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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

#241

Post by throwawaycanuck »

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…

The Canadian government is so far beyond a joke at this point. We are increasing the difficulty of foreigners to enter and work but seem to have no issue granting refugee status to more people than we can reasonably accommodate.

But at least the ultra-progressive policies are getting through!

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

#242

Post by RandomGuyDTB »

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…

Do you have a citation on how using Linux can get you detained?

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

#243

Post by fauigerzigerk »

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.…

>It's not like you need to 'smuggle' any form of data physically.

The data may be a by-product of using the device. I suspect they are primarly looking for communications data that is bound to be on every device that is actively used to communicate.

The more end-to-end encryption is used the more interesting the ends become.

>And even if you had the data on a laptop, how does border patrol even know what they are looking at?

Maybe they just copy everything for later analysis in case communications data hints at this being a person of interest.

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

#244

Post by saagarjha »

fao_ wrote: post #116
isostatic wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thus reducing CO2 and working towards saving the planet

if you took cars away from the entire population that would only account for up to 25% of the CO2 being released. So, on this small a scale it's doing almost nothing.

A 25% reduction in CO₂ is a massive undertaking the likes of which have never been attempted before.

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

#245

Post by bengerbil »

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…

I travel similarly equipped - with the idea that I can't lose (or lose control of) data I don't have with me. This addresses the threats represented by border control, intranational security checks, theft of device, and unintended hardware acceleration (@9.8m/s^2). At most, a laptop or a phone is a cache of data that's already elsewhere.

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

#246

Post by admax88q »

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.…

> It's not like you need to 'smuggle' any form of data physically.

Because most people don't have the technical know how, or desire to spend the effort to ensure that the data they _are_ bringing across the border is safe to disclose.

Even elsewhere in the comments here is a long debate about the "safe" way to deliver data across borders, some of which are actually terrible ideas.

Yes, theoretically, people could avoid bringing any sensitive data physically across the border, but most do anyways and I bet you do too.

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

#247

Post by brandon272 »

brooksgarrett wrote: post #145
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…

> 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.

If that qualifies as a type of legally actionable obstruction, it would seem that intentionally wiping your device before you cross a border and then reloading data onto it once you arrive at your destination would also qualify.

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

#248

Post by mises »

ColanR wrote: post #231
morganvachon wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This action can be flagged as suspicious as well, triggering a deeper investigation into the traveler. It's not always feasible, but the most secure way to protect clients'/employers' data is to encrypt the laptop and phone and ship to your destination via standard shipping services, then ship them back the same way before leaving for home. Carry a well used but non-critical burner laptop ($50 Chromebook off Craigsli…

Your advice to mail ahead your secure computer is not good. Mailed electronics are just as susceptible to search, if not more so, as what you keep with you. I think the reality we have to grapple with, regardless of rights violated, is that if you want to cross a nation border, it's best to assume that all nations involved will end up with a copy of all the data (hopefully encrypted) you move across that border. In t…

It's much easier for a policeman to demand the password to decrypt data when he has you in custody at customs than when it is searched by the mailman.

You're confusing "not perfect" with "not good". There's an old saying: when outrunning a bear, you don't have to be the fastest guy, you just have to be faster than the slowest guy.

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

#249

Post by sandworm101 »

eecc wrote: post #169
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…

It's still a dragnet. They're not SWATing a semiautomatic rifle up your nose - nobody's claiming they're not polite - but the fact remains.

Dragnets tend to catch more people. This is less than 1% of 1% of travelers. It is a very limited program.

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

#250

Post by jason0597 »

admax88q wrote: post #246
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.…

> It's not like you need to 'smuggle' any form of data physically. Because most people don't have the technical know how, or desire to spend the effort to ensure that the data they _are_ bringing across the border is safe to disclose. Even elsewhere in the comments here is a long debate about the "safe" way to deliver data across borders, some of which are actually terrible ideas. Yes, theoretically, people could avo…

>some of which are actually terrible ideas

Which ones?

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