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

Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

theregister.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 378 posts

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#151

Post by darksaints »

busterarm wrote: post #135
falcor84 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, prefer to avoid bringing your own devices with you when you fly. Leave your laptop and smartphone at home, and rent temporary ones after you cross.

Better, have a secure server at home and ansible playbooks to set up laptops (including getting any minor secrets that you need onto that laptop. Restrict more important stuff to just ssh). If your threat model doesn't include physical tampering/rootkits, just wipe your devices pre-travel and set it up when you get where you're going. If it does and you can afford to mitigate that risk, arrange to have cheap new devi…

If you're going that route, why not just create a disk image and scp it from your server? Certainly a lot easier than trying to rebuild everything from scratch.

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#152

Post by Not_a_pizza »

musha68k wrote: post #44
mikeash wrote: post #14

Quick reminder: US citizens have an absolute right to reenter the country. Customs can temporarily detain you, but they cannot refuse entry. Any threat, whether implied or stated, that they will hold you until you unlock your device is not real. They can hold your stuff indefinitely, so be prepared to lose it if you go this route, but never unlock your device based on the idea that it’s the only way to go free. Non-c…

Quick reminder: Non US citizens only go to conferences outside the US. There is no excuse we should put up with this. Canada and EU are much better locations for this reason alone.

Quick reminder: Without a true Bill of Rights, your rights, as much you might think they are secure, are virtual at best.

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#153

Post by RyJones »

chvid wrote: post #117

This assumes that he was not picked by random but instead there is some sort of list of people to check at airports that you can be put on because of your work within IT-security. That would be a big story if that is the case. I will offer a counter-narrative which is more in line with my own experience (from other places than the US): The people who work at border control in particular in airports are bored. They ar…

When I was returning from Hong Kong a few weeks ago, the agent asked what city I was born in (fine) what hospital I was born in (I remember where it used to be, but I can't remember the name) and what the "number" of the county was I grew up in.

What he meant was the prefix for the license plate. Luckily I remembered it. I suspect he grew up in the area, but it was super weird; also, he was probably fairly bored.

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#154

Post by maximilianroos »

blunte wrote: post #110
maximilianroos wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They can hold your stuff indefinitely, so be prepared to lose it if you go this route CBP do need reasonable suspicion to hold you belongings or do a forensic search of your computer (Cotterman 2013) - they can't just randomly take things on a whim. The longer they hold it, the higher standard required.

Laws and precedent are one thing, but "law enforcement" behavior is another. You might indeed get your stuff back, but they can make it unreasonably difficult, expensive (in legal fees), or time consuming if they want.

Yes. The courts will suppress any evidence that's not gathered legally, but aside from that, officers' qualified immunity protects them from all but the most obvious infringements

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#155

Post by sergiotapia »

saiya-jin wrote: post #64
DigiMortal wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is awesome, I appreciate and know how lucky we are to be here.

> America is awesome, I appreciate and know how lucky we are to be here. In which regard? Compared to which place?

He asked, on a US website, using US invested technology, on a US written application.

Please let's not kid ourselves, the US rocks!

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#157

Post by coldtea »

rmdashrfstar wrote: post #125
realusername wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not but this kind of issue tends to happen more frequently in the US.

Anecdotally?

Yes, or as we used to call it back in the day "empirically".

Plus, it doesn't matter if it happens as much or more in some backwater third world country.

It's already enough of a problem that among first world countries the US is quite a pain in the ass airport control.

Heck, it's enough of a problem that it feels like a pain in the ass. It wont be less of a problem if per capita e.g. Belgium or Albania are worse...

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#158

Post by coldtea »

maximilianroos wrote: post #66
mikeash wrote: post #14

Quick reminder: US citizens have an absolute right to reenter the country. Customs can temporarily detain you, but they cannot refuse entry. Any threat, whether implied or stated, that they will hold you until you unlock your device is not real. They can hold your stuff indefinitely, so be prepared to lose it if you go this route, but never unlock your device based on the idea that it’s the only way to go free. Non-c…

> They can hold your stuff indefinitely, so be prepared to lose it if you go this route CBP do need reasonable suspicion to hold you belongings or do a forensic search of your computer (Cotterman 2013) - they can't just randomly take things on a whim. The longer they hold it, the higher standard required.

Or else? They get some slap of the wrist?

I don't think that will discourage them to call any whim "reasonable suspicion".

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#159

Post by whoCaresAnymore »

How did I know, without even looking, that this was about a fucking cell phone.

Which can only mean one thing: whatever you might try to imagine about mass surveillance and cell phone identifiers, take your well-reasoned, rational expectations, throw them out the window, and multiply your worst fears by a thousand.

Killing people based on metadata is likely only the tip of the iceberg.

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#160

Post by maximilianroos »

everdrive wrote: post #123
maximilianroos wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They can hold your stuff indefinitely, so be prepared to lose it if you go this route CBP do need reasonable suspicion to hold you belongings or do a forensic search of your computer (Cotterman 2013) - they can't just randomly take things on a whim. The longer they hold it, the higher standard required.

I strongly suspect that CBP's "strong suspicion" is equivalent to a HN poster's "whim." I'm not insulting either party, however when anything similar to this debate plays out, parties talk past each other on this sort of disagreement.

Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard that requires articulable facts, not a whim. Courts regularly hold that officers didn't obtain it.

For more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion

Post reply on HN