person later, like "Hey just checking your new key card worked OK?" "What new keycard?", alerting the person that something is fishy. You have to deal with the possibility that the person might have left a portable motion sensitive alarm stuck to the inside of the hotel room door, or a tiny camera somewhere in the room.

Lots of things can go wrong with this sort of plan. But it's not a one-person job.

You might have your rootkit totally prepared and ready to go, and find that the person has a sub-1-kilogram sized netbook/small laptop that they take with them literally everywhere they go, in a backpack, small bag, or purse.

You might have an attack prepared and get there to discover that the laptop has had its USB ports disabled in the BIOS, with a BIOS password set, and insufficient time to work around that.

Re: Israel airport security stole my laptop

#80

Post by amaccuish »

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…

Very lucky. AFAIK It's generally a requirement that a laptop have enough charge to at least reach a login screen.
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