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How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

washingtonpost.com

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Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#241

Post by timewizard »

kleiba wrote: post #113

> Before traveling, back up your devices so you don’t lose anything permanently. Then delete anything you’re worried about being misinterpreted or saved by the government. That can include conversations that compromise the privacy of the people on the other end. You might delete messages about politics, contact information for political dissidents, apps that save offline copies of sensitive documents like Google Docs…

How does a country "consider itself?" I mean, I get that the propaganda mouthpieces push this message, but that's not quite the same thing.

Meanwhile there are very few countries that don't have the same type of border security that we do for foreign nationals. This advice is just as pertinent if you travel to the UK or almost any EU country.

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#243

Post by ryandrake »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #101
antris wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has to do with your argument of "if you don't like it, don't go there". Also, you specifically asked "who came for you" so it's direct answer to your question.

Well yes, just don't go there with incriminating devices. They will try to bully us in many other ways but this has nothing to do with the devices and how to hide stuff.

Exactly. If I plan to visit a country where green shirts are illegal, I'm not going to pack my green shirts into a secret hidden luggage compartment, smug in the knowledge that I'm so clever. I'm going to either not visit or not bring my green shirts.

Same for this. Whether we like it or not, some stuff on your phone are now considered contraband at the US border. Either don't bring them or don't visit.

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#244

Post by aftbit »

I wish Android had a better backup story. If you're using iOS, it's as simple as the article describes. If you use even modern Android on modern Pixel, backup only includes a fraction of what you need to recover. Things like Signal keys, 2FA tokens, and more were not included in my last backup.

GrapheneOS had an opportunity to do this 1000% better... and they instead ship a kinda broken fork of SeedVault, which they have been intending to replace for a long time now.

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#246

Post by dylan604 »

ryandrake wrote: post #240
dylan604 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know you're traveling through an adversarial border, just disable Face/Touch ID before getting to the border agents

This is not really a checkmate. If the border officials are suspicious, disabling biometrics is not going stop them. What are they going to say? "Ohh! Drat! You foiled us! We can't compel you to enter your passcode! Go on, have a nice day!"

No, but they can't say you've temporarily disabled biometrics if they are not enabled.

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#247

Post by aftbit »

dylan604 wrote: post #175
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>or seize your $1000 phone/laptop. So be it. I used to say that the reason I valued my privacy was not that I did not trust my government _today_, it was the fact that data would be available to every potential authoritarian government _tomorrow_. Welp, today has become tomorrow, and yeah, I'd _absolutely_ rather just have my devices seized than have the contents of my phone dumped into a database that can be searche…

Having your $1000 device stolen by the government as an acceptable outcome is something only a fatcat on HN with their cushy salary would be able to tolerate. I'm not a FAANG employee, and don't make that kind of salary. Loosing a $1k anything would not be something I could just shrug my shoulders and just turn around and immediately replace it. Even if you do sue the gov't, it'll be at least a year before any kind o…

My Lenovo from last year still has non-soldered NVMe drives. I would probably just install Windows on a separate partition and set it to boot to that, then install a few games and set my Chrome homepage. I bet CBP won't be mucking around with bootloader settings looking for Linux, and even so it would be pretty trivial to just remove GRUB from the EFI partition for the travel days.

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#248

Post by aftbit »

buyucu wrote: post #237
fragmede wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China

China is not on the list. We never had any difficulty or problem in the Chinese border.

Oh interesting. They were on our list (US company). In fact, our official guidance suggested not bringing work hardware to China at all.

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#249

Post by ytpete »

connicpu wrote: post #146
incanus77 wrote: post #127

One lesser-known tip for iPhones with FaceID or TouchID: press and hold the lock button and one of the volume buttons until prompted for power options/medical ID/emergency call. You'll then have to enter a passcode in order to use those auth methods again. Having to reveal a passcode can sometimes be considered a higher bar than biometric auth. You can do this even when in it's in your pocket without looking, quite q…

On android you can hold down the power button and then tap lockdown mode. Then it will require your pin/password to unlock again. Ideally have a password as your authentication method if you're concerned about privacy.

On newer Android, holding down power apparently just launches Gemini's AI assistant. You can change it back in settings, or just hold down power + volume up to get to the old menu that has the Lockdown button.

(Not to be confused with power + volume down which takes a screenshot).

Re: How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.

#250

Post by WorldPeas »

cardanome wrote: post #40
Havoc wrote: post #5

I'm just not going to go to the US frankly. Only reason I would is tourism, and I like my vacations harassment & risk of detainment free

Same. I wish I had visited the US back in the days, especially pre-9/11 times when flying was super hassle free and people were optimistic about the future. Sadly I was still quite young. Oh well, there are many other beautiful countries in the Americas. And especially south-America is substantially cheaper.

My family has a large bottle of wine my mother took from Italy to New York in the 90s. Wild how the times change.
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