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Pair Locking Your iPhone

arkadiyt.com

71–80 of 308 posts

Re: Pair Locking Your iPhone

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

INAL but I don't think that legally it would be lying. I believe lying requires more than not complying. Plus, we always have the right to remain silent.

> Plus, we always have the right to remain silent. No you don't. Not at the border.

Untrue. People who crack jokes about "constitution free zones" at the border are just uninformed. There are some obvious broad waivers on searches to enable the enforcement of import/export and immigration laws, but other rights that don't relate to the particulars of border enforcement are not impacted.

Re: Pair Locking Your iPhone

#72
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually they have to let you through though. They can't send you to a detention center for not unlocking your phone, you're a US citizen and you're not being compelled by a court to do anything. They might keep you in a room for many hours but at the end of the day they will let you go and you'll have a good story to tell the news channels.

"Eventually" can be a really long time if they want it to be.

In my experience, refusing to unlock/answer questions results in a 3-30 hour delay, depending on the mood of the border pigs.

Re: Pair Locking Your iPhone

#73
post #35

> Pair locking is a useful feature to protect yourself against invasive device searches. Probably also a good way to get onto no-fly lists, and spend hours in detention, etc.

I find this whole discussion (including the above comment) surreal, given that we are talking about the country that used to be called "the land of the free" and that claims superiority over countries that restrict freedoms.

The hypocrisy you're referring to applies to practically every liberal nation you can name. You're merely selectively, conveniently focusing on the US and narrowly focusing on this issue while ignoring other types of very common border restrictions in "free" countries that like to lecture on human rights.

Shall we discuss border security and immigration (which is a type of border security restriction) policies of Canada, Australia, Japan or the Scandinavian nations - to name a few?

Nearly every liberal democracy is blatantly, intentionally regressive at the border, typically in several different ways.

Re: Pair Locking Your iPhone

#74
post #36

An alternative: make a full backup of your phone, then restore your phone with a different backup with less personal information, and then once you cross the border you restore your phone using the first backup.

I used to do this but I have two iPads and three phones and the larger ones take several hours to backup/restore. :/

Re: Pair Locking Your iPhone

#75
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are a US citizen, you can't be turned away at the border or forced to unlock the device. A warrant is not required. Federal agents can search your phone at the US border, even if you're a US citizen [1]. If they can't unlock it, they can seize it [2]. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/can-us-border-agents-search-... [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/05/01/u-s-customs-c...

Those two points aren't exclusive. They've now seized a secure phone and are still required to let you enter the country. I wonder what would happen if you tried to claim insurance on a phone seized at the border?

They'd likely point to the clause that excludes seizure by authorities, which most policies have.

Re: Pair Locking Your iPhone

#76
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Eventually" can be a really long time if they want it to be.

In my experience, refusing to unlock/answer questions results in a 3-30 hour delay, depending on the mood of the border pigs.

Calling them "border pigs" will result the delay being closer to the 30 hour mark =)

Re: Pair Locking Your iPhone

#77
post #22
post #20

This is a dumb idea if you want to actually take your flight in this situation instead of spending hours discussing privacy with TSA agents. But I also wonder what is it that they expect to find during these searches. In the world where I can transfer my criminal activity data through the likes of Dropbox (in encrypted form, of course), why would I have it on my phone or a laptop? What's the goal here?

As a US citizen i would only expect someone to force me to unlock my phone at a US port of entry, not when leaving. And yeah i'm willing to waste their time on my way back from the trip if they try to waste mine.

As a US citizen you are not required to unlock anything (or answer any questions) when re-entering the US.

Re: Pair Locking Your iPhone

#78
post #18

If you want to keep your phone secure, enable a long passcode, turn on full device encryption, and turn it off. If you are a US citizen, you can't be turned away at the border or forced to unlock the device. If you're not a US citizen or don't want to be harrassed by customs, bring a burner phone. Tools like Cellebrite can and do take advantage of security vulnerabilities. Turning off pair locking lulls users into a…

I really wish Apple would put something in place where you effectively have two user accounts. If you type your actually passcode, it's just your normal account. If you type another specific passcode, it's a burner account with minimal apps and information. It has enough info to make it look like it's being used, but nothing important. Obviously border control would quickly know about this, but there's no way to veri…

Wouldn’t it be safer to:

1) Backup phone then reset to factory before flying 2) Restore once through customs.

Re: Pair Locking Your iPhone

#79
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Eventually" can be a really long time if they want it to be.

In my experience, refusing to unlock/answer questions results in a 3-30 hour delay, depending on the mood of the border pigs.

You have actual experience? Like first hand? Lots of horror stories out there though, including people claiming they were sexually assaulted. Seems like a major blow to civil rights, even recently a mayor was detained but haven't been following the entire story.

Re: Pair Locking Your iPhone

#80
post #68
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are a US citizen, you can't be turned away at the border or forced to unlock the device. A warrant is not required. Federal agents can search your phone at the US border, even if you're a US citizen [1]. If they can't unlock it, they can seize it [2]. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/can-us-border-agents-search-... [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/05/01/u-s-customs-c...

You are both correct. Incidentally, the "border" for legal purposes extends 100 miles into the interior.

Exactly this. And remember that international airports are also borders!
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