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ACTA will force border searches of laptops, smartphones for pirated content

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Re: ACTA will force border searches of laptops, smartphones for pirated content

#21

Post by bwooce »

spdy wrote: post #5

Can the US Custom force someone to unlock an encrypted drive or deny entry if you dont comply ? Im fine with the search but they have no right to scan my notebook etc.

Yes. They can also take your property away to search it, returning it months later.

The final decision of entry to a country(at that point) lies with the immigration officer. I imagine you can ask nicely for a review after you've been flown back to your point of origin.

I'll dig up some links, but seizure of non-citizen's computers at US borders is possible and scary. I treat the US border like a hackers conference - take a freshly imaged device, and refresh it on your return.

Re: ACTA will force border searches of laptops, smartphones for pirated content

#23

Post by scotty79 »

newhouseb wrote: post #20

If true, this has to be one of the more bizarre ways to counteract piracy I have ever seen. I don't know what percentage of piracy is enabled by people carrying hard drives full of pirated movies across borders, but I'm sure it is vanishingly small - that is, after all, what pirates use the _internet_ for.

It is not to stop piracy. It is to detect and punish people who have pirated content in their possession.

You can't invade people's homes but you can search them thoroughly while crossing the border. People are used to having their privacy invaded while crossing the border.

Re: ACTA will force border searches of laptops, smartphones for pirated content

#25

Post by scotty79 »

cynest wrote: post #3

How does one determine whether something is pirated in these cases? All the music I've bought in the past few months has been distributed to me DRM-free so there exists no difference between it and a pirated copy other than a receipt. To make a long story short, having to proved that I have licenses for everything on my computer is utter crap.

If you run a company that's the rules. If you can't prove that you are licensed to use every single piece of software that you have on your computer then you can have your whole computer (or just the hard drive) confiscated and held for indefinite amount of time by the police probably long enough to technology become obsolete and your withheld data to become meaningless. At least that's how it looks in Poland.

Using any non opensource software is so scary that I wonder why would anyone pay and take the risk.

There was even one case when polish company purchased software directly from the US but polish distributor of this software insisted that it was pirated because they didn't sell it. Police went in. Confiscated computers and media for investigation. Software was essential for operation of this company so the company died.

Re: ACTA will force border searches of laptops, smartphones for pirated content

#26

Post by molmalo »

scotty79 wrote: post #23
newhouseb wrote: post #20

If true, this has to be one of the more bizarre ways to counteract piracy I have ever seen. I don't know what percentage of piracy is enabled by people carrying hard drives full of pirated movies across borders, but I'm sure it is vanishingly small - that is, after all, what pirates use the _internet_ for.

It is not to stop piracy. It is to detect and punish people who have pirated content in their possession. You can't invade people's homes but you can search them thoroughly while crossing the border. People are used to having their privacy invaded while crossing the border.

Yep, They may think "let's just punish a few thousands and will make an example of them, showing that we are serious about this now."

Can somebody tell me if this is expected to be enforced only to citizens from countries that actually signed ACTA, or also to everyone else?

Re: ACTA will force border searches of laptops, smartphones for pirated content

#27

Post by Iv »

scotty79 wrote: post #23
newhouseb wrote: post #20

If true, this has to be one of the more bizarre ways to counteract piracy I have ever seen. I don't know what percentage of piracy is enabled by people carrying hard drives full of pirated movies across borders, but I'm sure it is vanishingly small - that is, after all, what pirates use the _internet_ for.

It is not to stop piracy. It is to detect and punish people who have pirated content in their possession. You can't invade people's homes but you can search them thoroughly while crossing the border. People are used to having their privacy invaded while crossing the border.

The problem is that I have signed a contract with my company that says I must keep the data on my company laptop private and encrypted. There are trade secrets in there. What should I do ? Only have blank laptops to cross the border and download everything through ssh once on the other side ?

Talk about a waste of time.

Re: ACTA will force border searches of laptops, smartphones for pirated content

#28

Post by bigiain »

yason wrote: post #13

Regardless of ACTA, I have already established a personal policy to: 1) encrypt my partitions (other than root, to make upgrades and reinstalls easier; I use LUKS) 2) copy the essential first megabytes of each LUKS partition to my server or shell account somewhere, encrypted with GPG 3) fill that space with random data 4) travel and go through customs 5) access the GPG encrypted LUKS blocks over internet, decrypt and…

http://xkcd.com/538/

(yep, it's the "hit him with a wrench" one)

Re: ACTA will force border searches of laptops, smartphones for pirated content

#29

Post by Iv »

scotty79 wrote: post #25
cynest wrote: post #3

How does one determine whether something is pirated in these cases? All the music I've bought in the past few months has been distributed to me DRM-free so there exists no difference between it and a pirated copy other than a receipt. To make a long story short, having to proved that I have licenses for everything on my computer is utter crap.

If you run a company that's the rules. If you can't prove that you are licensed to use every single piece of software that you have on your computer then you can have your whole computer (or just the hard drive) confiscated and held for indefinite amount of time by the police probably long enough to technology become obsolete and your withheld data to become meaningless. At least that's how it looks in Poland. Using…

To be fair, the goal of that law is to allow arbitrary detention of computers without any kind of justification.

I wonder however how they would confiscate my laptop running only free software. Well, they could always pretend it is stolen : I usually don't have the receipt of it while travelling.

Re: ACTA will force border searches of laptops, smartphones for pirated content

#30

Post by newhouseb »

scotty79 wrote: post #23
newhouseb wrote: post #20

If true, this has to be one of the more bizarre ways to counteract piracy I have ever seen. I don't know what percentage of piracy is enabled by people carrying hard drives full of pirated movies across borders, but I'm sure it is vanishingly small - that is, after all, what pirates use the _internet_ for.

It is not to stop piracy. It is to detect and punish people who have pirated content in their possession. You can't invade people's homes but you can search them thoroughly while crossing the border. People are used to having their privacy invaded while crossing the border.

An interesting question is that if someone were to travel (non-commercially) across borders with a fake gucci bag, could that person could be held liable under ACTA for the case that a) they were aware of the product was counterfeit and/or b) the case in which they were unaware?
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