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US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

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Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#611

Post by inigyou »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #554
itake wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, like what country would you not have to worry about this in? The US is quite transparent about these rules, and certainly other countries are not necessarily searching peoples phones as publicly But anytime I transit a country USA or any thing I fully expect to have zero rights

Schengen, Nordics, Japan, Canada, in that order. Trump’s America: when confronted with negative traits of your country, always assume your country is the lesser of all evils.

Australia has stricter screening for fruit than for people.

don't bring anything organic to Australia unless it's been commercially processed, and even then show it to the border officers so they can make the call. You don't get penalized for showing them something not allowed, you just can't bring it into the country, and they throw it in the bin for incineration. Penalties start when you try to sneak something in anyway.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#612

Post by [deleted] »

eru wrote: post #559
lentil_soup wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you may have to think both about protecting your data by technical means, and about not angering the agents more than you plan to That's the same problem with technical solutions to crime. I come from a very dangerous city and I used to have a car that needed a PIN to work. You could turn then engine on and drive but after a minute if you didn't input the PIN it would turn off without warning and start blasting the…

Why are you staying in this place? (Is this in South Africa?)

[deleted]

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#613

Post by bigDinosaur »

inigyou wrote: post #605
invalidusernam3 wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an insane thing to have to do for visiting a supposed first world country. If phones had been around during USSR times I imagine you would have had to do the same. Personally I will rather just avoid any travel to the US, and I hope others do the same.

The US is first world on a technicality: the first world is defined as countries that were allied with the US during the cold war. If not for that, it'd be classified as developing. It's common to mix up developing/developed and third/first world because they were largely aligned during the cold war. But there is one first-world developing country.

The biggest economy in the world and the richest country to have ever existed is not a developing country, although it is quite unequal. What you've stated is political rhetoric that you want others to accept as fact.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#614

Post by Havoc »

schoen wrote: post #383

I co-wrote a border search guide for EFF some years ago. I was very interested in finding clever technical approaches but I later ended up feeling that I hadn't given enough thought to the overall threat model questions (even though the guide did address them, perhaps even somewhat usefully). The big picture problem is that the agents performing the searches have an enormous amount of power in terms of potentially se…

So burner phone for US visits I guess

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#615

Post by inigyou »

eru wrote: post #561
majke wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries now assume you have a phone. For example getting UK visa requires a smartphone. I don't think going without a phone is feasible nowadays. Another question is if going with a burner phone that has just sim card and bank card, sufficient. But then you need appleid/google account on the device, and this again links back to your phone number, and it's not easy in practice to have proper clean device.

Well, assume your phone number is public knowledge.

You can get more than one.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#616

Post by itake »

frgturpwd wrote: post #499
invalidusernam3 wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an insane thing to have to do for visiting a supposed first world country. If phones had been around during USSR times I imagine you would have had to do the same. Personally I will rather just avoid any travel to the US, and I hope others do the same.

I wouldn't say you are overreacting at all. I know someone who was detained for months on US soil after a phone search where the only "evidence" against him they found is illegal content sent by someone else to him on a group chat he doesn't even check. Had to get a lawyer and spend time in prison just waiting to be deported back.

WhatsApp was especially sketchy considering they used to automatically auto-save images to your photo album.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#618

Post by Havoc »

daishi55 wrote: post #94

> federal agents had already circulated his name and photo internally, saying he was under investigation for "suspected terrorism activities" because of his alleged association with the movement against Cop City Of course it’s about that huh. It’s quite scary how far the US will go against anyone who engages in this sort of activism.

An earlier story alluded to csam

Wonder if it’s just a fishing expedition

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#619

Post by inigyou »

shevy-java wrote: post #515
schoen wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that border searches of electronic devices are extremely rare overall. There were some statistics from CBP implying a base rate lower than 1 in 10,000 (I think lower than 1 in 100,000) border crossings. I do know two people who have experienced them as a result of the government taking a personal interest in them, so it's certainly not impossible. However, it's not a common experience. I've personally experience…

But why would that be legal? The device is owned by the individual. No judge signed any warrant search for the device. I can do what I want with my device - that is a basic right of property. Imagine if border guards seize money willy-nilly.

Most constitutional rights are suspended within 100 miles of a border or international airport.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#620

Post by TacticalCoder »

schoen wrote: post #383

I co-wrote a border search guide for EFF some years ago. I was very interested in finding clever technical approaches but I later ended up feeling that I hadn't given enough thought to the overall threat model questions (even though the guide did address them, perhaps even somewhat usefully). The big picture problem is that the agents performing the searches have an enormous amount of power in terms of potentially se…

> ... you may have to think both about protecting your data by technical means, ...

I thought about that. And I came to the conclusion that a phone is a pathetically bad device to both store your data and to access your data. Mediocre screen. Mediocre input methods. Moreover most phones happen to also be spying device.

So if you think about "protecting your data", a reasonable idea is that a lot of data is way better kept on your homelab, with say encrypted backups in a safe at the bank, at a relative's place, on a server you rent, etc., rather than on your phone. And there's really little need to access your data from your phone.

Oh and I'm no luddite: I've got a homelab, I rent servers, I pay three AI subscriptions, etc.

But my phone is boring. There's no app on it besides the stock ones (say Google Maps) and then I added the Google Authenticator app (for stuff still using that kind of 2FA).

If people were to wake up and stop being glued to that mediocre thing, the problem would already be 99% solved.

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