Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 197 posts

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

#171

Post by muyuu »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #117
ifearthefeds wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A shadow partition would be more effective at bypassing customs. For real boots, you use a copy of grub on a usb dongle. When grub is missing, you boot into a honeypot Windows XP partition that was installed only for that purpose.

No. "Only for that purpose" means that you never use it. This is trivially detected: the OS event logs will report that it hasn't been booted in 6 months, and no files have changed in that time. It's obvious that you haven't been using that system in the time you were out of the country; why did you have it with you? For this to work, you need to actually use the dummy partition for non-sensitive matters -- and be ab…

I actually carry a lighter computer when travelling than the one I use most often. So yes, it may have gone months unused and it may have just a few tools on it, and little to no content.

There is nothing unusual about that.

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

#172

Post by muyuu »

maccylo wrote: post #44
guard-of-terra wrote: post #38

That's why nobody wants to come to USA any more. You might have to, but the experience is questionable due to American customs having no respect whatsoever for privacy or personal belongings. All your luggage are belongs to them, in other words. Compare with Europe/Schengen where that simply is not a problem. And that clumsiness and ignorance gets copied into international treaties.

ACTA is not only US.

It's a different matter, but yes, I don't go to the USA anymore because of border control. It used to be a nice country to visit but it's just not worth it to me with all the stupid interviews and security theatre. I guess I'm more bitchy than the average person but I'd need a very strong incentive to go now.

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

#173

Post by nxn »

ThomPete wrote: post #56

In other words. This means cloud storage services will be one of the businesses who will se a huge increase in sales next coming years. Anyone want to partner up :)

I tend to think otherwise with the recent Megauploads situation; plenty of people lost their personal data with no warning and through no fault of their own.

The "no fault of their own" part is obviously being challenged by those who claim that the data should have been saved in multiple places. Though I think this just avoids the real issue of the bust having negatively affected users that had legitimate use cases for the service.

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

#174

Post by keeperofdakeys »

I really do wonder what they would do if they saw a linux laptop, especially if you are using a simple window manager, and only had a terminal available. Would they flag you for being 'suspicious'? Dual booting handles most of it though, changing it to boot instantly while going through the airport.

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

#175

Post by skeptical »

danenania wrote: post #65

What strikes me most strongly about all this is how utterly weird it is. Border guards give 'enhanced pat downs' to a middle class suburban family and find no weapons or contraband, but then open the family computer to find an unlicensed Finding Nemo avi, and haul them all off to jail. It's just such a bizarre mix of nanny-state and fascism. I know it's a pointless rhetorical question, but... how on earth has it come…

By taking advantage of the mindset of most off the people that still looks at the 'war on piracy' as a legit thing. That includes most of HN's uses unfortunately

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

#176

Post by brc »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #113
batista wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll go with the too naive. What they want is maximum power/profit. And it's not politicians --those are mostly puppets. America is/is becoming a corporate state, and corporatism was the very essence of Mussolini's fascism. The very notion of lobbyist groups is fascistic (Mussolini himself partitioned the power system in Italy to consist of various group interests in a great extend). Power and law become then an exch…

America is/is becoming a corporate state You're being way too reductionist, buying the anti-capitalist propaganda. To be sure, there's plenty of bad things to be said about corporations. But it's tremendously naive to believe that it's corporations that are calling all the shots. Remember, the corporations looking for these perks are every bit as dependent on the power of government as the government is on corporate…

This is one of the better reasoned comments I've read in a while.

There is an old Milton Friedman video floating around which dates back to the 1970s. At the time he was spending a lot of time trying to convince people that oversized governments weren't a good thing.

One of the very salient points he makes to a detractor is that if you limit the size of the government, you - by nature - limit the power a corporation can obtain. If the government has limited powers, so it goes that a corporation can gain limited powers - it should be impossible for a corporation to gain more power than a government.

It's the essential point that everyone skips over - they see government powers failing to check corporate growth, and so want more government power. If you take this to the argument by absurdity, you end up with a fascist government that exerts total control over the people, and then licences that control out to selected corporations in return for cash and favors.

The problem is human nature - and the solution must be to design a system that makes the assumption that humans will try and gather power and abuse it. It's the same concept as term limits but applied across a much broader spectrum.

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

#178

Post by runjake »

mbreese wrote: post #124
runjake wrote: post #105

To me, the following passage from the link demonstrates the dire situation in the US: In July 2008, the United States Department of Homeland Security disclosed that its border search policies allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to conduct random searches of electronic devices for "information concerning terrorism, narcotics smuggling, and other national security matters; alien admissibility; contraband in…

Two things: 1) Feingold can't introduce anything anymore, since he is no longer a Senator. (This tells you how long it has been since this section of the wikipedia article has been edited). 2) Even for US citizens, there is no right for people to bring whatever they want into the country. Once you leave the country, you lose 4th amendment protections. So, if you don't want to be searched, don't bring anything with yo…

On #2, no it doesn't. Not for US citizens. Well, it DOES in practice, but not in terms of our constitutional rights, imho.

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

#179

Post by mbreese »

runjake wrote: post #178
mbreese wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things: 1) Feingold can't introduce anything anymore, since he is no longer a Senator. (This tells you how long it has been since this section of the wikipedia article has been edited). 2) Even for US citizens, there is no right for people to bring whatever they want into the country. Once you leave the country, you lose 4th amendment protections. So, if you don't want to be searched, don't bring anything with yo…

On #2, no it doesn't. Not for US citizens. Well, it DOES in practice, but not in terms of our constitutional rights, imho.

You're right that US citizens still have rights when dealing with the government wherever we might be. However, the 4th amendment protects US citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. But crossing the border gives the gov't a reason to search...

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

#180

Post by robocat »

Iv wrote: post #27
scotty79 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If from overseas, would it help to have a business own the laptop, and its data? You can then legitimately say the business owns the illegal data, or deny knowledge of a hidden partition, or say you have no access to a key?

[Posted using my own account... not a US citizen and not hoping to travel there. If I were extradited i guess i wouldnt take any equipment or data!]

Post reply on HN