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Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

nytimes.com

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Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#351

Post by JumpCrisscross »

deepfriedbits wrote: post #268
btbuildem wrote: post #227

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

With all due respect, this is a wild take. Things aren't great in the U.S. right now, but they're not even in the same universe as what the Stasi was doing. > I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech.

[flagged]

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#353

Post by kelnos »

dredmorbius wrote: post #87
spacebanana7 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder whether it'd be better for a duress PIN to delete existing data and also create a semi plausible artificial profile to hide the deletion event.

This discussion was raised last time this story was discussed. I was among its advocates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49061890 >. Briefly: no. Less briefly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060780 > and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060716 > (from the grapheneos HN account directly).

I think for the case we're talking about here, though, it would be doable. This doesn't need to thwart deep forensic analysis. It just needs to survive a border agent thumbing through the contents of your phone for a bit. If the fake profile data looks plausible, and doesn't raise any flags, the agent gives the phone back and you're on your way.

Hell, I think a setup that doesn't wipe anything, but just drops you into a sanitized, isolated profile for the border agent to look at, would be fine for many users. Certainly you wouldn't want to use this in truly high-stakes situations where it's likely that your device will be confiscated no matter what, and analyzed to death, but for the simple "border agent wants to snoop on my data for a few seconds" case, it's likely sufficient.

(As always, risk analysis can be hard, humans are often bad at it, and not everyone's threat model is the same.)

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#354

Post by TimTheTinker »

dijit wrote: post #270
deepfriedbits wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, this is a wild take. Things aren't great in the U.S. right now, but they're not even in the same universe as what the Stasi was doing. > I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech.

its only with the benefit of hindsight (and being on the winning side- thus the propaganda was never dispelled) that we consider the stasi and so on the way we do. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.. might just be a duck. I don’t believe those living “normal lives” in East Germany or the Soviet era considered the police to be evil and invasive the way we do today.

> I don’t believe those living “normal lives” in East Germany or the Soviet era considered the police to be evil and invasive the way we do today.

"normal life" under the Stasi was constant political terror and suppression.

The death counts are low because they thought death too little of a penalty for opposing them - they used psychological warfare (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung) and torture instead.

The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims states that there were between 300,000 and 500,000 victims of the Stasi's use of psychological warfare, direct physical torture and gross human rights violations: https://web.archive.org/web/20210909114942/https://irct.org/....

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#355

Post by insane_dreamer »

freeone3000 wrote: post #174
insane_dreamer wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right, there's a contradiction here: - if you're deemed to be on US soil, constitutional protections (4A) apply; can't be destroying "evidence" unless you're accused of a crime or found to have committed a crime - if you're deemed _not_ yet on US soil, then how can you be charged with a crime under _US_ law?

The US views that US law applies worldwide. There is no requirement that you be anywhere near the US to be under US jurisdiction for an alleged offense against the US, according to the US. Also, that constitutional protections are suspended within 100 miles of a land, sea, or air border.

where's that in the Constitution?

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#356

Post by jrmg »

btbuildem wrote: post #227

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

The USA started from and has come back from way worse in the past.

Some dark, dark things happened in the USA, and almost every progression had a corresponding backslide - but the tick-tock has always ticked further towards a freer, more equal, and more equitable society.

Progress doesn’t always (ever?) require complete collapse.

I’m willing to hope this era is another ‘tock’. But that does require people to not just give up (or even work to accelerate the backslide?!) as you seem to be suggesting is the best course of action.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#357

Post by patcon »

hamdingers wrote: post #243
patcon wrote: post #213

I used to play around on projects adjacent to Tor and TailsOS, and had an idea for a setup I was researching. It's a little intense and probably has annoying failure modes, but sharing in case anyone else finds it helpful: - Tasker is an automation app for setting up rules for triggers and actions. It allows extension apps to be created to add new triggers and actions. - someone at one point made an extension to add…

Or keep it in a faraday bag and have the phone wipe if it sees it. If you're ever searched (or otherwise indisposed), they'll open the bag and wipe your phone for you.

Oh hey, I like this variant! So... both the BLE beacon and the phone have a faraday cage, and if they ever appear together outside their cages, the phone wipes?

Perhaps less likely to go wrong than my original proposal when living normal life, as it might wipe if the BLE signal randomly gets lost.

It would be nicer if you could leave phone in cage during security, and remove beacon while loading airport trays ("remove all electronics from their cases..."). the only chance for a failure mode is only when you're going through security, and have the fob outside its case..

But you'd need to be able to leave your phone in the faraday cage pouch while going thru security, which is only ok if they don't notice... (maybe they commonly don't notice small faraday pouches aren't empty... Maybe they wouldn't if you had a secondary mobile device...)

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#358

Post by ecocentrik »

joenot443 wrote: post #282
btbuildem wrote: post #227

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

> if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech. I'm pretty optimistic that after the next general America will be ready to give up on the extremity of late turn over a new leaf. I fully expect a new president to be ushered in, whether R or D, and for some level of normalcy to start creeping back. The Sovie…

Most major industrialized nations have gone through something like this and it usually takes much longer than 10 years to escape and correct.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#359

Post by mohamedkoubaa »

jrmg wrote: post #356
btbuildem wrote: post #227

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

The USA started from and has come back from way worse in the past. Some dark, dark things happened in the USA, and almost every progression had a corresponding backslide - but the tick-tock has always ticked further towards a freer, more equal, and more equitable society. Progress doesn’t always (ever?) require complete collapse. I’m willing to hope this era is another ‘tock’. But that does require people to not just…

>but the tick-tock has always ticked further towards a freer, more equal, and more equitable society.

This is a popular sentiment, not a statement of historical fact. Arguments both for and against this are credible.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#360

Post by [deleted] »

kbrannigan wrote: post #313
deepfriedbits wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, this is a wild take. Things aren't great in the U.S. right now, but they're not even in the same universe as what the Stasi was doing. > I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech.

It's a very insidious, first you look all over your neighborhood flock cameras Hundreds of them came out of nowhere Nobody fought back . it's as long as you're not doing anything wrong you don't have to worry about it Then once changed the definition of what wrong means. If you're not a criminal you don't have to worry about it That's for your safety Then they changed the definition of what a crime is

[deleted]
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