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Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

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Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#141

Post by sandworm101 »

lohszvu wrote: post #140
sandworm101 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Can this be used to get whatever case(es) he was defending thrown out because solicitor-client privilege was violated or parallel construction was used? That isn't what this is about. Nobody is talking about what this is really about and it isn't anything to do with him being a lawyer. This guy (1) was traveling alone (2) to a distant (3) and poor (4) country without preexisting business ties (5). Those are all re…

What is wrong with sex tourism?

Really? I think you know. I'm not going to spell it out.

Edit: fine. I guess some people here need the talk. This is about the phenomena of men traveling from rich countries to poor countries to engage in sex with children. Not this guy, but it does happen. These men often return with digital images stored on laptops and cellphones. Possession of such images is illegal in canada and so Canadian boarder services targets men who fit the profile of a potential "sex tourist". The term is a polite euphemism for a darker profile, not a literal reference to having sex while being a tourist.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#142

Post by gjs278 »

bgitarts wrote: post #101

Why aren't plausible deniability passwords a feature in operating systems? Especially since many now offer full disk encryption. What would happen to these searches if plausible deniability passwords became more widely used?

probably because it doesn’t work. every hard disk tool or inspection inside the OS would reveal that the partition size doesn’t add up to the hard disk size. they would just say so what is this random blob of data sitting on the other half of this disk?

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#143

Post by dmix »

sandworm101 wrote: post #129
gruez wrote: post #9

>Wright refused, telling the officer both devices contained confidential information protected by solicitor-client privilege. >He said the officer then confiscated his phone and laptop, and told him the items would be sent to a government lab which would try to crack his passwords and search his files. Can this be used to get whatever case(es) he was defending thrown out because solicitor-client privilege was violate…

>> Can this be used to get whatever case(es) he was defending thrown out because solicitor-client privilege was violated or parallel construction was used? That isn't what this is about. Nobody is talking about what this is really about and it isn't anything to do with him being a lawyer. This guy (1) was traveling alone (2) to a distant (3) and poor (4) country without preexisting business ties (5). Those are all re…

Guatemala is well known as a drug transport point. Plenty of the politicians there were caught being directly involved. Which, along with other contraband, accounts for the majority of the customs actual work and far more likely to be the concern with any traveller from there:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-politics/guatem...

https://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/the-zetas-in-gua...

http://latinalista.com/columns/globalviews/venezuela-no-1-tr... (see the chart, plenty of flights stop in Guatemala).

Still, it's no excuse to search Canadian citizen's phones or laptops. Either find probable cause (ie, some actual evidence which indicates a crime besides abstract "red flags" about travelling which could apply to thousands of innocent people) and get a warrant or don't do it. Otherwise it's open for tons of abuse and unnecessary invasions of privacy.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#144

Post by dghughes »

khazhoux wrote: post #132
vuln wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will never be able to prove parallel construction happened.

edit: wrote comment about Herring v. United States but this is a Canadian case.

In Canada technically it would be Whoever v. The Crown (Queen Elizabeth).

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#145

Post by brooksgarrett »

bgitarts wrote: post #101

Why aren't plausible deniability passwords a feature in operating systems? Especially since many now offer full disk encryption. What would happen to these searches if plausible deniability passwords became more widely used?

I took a workshop on custom Kali builds where they specifically spoke about LUKS headers and shipping them via email/gdrive to yourself and removing them from the physical device. It renders the partition useless. This was viewed as a better alternative than something like TrueCrypt with decoy passwords since if the government can ever prove you did it then that's obstruction. With the headers gone and no local copy you can't provide what you don't possess.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#146

Post by justinclift »

Spare_account wrote: post #51
justinclift wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's literally useless for government sponsored persistent malware.

Can you expand on this? I'm curious and a little Googling didn't yield much

Many of the more technically advanced governments create and/or buy malware which is able to persist in places other than just your hard drive and BIOS.

As it seems you're new to the idea, look into APTs for a general understanding of how persistent threats can be useful when they're embedded into a target:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_persistent_threat

The mechanisms for persisting outside of HDD/SSD data areas and the BIOS can vary. There are a lot of support chips in computers and peripherals. For example, Intels AMT (supposed to secure PCs) has been shown by researchers to be a useful place to put malware.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Active_Management_Techno...

I'm not personally sure if there's active malware using that vector yet, it's just an example. But it also wouldn't be even slightly surprising.

Does that help? :)

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#147

Post by ChrisClark »

lohszvu wrote: post #140
sandworm101 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Can this be used to get whatever case(es) he was defending thrown out because solicitor-client privilege was violated or parallel construction was used? That isn't what this is about. Nobody is talking about what this is really about and it isn't anything to do with him being a lawyer. This guy (1) was traveling alone (2) to a distant (3) and poor (4) country without preexisting business ties (5). Those are all re…

What is wrong with sex tourism?

Yikes. In case you're serious, it's the slavery, and children.

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#148

Post by sandworm101 »

dmix wrote: post #143
sandworm101 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Can this be used to get whatever case(es) he was defending thrown out because solicitor-client privilege was violated or parallel construction was used? That isn't what this is about. Nobody is talking about what this is really about and it isn't anything to do with him being a lawyer. This guy (1) was traveling alone (2) to a distant (3) and poor (4) country without preexisting business ties (5). Those are all re…

Guatemala is well known as a drug transport point. Plenty of the politicians there were caught being directly involved. Which, along with other contraband, accounts for the majority of the customs actual work and far more likely to be the concern with any traveller from there: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-politics/guatem... https://www.insightcrime.org/investigations/the-zetas-in-gua... http://latinal…

Don't use american definitions of "probably cause". Canada is a different country and defines probably cause very differently. Canada has a different relationship with its boarders than America. The physical scale is are different. Sovereignty is different. Canada's "charter rights" are different than american "constitutional" rights. Canada placed greater trust in individual enforcement officers and, generally, doesn't play the legal dances that are common in the US in relation to searches. Canadian boarder services agents may have greater power than their US counterparts but they are still a billion times easier to deal with than that TSA. Ask canadians if they want to adopt US-style rules and plenty would say no on principal alone.

Notice that this guy is now free and able to tell his story. He wasn't detained in handcuffs for days. He wasn't transported to a remote jail for interrogation. He wasn't charged with some trumped-up excuse to hold him. He wasn't subjected to a body cavity search. He wasn't added to some terror list. There is no allegation of racism. They seem to have politely explained the situation and let him on his way. Canada does things differently.

[edited for clarity, for those who require simple literality].

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#149

Post by dontbenebby »

LeonM wrote: post #99

I have asked this question before, but never really got a satisfiable answer: why do governments (not just USA/canada) spend these resources to check data physically at a border? It's not like you need to 'smuggle' any form of data physically. I mean, any data considered to be dangerous (like terrorist attack plans, atomic bomb designs or political inside information) can be accessed across borders via the internet.…

Because they don't have enough evidence for a warrant and it's an easy way to get data

Re: Canada Border Services seizes lawyer's phone, laptop for not sharing passwords

#150

Post by CrowFly »

noarchy wrote: post #124
pjc50 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love trading other people's freedom for security. Especially if it has to do with immigration.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, it seems entirely correct, given the prevailing political climate.

Because it's not the topic we're discussing.
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