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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

#421

Post by rjf72 »

Exactly how many meaningful crimes have been prevented or busted because of this behavior?

I think sacrificing liberty for security is generally a bad idea. But it seems we're increasingly sacrificing liberty for nothing, which is a rather worse idea. We're creating a dystopia for what? To get people to click on ads on one front, and on fronts like this - the pretext is mostly to stop terrorism, but that's something that should be cleanly quantifiable. So let's quantify it. How many terrorist attacks has this stopped? I think the safe ballpark is exactly 0.

I also don't understand why more people don't seem to ask this question. Can governments do this is going to be an extremely difficult to answer question that few of us lack the expertise to even begin to delve into. Even for those of us with it, there are contradictory views. It seems much easier to answer should governments do this. And if they're driving a meaningful deterioration of society, as I would call the stripping of basic rights of individual privacy, and have nothing of substance to show for it - then this is something for which there is no ambiguity whatsoever.

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

#422

Post by vbezhenar »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #368
efreak wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure if it's feature of all modern SSD or Samsung ones, but I know that those SSD use AES internally for all data (not for encryption specifically, but because they need random bits for better storage and encryption is just a bonus). User usually does not deal with it, as it's handled in firmware, but BIOS have the option to securely erase the disk which just generates new key instantly and then, obviously, it's not possible to recover any data from old sectors.

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

#423

Post by vbezhenar »

dorgo wrote: post #204
viraptor wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Let the computer you used for encryption and uploading at home.. Take an empty/new notebook/smartphone with you to show at the border? edit: place a big random data file, which looks like encrypted data on your alibi notebook. Refuse to give password and let the government lab try to find the password..

I think someone was imprisoned in UK for refusal of giving password. Don't joke with government.

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

#424

Post by Dylan16807 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #418
brigandish wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a sincere question. You say you've read up on this. I haven't, though I have lived in Thailand and travelled around the region, and from my personal experience (not as a consumer, but I don't need to be a smoker to have some idea (anecdotally) of the level of smoking around me) the vast majority of foreign men that were consumers were not involved in anything to do with children or any such thing. Hence, I was…

You may think I mean straight up pedopholia involving elementary school aged children. That can happen certainly. But a 17 year old is legally still a child in many jurisdictions. A lot of men in their twenties see nothing wrong with getting involved with a 17 year old. If you are talking a dating situation, my views on that get a lot more complicated. If you are talking prostitution, a 17 year old sex worker is high…

How about we avoid that slippery slope entirely, by using a very expansive definition lumps in sex with anyone under 21 as going in the 'depraved or otherwise a problem' category.

Now will you please consider giving some data or some kind of percentage or explain why you said "probably"?

No one is trying to claim this kind of horrible behavior doesn't exist. But I want to understand the scale of the problem. Trying to figure out if it's 10% or 90% is not nitpicking!

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

#425

Post by rando444 »

arnonejoe wrote: post #384
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…

Maybe set up a VM on AWS and bring a new laptop over the border. Or leave your laptop at home and VM into it. Or ship your laptop to where ever you're staying and bring a burner phone over the border. Doesn't seem like a difficult problem to solve.

So because you personally can hide your private data, that makes this an acceptable form of security for 'everyone else'?

Pardon me while I humbly disagree.

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

#426

Post by Dylan16807 »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #201
deogeo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sickening to think that, despite the ban in Canada, countless innocent anime girls are being abused in Japan every day - many of them children! The UN should apply pressure to get Japan to stop this vile abuse, and import of cartoons into Japan should be banned, as their safety cannot be guaranteed there.

Fictional child pornography does not directly harm children, but it is likely that it does so indirectly by creating demand for actual CP. To me, it seems totally reasonable to make all sexualized depictions of children illegal for this reason.

> To me, it seems totally reasonable to make all sexualized depictions of children illegal for this reason.

Among a huge number of intractable problems with fictional works, this also would make it illegal for many abuse victims to talk about what happened to them.

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

#427

Post by dredmorbius »

wereHamster wrote: post #391
gingabriska wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How 5 dollar wrench won't work in this case? Isn't administrator going to follow his order, so he can made to call the administrator and reset keys etc..?

This assumes you can get the wrench close enough to the admin. If they are in another country, one that is outside of your jurisdiction you'll have a hard time applying your wrench.

The wrench need only be applied to whomever tells the admin to unlock the archive. In a manner that the admin is likely to accept the request.

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

#428

Post by morganvachon »

TheDong wrote: post #325
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…

> most secure way ... encrypt the laptop and phone and ship to your destination via standard shipping services Absolutely not. Any time your hardware is physically out of your control is a time when someone could install a hardware keylogger or replace your ethernet card with one that exfiltrates data or whatever. The most secure option is to travel with an encrypted hdd/phone on you with no way to decrypt them, and…

By paraphrasing my comment as you did, you avoided the point I was making. What I proposed is the easiest and most secure way for a normal traveler not already under suspicion to avoid losing/exposing potential client and employer data to a foreign government during a border confiscation. By no means is it 100% foolproof and I never claimed it was. As I said elsewhere in the thread, if you're already the subject of an investigation your mailed package will be intercepted, but that's an entirely different conversation.

In short, the scope of my comment was avoiding a border seizure during travel, not 100% securing your devices from being compromised, which is an impossible goal short of just not using any devices, period.

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

#429

Post by DoreenMichele »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #424
DoreenMichele wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may think I mean straight up pedopholia involving elementary school aged children. That can happen certainly. But a 17 year old is legally still a child in many jurisdictions. A lot of men in their twenties see nothing wrong with getting involved with a 17 year old. If you are talking a dating situation, my views on that get a lot more complicated. If you are talking prostitution, a 17 year old sex worker is high…

How about we avoid that slippery slope entirely, by using a very expansive definition lumps in sex with anyone under 21 as going in the 'depraved or otherwise a problem' category. Now will you please consider giving some data or some kind of percentage or explain why you said "probably"? No one is trying to claim this kind of horrible behavior doesn't exist. But I want to understand the scale of the problem. Trying t…

Thailand’s Health System Research Institute reports that children in prostitution make up 40% of prostitutes in Thailand. In Cambodia, it has been estimated that about a third of all prostitutes are under 18.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sex_tourism

There are many readily available articles on the topic just a Google away if you really want to know more.

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

#430

Post by ghjjjj »

jrandm wrote: post #401
tiglionabbit wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have any rights at the border. The moment they decide to search you they will ask for your passwords. If you don't give it, they'll detain you until you do.

> You don't have any rights at the border. This is, to the best of my knowledge, factually untrue. > Canadian courts have generally recognized that people have reduced expectations of > privacy at border points. In this context, privacy and other Charter rights continue to apply > but are limited by state imperatives of national sovereignty, immigration control, taxation > and public safety and security. The Canadian…

The Charter is an embarrassment/joke -> see not withstanding clause.
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