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

cbc.ca

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

#181

Post by KingMachiavelli »

I've always preferred having a dedicated desktop that acts as a personal server and then a small cheap laptop that I use to remotely access it.

While this preference is mostly driven by capitalizing on the performance/price/size difference between desktops and laptops, it has lots of advantages when it comes to these situations.

My Dell XPS 13 only has 128GB of storage so none of the data exists solely on that device; it acts mostly as a dumb terminal that I use to SSH to my desktop. I suppose upon booting the machine they could request SSH key passwords and then search my desktop but this seems unlikely.

While most of the issues with these border searches are privacy/ideology based. These types of security theatre can easily be circumvented.

Of course, just using Linux may get you detained for a bit which makes it all moot. Maybe having a business card saying I'm a systems administrator (which is true) would make Linux an easy explanation.

If these searches increase and become normal, I think it's only a matter of time before Apple implements a cloud based 'data refuge' that would allow users to temporarily offload encrypted sensitive data to the cloud while crossing borders and traveling to countries with weak or no privacy laws.

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

#182

Post by mef »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #181

I've always preferred having a dedicated desktop that acts as a personal server and then a small cheap laptop that I use to remotely access it. While this preference is mostly driven by capitalizing on the performance/price/size difference between desktops and laptops, it has lots of advantages when it comes to these situations. My Dell XPS 13 only has 128GB of storage so none of the data exists solely on that device…

related: 1Password Travel Mode https://support.1password.com/travel-mode/

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

#183

Post by scarlac »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #59

Is it legal to take steps to intentionally frustrate any future searches that may be done against the device by border agents, in cases where the is no other crime being covered up? For example, having a trusted remote party encrypt your data, and that party will only decrypt it once you've cleared customs?

The problem here is that they confiscate regardless. Even when it's very clear they do not have the means to break the encryption at all. Any excuse, reasonable or not, will dissatisfy them and they'll confiscating either permanently or temporarily (both seem to have happened).

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

#184

Post by viraptor »

vbezhenar wrote: post #180
dontbenebby wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a grad student I worried about this, since I was required to keep study participant data and student data confidential. Sounds like this lawyer arrived at the same plan I did: Refuse the request, file a lawsuit, and contact the media when released to shame the government that saw fit to violate my rights.

Encrypt the data (probably easiest way is to use encrypted 7z archive), memorize the password, upload the encrypted data into any cloud storage (e.g. Google Drive) and don't care about disclosing anything on your devices.

Discover that your password has ended up in a swap file one day and hasn't been overwritten, and chrome left you logged into Google drive. I wouldn't trust this approach not to fail by accident.

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

#186

Post by shiado »

panarky wrote: post #42
shiado wrote: post #15

Many of the services which could be accessible from those devices are American services with data residing on American servers. I wonder if it is possible to use hacking laws as a means of dissuading border agents from looking at devices. A Canadian agent might have jurisdiction in Canada but what if the get charged under the CFAA in the USA for accessing a server they aren't legally allowed to access. Perhaps it wou…

CBSA officers are directed to disable any internet connection and only examine content that is already stored on a device

Perhaps one could add a specific sort of legal DRM crypto layer and then get them for anti-circumvention. No internet connection required.

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

#187

Post by andrekandre »

Fogest wrote: post #160
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.…

There is actually a Canadian Border Patrol TV show you can watch, and they don't even try and hide that they do this. They very openly show when they check someones phone and laptop. I have seen it on the show, and they have shown them "catching" people. They'll usually use it to check if people are intending to stay and work in Canada, such as seeing in their texts or emails that they were arranging work and/or plac…

> I don't have anything to hide

that’s not for you to decide (unfortunately)

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

#188

Post by jedberg »

zulln wrote: post #137
nine_k wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why — security researchers would gladly buy them for a nonzero sum.

That would mean giving away your private data you had on the device to security researchers as well though. While I would want to have such device analysed, I am not sure I am fine with that compromise.

Nah, you wipe the drive and then give it to them, so they can check for firmware hacks.

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

#189

Post by Scoundreller »

kenned3 wrote: post #152
khazhoux wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why do people feel a need to post laws and such which are not relevent to the discussion? This is hosted on CBC (Canada broadcasting corp) and clearly this is about the "Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA)" what does US laws have to do with this?

Sometimes when there is a lack of local jurisprudence, courts will look at other jurisdictions for guidance. But it’s more common for a colony to do that when the motherland has more case law.

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

#190

Post by pmorici »

vbezhenar wrote: post #180
dontbenebby wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a grad student I worried about this, since I was required to keep study participant data and student data confidential. Sounds like this lawyer arrived at the same plan I did: Refuse the request, file a lawsuit, and contact the media when released to shame the government that saw fit to violate my rights.

Encrypt the data (probably easiest way is to use encrypted 7z archive), memorize the password, upload the encrypted data into any cloud storage (e.g. Google Drive) and don't care about disclosing anything on your devices.

Not a great idea. You have no reason to believe deleted and cached copies aren’t lingering on you disk unprotected.
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