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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

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is about a Canadian case. There is no such thing as a precedent from an American court.

In theory, any ruling in any Common Law country could be cited as precedent in any other Common Law country.

As the US has the 4th amendment, most US search-and-seizure cases rest on it. If anyone were ever so bold as to argue a positive right to privacy for all humans--rather than the weaker but easier to prove prohibition against US governments committing privacy-violating acts--and the case was decided on it, that case could be used as precedent everywhere.

Judges are generally careful about not doing that, for obvious reasons. If a lawyer tried to make the case about a right to privacy, the judge might decide the outcome of the case base on that, but the opinion would certainly say that the litigant won or lost because of some other reason.

Statutory law is generally robust enough that judges can almost always decide based on it rather than on discovered law. So it's not that Canadian courts couldn't accept American precedent, it's just that American courts make special efforts to not set any Common Law precedent that a Canadian court can use. If it ever happens, it's likely to be in civil equity cases between two or more non-government parties.

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

#362
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that the best option is to keep sensitive data on encrypted removable storage devices while having light security on the internal storage of a laptop or phone. Access could then be granted to the laptop/phone, but refused for the external storage device. You want to indefinitely detain my $20 SD card if I won't give you the password? That's not a sufficient threat to convince me.

They could also refuse entry or detain you if your not a citizen for obstruction of justice. These laws that give border security unfettered search and seizure authority along with issuing punishment for non-compliance is the problem.

I agree, the laws are the problem. I can't do a whole lot to change the laws, and I am a citizen of the country I think is most likely to try something like that, so the technical solution is really all I have. So far, I have not had to employ it.

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

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an assumption. That's based on reading about the topic. It may not be universally true, but the fact that it is fairly often true is why the term has such negative meaning for most people.

What kind of percentage are you talking about? "Fairly often" covers a, erm, multitude of sins.

I've gone back and reread my initial comment. It has plenty of qualifiers. I think it is adequately clear and stands on its own just fine, without further clarification.

I have no idea why you are nit picking this. I'm not going to discuss it further with you.

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

#364
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that shred hasn't been reliable for many years now due to smarter and less predictable firmware in modern storage devices. Basically, you can't trust that your SSD deleted the data it said it did, or that it writes data to the place you told it.

Even with spinning rust, a sector remap would keep the old data in the old spot

So far as I know, wiping free space is a feature that has been available for many years in free utility suites and even recovery software (CCleaner, etc). I believe it's also directly available in Windows' Disk Cleanup utility; on Linux you call just use dd to fill the disk. This isn't as secure as a multiple wipe, but it can also be done multiple times; on Linux you can alternately use tr or some such to tell dd to write ones instead of /dev/zero.

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

#365

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…

My assumption is that this will become "the norm" for anyone that frequently travels across borders and deals with sensitive information.

As another commenter mentioned above, in the age of the internet and almost ubiquitous connectedness to it, what need is there to transport files on a device that can be seized and searched?

It's purely a limitation of the technical knowledge to make it easy to access data remotely. Package it up and sell it and you've got yourself a tidy little niche. Just watch out for governments asking for (or trying to create) backdoors.

When I traveled overseas I factory reset my phone and just used a dummy gmail address on it, then put my normal account back on once properly in the country. It's a matter of managing the details required to "get everything back" with minimal time and hassle. I'm a boring person unlikely to get onto any lists, other than the fact I like the intellectual challenge of maintaining a level of privacy slightly above what the 'state' might want me to have.

Too many people doing this, however, would cause a surveillance step-up to spot checking tourists / visitors mid-visit. That'll be an interesting law to try and pass.

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

#366
I really can't be the only person who travels internationally with a burner phone and burner laptop. I'll generally wipe them both sitting at the airport waiting for my flight home, just so that I can have the e-passport application up by the time that I land and go through customs. (Admittedly, I should just upgrade my TSA Precheck to Global Entry, but, I'm not even sure that I want to go through with that process).

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

#367
post #217

Why doesn't everyone simply refuse to share passwords, as is mentioned numerous times on various Canadian government websites? Basic search finds tons of pages from all sorts of departments https://www.canada.ca/en/sr/srb.html?q=share+password A few samples > 95% [of polled Candians] know not to share their passwords https://www.getcybersafe.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/vds/nln-sft-stck-p/... > don’t share your PIN, password or p…

Because border police have authority

Could you elaborate on that thought?

Individuals also have the authority to assert their rights, one of which in Canada is the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure[0]. R v Fearon[1] places limitations on this exact type of search one could easily argue aren't met given the descriptions of these searches I've read.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_of_the_Canadian_Char...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Fearon

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

#368
post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with spinning rust, a sector remap would keep the old data in the old spot

So far as I know, wiping free space is a feature that has been available for many years in free utility suites and even recovery software (CCleaner, etc). I believe it's also directly available in Windows' Disk Cleanup utility; on Linux you call just use dd to fill the disk. This isn't as secure as a multiple wipe, but it can also be done multiple times; on Linux you can alternately use tr or some such to tell dd to…

Wiping free space doesn’t wipe the original location of a remapped sector. AFAIK, nothing will short of low level format, which you can’t do these days.

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

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like, leave a private key at home and encrypt your drive with the public key before crossing the border? Yeah, at that point you are powerless to do anything until you are at home.

This only works if you trust egress border crossing more than ingress. Otherwise you might as well not bring your laptop along in the first place as it'd be an encrypted deadweight.

As a casual traveller without multiple devices for different forms of travel, the idea of neutering 90% of my data temporarily actually appeals to me.
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