81–90 of 308 posts
I never understood why people do this. What if you pour coffee over the laptop and it'll never boot up anymore? Buy a new phone too?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Luckily Android has that mode. They call it "Lockdown". Here's some info on it: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-use-android-9-pi...
Does this provide any protection? I've never undergone any sort of 'digital search' do they force you to provide your passcode? Do the forensics tools they use bypass user level protections like pin codes/finger prints?
Read the EFF Digital Privacy guide for the Full Monty: https://www.eff.org/wp/digital-privacy-us-border-2017
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 =)
I know I got some family in law enforcement and was mentioning some of the stuff on the news once at like Christmas or Thanksgiving several years back, and they surely didn't like that. But then again they didn't like me talking about how I think circumcision is wrong either, apparently it hurts their religion too.
I know there's stories of cops being fired for speaking out about wrong doings, and even one was sent to a mental hospital for it but got a very large settlement with the city.
One of the sad things are people will see a clip on the news and judge all cops however. I always love it when I see heartwarming stories of cops doing good. For example recently someone was pulled over for lights being out and was having trouble with his wiring harness. So the cop actually helped him fix the car! Now that's real protecting and serving, in other areas probably write a ticket for revenue and of to the next, very impersonal.
I know I seen a video once of some cop in New Jersey who pulled over someone, the guy rolls down the window and the cop comes up yelling for license and registration. Can't even say hello or be cordial. Sure the guy might of broke a traffic law, but don't need to be a jerk about it. Not like he murdered someone, but even then stories of mass murderers being treated better. Dylann Roof apparently was taken through the drive thru.
> If you lose access to your laptop or pairing record then you will also be locked out of connecting to your phone. I never understood why people do this. What if you pour coffee over the laptop and it'll never boot up anymore? Buy a new phone too?
> If you lose access to your laptop or pairing record then you will also be locked out of connecting to your phone. I never understood why people do this. What if you pour coffee over the laptop and it'll never boot up anymore? Buy a new phone too?
That's why you make backups, so even if you lose your laptop, your pairing record is safely backed up somewhere else.
I don't think it would fly to say at the border that "sorry, can't unlock for you because I don't know my password, it's in a password manager on my laptop".
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.
This was super easy when I had TWRP recovery. Is there an official Android way to pull a full system backup?
There's also a backup mechanism built into ADB. This is a manual process that puts a copy of all apps and information (but probably not security keys) on your computer, optionally encrypted with a PASSWORD. Google deprecated this functionality though. See here for a short guide: https://9to5google.com/2017/11/04/how-to-backup-restore-andr...
There's always TWRP/Titanium Backup if you have root access, or in the worst case scenario, starting a root shell over ADB in recovery mode and just DD-ing the entire data partition to a file in your computer.
> If you lose access to your laptop or pairing record then you will also be locked out of connecting to your phone. I never understood why people do this. What if you pour coffee over the laptop and it'll never boot up anymore? Buy a new phone too?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think avoiding the USA is a realistic option for a lot of HN readers.
I somehow manage to have a comfortable career & good money while having never stepped foot in the US (and no intentions to do so). It’s not impossible or even that difficult.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.