Ask HN: Laptop seized by immigration. Now what? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Laptop seized by immigration. Now what?

#11

Post by tdxgx » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 2:32 AM UTC

throwaway798798 wrote: post #8

yasp wrote: post #3

I guess it depends how paranoid you and your girlfriend are. See https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ypwkwk/the-nsas-undetecta... Short of physically replacing the drive, I don't think there would be much you could do, in that particular circumstance.

It's a macbook air so technically they can't do that as the hard drive is embedded to the motherboard, right? Also, all data are/were encrypted using Bitlocker (average strength password) - forgot to mention the mac was running on Windows 10, work computer.

solder on a new drive...

Re: Ask HN: Laptop seized by immigration. Now what?

#12

Post by gradschool » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 12:11 PM UTC

If you get the laptop back, you can probably sell it to security researchers for more than the cost of replacing it. If you're going to try to secure it yourself and continue using it, I hope your countermeasures will be effective against a hardware keylogger.

Re: Ask HN: Laptop seized by immigration. Now what?

#13

Post by catacombs » Sat, Aug 10, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

throwaway798798 wrote: post #6

catacombs wrote: post #4

Is your girlfriend an Israeli citizen?

Nope, she's not.

Hmm. I'm curious why TSA went through a thorough screening. Also, that strip search sounds illegal. Then again. You have no rights if you're in ICE/Border Patrol's custody.