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US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

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Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have something like that with "golden visas/golden passports" already here in Europe. The result was a bunch of Russian oligarchs with Schengen freedom of movement [1]. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/eu-threatens-legal-action-over-maltas-...

So maybe we don't want all the rich people? And we probably want some of the poor people. There is a shortage of all sorts of labor afterall. The real issue is that there is no good way to verify the identity or non-criminal nature of any of the migrants. You can create a solid ID at the time of entry and start tracking there at least.

> The real issue is that there is no good way to verify the identity or non-criminal nature of any of the migrants.

Just as there was no good way for Diogenes to verify which bones belonged to Alexander's father.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#222
post #87

Do they do this with laptops too? If not, the laziness of assuming everything is on the phone is amusing.

And I'm still waiting for someone to explain how that works with employer gear. I'm guessing my corporate compliance team will not be pleased if I tell them someone made copies of all the companies data...even if it is uncle sam. Like what does one do in that situation? Can't really agree. At the same time US border staff is not known for their understanding nature when it comes to saying no.

Revoke keys and inform the person responsible for compliance.

There's not much more you can do in that situation.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#223

Terrifying for only 2 reasons: 1. Any malicious person savvy enough to pull off a crime of interest to the Feds is smart enough to provide a wiped or burner phone to DHS/ICE, and they have to know this. So, what is the point in doing this if not to target law abiding citizens. 2. USGOV has a spotty track record of keeping this information secure. A foreign actor is likely to access this info eventually. As one former…

> 1. Any malicious person savvy enough to pull off a crime of interest to the Feds is smart enough to provide a wiped or burner phone to DHS/ICE, and they have to know this. So, what is the point in doing this if not to target law abiding citizens. This isn't even remotely true. See for example the recent Anom honeypot[1]. Criminals do more or less the same things that ordinary citizens do, and often have strictly wo…

News of the compromise will cause criminals to be more cautious and reduce communication.

The entire news article could be fake and it will still be effective.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#224

Terrifying for only 2 reasons: 1. Any malicious person savvy enough to pull off a crime of interest to the Feds is smart enough to provide a wiped or burner phone to DHS/ICE, and they have to know this. So, what is the point in doing this if not to target law abiding citizens. 2. USGOV has a spotty track record of keeping this information secure. A foreign actor is likely to access this info eventually. As one former…

>This is the problem when a non-technical generation makes the rules and regs.

If this is the doing of the "luddites" then I'm dreading the dawn of tech sawwy rulers.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#225

Terrifying for only 2 reasons: 1. Any malicious person savvy enough to pull off a crime of interest to the Feds is smart enough to provide a wiped or burner phone to DHS/ICE, and they have to know this. So, what is the point in doing this if not to target law abiding citizens. 2. USGOV has a spotty track record of keeping this information secure. A foreign actor is likely to access this info eventually. As one former…

I think I know what you mean when you say Luddites, but the Luddites were actually very knowledgeable about technology. They rebelled against technology being used against them without any benefit to them. If you understand that history, you might agree with me that we want Luddites such as Wyden in government.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#226
post #200
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ll I was specifically asking if there are examples of people being killed by police for refusing a search without a warrant, so it matters insofar as it’s the question I asked. I’m not here to defend policing as it stands in the US or dismiss any wrongful killing. I just disagree with a particular narrow assertion.

> I was specifically asking if there are examples of people being killed by police for refusing a search without a warrant No, you weren't. You asked: "Can you cite any examples of *this* happening? I’m a pretty big policing reform person and follow this stuff closely and can’t think of a single case *like this*." [Emphasis added] The semantics of that question turn entirely on the antecedent of "this", which is pret…

No, it was clear that he was asking about

>>> you also may say "no"

>> people have been killed by law enforcement for doing what you are suggesting.

> Can you cite any examples of this happening?

and not George Floyd.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#227
Even if you are a person who will never in your life end up as any kind of person of interest for the government, handing over data in this way could still be quite dangerous.

Phones will often contain data that can facilitate theft and fraud if ending up in the wrong hands. If they're able to copy everything, including private data from all apps that could be quite bad. For example many countries now use apps to login to online banking, with private keys for the login stored in the app. Will that be copied? Will it ever be found out if one of the 3000 government officials with access to this data sold it on darknet markets?

Maybe some months after your travel you suddenly wake up one day to find all your money transferred from your bank account to some account in Nigeria.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#228

Terrifying for only 2 reasons: 1. Any malicious person savvy enough to pull off a crime of interest to the Feds is smart enough to provide a wiped or burner phone to DHS/ICE, and they have to know this. So, what is the point in doing this if not to target law abiding citizens. 2. USGOV has a spotty track record of keeping this information secure. A foreign actor is likely to access this info eventually. As one former…

>This is the problem when a non-technical generation makes the rules and regs. If this is the doing of the "luddites" then I'm dreading the dawn of tech sawwy rulers.

> If this is the doing of the "luddites" then I'm dreading the dawn of tech sawwy rulers.

Knowledge disparity has always been a source of power.

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#229
post #130

Terrifying for only 2 reasons: 1. Any malicious person savvy enough to pull off a crime of interest to the Feds is smart enough to provide a wiped or burner phone to DHS/ICE, and they have to know this. So, what is the point in doing this if not to target law abiding citizens. 2. USGOV has a spotty track record of keeping this information secure. A foreign actor is likely to access this info eventually. As one former…

Haha, just 5 minutes ago I read a story about Iranian 'hacker' who wrote a ransomware note in Microsoft Word, so the file metadata contained his full name :)

Similar SecOps problems happened to both John McAfee and the Silk Road founder.

As far as I remember, McAfee shared an iPhone photo with location metadata when he was in Belize, so American authorities were able to track him down.

The Silk Road founder had some sort of PHP coding error which led police to his San Francisco location. That is, you could simply visit the Silk Road home page and his location leaked.

So yeah criminals aren't better at SecOps. They're just more reckless than most people...

Re: US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like suggesting a biological cell not have a cell wall. One of the fundamental functions of a country is to regulate input/outputs at the border. There are so many disastrous problems that arise from the elimination of a border, that I question whether such a suggestion is ever even made seriously or made by sane people.

I advocate for almost completely open borders, for three reasons, freedom + economic growth + national security. (1) Freedom. Closed borders was actually one of the first iterations of technology being used to suppress human freedom. We had open borders for most of human history. Only with the advent of modern nation states (and the associated mind virus of nationalism) and recent technical capabilities have we both…

this is a bad take

1. the us had open borders because they could offer land to people coming in, it had economic benefits for everyone involved. nowadays, EVERYONE wants to get in, especially actors with bad intentions, and as was just shown in europe not even five years ago now, open borders are a terrible idea with long lasting consequences.

2. economic growth does not simply derive from a larger population, there's a balance between population size and the economic prosperity of each individual within that population, to tip the scale so absolutely in only one direction completely destroys the scale itself

3. geopolitics are not so black and white. it derives complexities in more areas than just population, and the US does not have a small population, nor do its allies

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