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New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

radionz.co.nz

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Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#201

Post by hugh-avherald »

jrace wrote: post #174
WaylonKenning wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riddle me this - what is the alternative? Don't look at a phone? Why do we look inside suitcases? Why have the concept of customs? We search things across borders for things our country does not want. We don't want drugs. We don't want fresh fruit (which will trip up more people than drugs). We don't want child porn. And if a phone is a container for that content, we want to be able to explore the container. Of cours…

I get your point....but a similar and more worrying thing is happening at the Canadian/US border right now. Entry to the US can be denied (for life even) if the customs agent suspects the traveler has involvement with Cannabis. That includes having investments in Cannabis companies. So if the take my phone and find any information on it connected to Cannabis I could be barred FOR LIFE from entry into the US. That mea…

That objection seems orthogonal to the point though. The US could make it so that owning a blue shirt means you are barred from the US for life. They open up your suitcase and find a blue thread.

Ultimately it's the law itself rather than the enforcement of it that you're objecting to.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#202

Post by mikeash »

Johnny555 wrote: post #182
paradite wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be very honest, I find the methodology very similar to what drug trafficker would do to hide their drugs. And I don't think this method will end well for all parties either way. If it works, customs officers cannot find actual illegal contents, and criminals walk free through customs. If customs officers somehow detects you are doing this, you risk obstructing security measures.

Drug traffickers hide their drugs in an encrypted partition? No sane criminal would bring illegal electronic data with him on a physical device... He'll just download it when he gets there.

No smart criminal would. There are lots of dumb criminals, though.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#203

Post by ergothus »

Shivetya wrote: post #146
yholio wrote: post #85

This is an important issue cryptographers and security minded people often overlook: the strongest cryptography is irrelevant if it opens you to such social harassment. What we need is practical cryptography. I have found practical success by booting from an encrypted Linux partition that has absolutely nothing relevant on it, with a weak password I can always enter when requested by big guys with guns. Unbeknown to…

the end result will be any system which is not familiar to the officials who are doing the checks or compatible with their scanning technology will simply be confiscated upon entry. the only safe harbor will be one you don't carry with you except as a device which can guarantee secure access to that remote information.

I recall a story from long ago: user is requested to boot their laptop by airline security.

They boot, which drops to a linux (bsd?) command line. Agent is not pleased. User sets PS1 so the prompt now looks like DOS. Agent is satisfied (they may just have been satisfied that the device worked, but this story dates from when a DOS prompt was a believable thing for someone to recognize as "computer" )

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#204

Post by dieterrams »

Some of the arguments I’m reading in defense of digital search point out that the things luggage search was originally supposed to find would now be stored on your phone.

I accept that argument in principle, but practically, since it’s so easy to keep any illegal materials on the internet and retrieve them post-security, how does digital search still make sense?

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#205

Post by djsumdog »

Entalpi wrote: post #46

So, it might basically be ”worth” it to just smash your device(s) instead of refusing and paying the fee. Im not gonna do that, just raising an interesting point.

It's probably more worth it to turn around and not enter the country; unless it's your country .. in which case if you have the money, it's probably better to refuse and see if you can get a court case started to challenge it.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#206

Post by debacle »

boobsbr wrote: post #51

> The updated law makes clear that travellers must provide access - whether that be a password, pin-code or fingerprint - but officials would need to have a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Does the Law in NZ have any provisions against self-incrimination? The US has the 5th Amendment, some countries in the Americas signed the American Convention on Human Rights. How does NZ deal with this issue? Can't it be consi…

The 5th amendment doesn't apply to non-citizens and doesn't mean as a US citizen that your device can't be confiscated on potentially frivolous suspicions.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#207

Post by komali2 »

jl6 wrote: post #187
bernardlunn wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nail on head! This does not increase real security and it is a real privacy violation. Dumb lose lose authoritarianism. Disappointed that smart Kiwis do something so dumb

While I don’t agree with this law, it’s not dumb. Security is about defence in depth. A determined attacker might have a way around this law, but perhaps not every criminal would know about this method, or think to use it. It’s easy to scoff at blunt-tool laws because you can think of a way to undermine them. But law and society are built on a patchwork of imperfect systems which can individually be broken, undermine…

This will probably be another tool to catch unaware (and generally desperate and uneducated) drug mules. The ones some gang managed to convince to swallow a couple hundred baggies of cocaine.

I guess that helps the country's well being but hardly a violent target.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#208

Post by clarkmoody »

jackhack wrote: post #4

It's troubling to watch one of the most amazing places on earth transform itself into a totalitarian purgatory. Access to physical phone/laptop is only the first step -- mark my words. Big Brother's bureaucrats are never satiated. Next, we will have demands for passwords and unrestricted access to : email, facebook, photo sharing, hacker news posts, social media, etc. I see sudden spike in the market for burner phone…

For others saying something to the effect of "we let them search our X already, so the phone is a logical step and not a big deal," you've already given up your expectation of privacy, so you can't understand why others would want to keep it. This is the slow creep of the state with concomitant erosion of liberty.

In a few short years, you are the ones who will be justifying any of the following on grounds that "they already do the less-invasive thing, why not one step more?"

- Mandatory fingerprinting (USA does this for foreigners in some airports)

- Declare all cash, declare all crypto (with addresses / xpubs)

- Bank account logins

- Register electronic devices / install software trackers

- Hair sample for drug testing

- Cheek swab for DNA

- Blood draw to check for diseases / drugs / DNA

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#209

Post by Nullabillity »

kadendogthing wrote: post #88
landonxjames wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is a HUGE difference between the contents of your luggage (some clothes, maybe some souvenirs, etc.) and all of your digital accounts (personal pictures, credit card numbers, access to banking, home address, etc.) I don't really care if the TSA look at my underwear, but I don't want anyone, especially low level employees, having access to every single aspect of my life.

You are classically Missing The Point. Historically, your luggage would contain personal pictures, credit card numbers, general banking statements, generally personal information, etc. The medium in which this information is stored and carried around has changed. The need to inspect what you're bringing into the country has not. These processes didn't originally come about because people wanted to inspect your 5 diff…

> The need to inspect what you're bringing into the country has not.

True. It went from zero to.. zero.

Re: New Zealand travellers refusing digital search now face $5k Customs fine

#210

Post by yholio »

paradite wrote: post #154
yholio wrote: post #85

This is an important issue cryptographers and security minded people often overlook: the strongest cryptography is irrelevant if it opens you to such social harassment. What we need is practical cryptography. I have found practical success by booting from an encrypted Linux partition that has absolutely nothing relevant on it, with a weak password I can always enter when requested by big guys with guns. Unbeknown to…

To be very honest, I find the methodology very similar to what drug trafficker would do to hide their drugs. And I don't think this method will end well for all parties either way. If it works, customs officers cannot find actual illegal contents, and criminals walk free through customs. If customs officers somehow detects you are doing this, you risk obstructing security measures.

But that's true for all encryption and privacy technology, it has dual use. We as a society must find the right balance and say, ok, there's no reasonable justification for owning 1 pound of plutonium, but there is a legitimate case for high encryption and privacy.

This forum largely believes that the balance struck by New Zealand - that you don't have the right to data privacy when traveling - is completely unacceptable, and as technologists we try to find technical countermeasures.

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