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

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 363 posts

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

#321

Post by reassess_blind »

LWIRVoltage wrote: post #256
aftbit wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is something no on discusses but I've wondered heavily- GRUB can be made to not show a menu and then boot up Windows automatically, in like a second or two with no one the wiser. [There is an obnoxious welcome to grub message that pops up now but I see a public project out there that solves this very easily called GRUB shusher] I don't know if other bootloaders outside GRUB have a silent/hidden start option, as…

Any examples of the silent GRUB setup? Sounds interesting.

I left a comment about Veracrypt offering the Hidden OS feature, with two passwords - one for the dummy OS and one for the real OS. However it doesn't seem to be supported anymore on Windows 11 or modern hardware, the option is greyed out on my laptop with no explanation.

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

#322

Post by jjav »

gorgoiler wrote: post #41
gruez wrote: post #4

"Locking down" is almost always a bad approach when it comes to border crossings. You have very little rights at the border, so keeping your phone locked and refusing to divulge the 20 characters password isn't really an option. Even without the threat of detaining you, they can refuse entry (if you're not a citizen/permanent resident), or seize your $1000 phone/laptop. Far better to wipe your phone and restore from…

I used to do this but these days I’m petrified of the restore being imperfect in some way. I use the he.net app for TOTP. Will I get those back in working order? I have a billion photos I want to keep — were they properly backed up to iCloud? My mail settings are a pita to recreate. Will those come back? Are passwords stored in the Secure Enclave? Could I lose those? When I sign back into iCloud am I going to be able…

> I’m petrified of the restore being imperfect in some way.

A lot of this is from anchoring important things to your phone. I practice, and strong recommend, avoiding that as much as possible. Your phone should be entirely disposable. If you drop it in the ocean, would you care (other than the monetary loss)? If yes, find way to detach those things from the phone. There should be nothing important on a phone.

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

#323

Post by reassess_blind »

Pooge wrote: post #114
tantalor wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> refusing to divulge the 20 characters password isn't really an option > wipe your phone and restore from backup If they can compel you to divulge the password, then they can compel you to restore from backup in front of them.

I think their point is that you have plausible deniability because they wouldn't know you have a backup.

A dual password "Hidden OS" feature like Veracrypt offers, or at least used to offer would be best. If implemented correctly the existence of the hidden OS can't be proven, and a dummy password would log into a dummy OS. I don't think it exists for phones, but is surely a gap in the market.

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

#324

Post by jjav »

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…

> Loosing a $1k anything would not be something I could just shrug my shoulders and just turn around and immediately replace it.

I'd suggest that if $1K is a big deal to lose, one should not spend such an ungodly amount on a phone.

Perfectly adequate phones can be had for $100-$200. I couldn't imagine wasting more than that on a phone.

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

#325

Post by jjav »

tantalor wrote: post #109
gruez wrote: post #4

"Locking down" is almost always a bad approach when it comes to border crossings. You have very little rights at the border, so keeping your phone locked and refusing to divulge the 20 characters password isn't really an option. Even without the threat of detaining you, they can refuse entry (if you're not a citizen/permanent resident), or seize your $1000 phone/laptop. Far better to wipe your phone and restore from…

> refusing to divulge the 20 characters password isn't really an option > wipe your phone and restore from backup If they can compel you to divulge the password, then they can compel you to restore from backup in front of them.

> If they can compel you to divulge the password, then they can compel you to restore from backup in front of them.

Of course, if your backup is to a US-based cloud service, they already have full access to it.

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

#327

Post by jesterson »

buyucu wrote: post #84
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #57

Also known as "how to visit detention centers". The amount of bad advice here is staggering. You are not James Bond or some kind of ninja Seals secret agent. You are a nobody attempting to enter a country, and you will be pissing off the border police. Have some common sense.

Common sense is suspending US travel. I did that last month.

Would you elaborate why? (without being vague) I assume it's not common sense just because you did it?

Issues with border patrol can happen in any country. If they have bad mood, or you suddenly decided to piss them off, they will do their best to make your life harder. The US is not the best or worst to that matter. People who chose working as border patrol are not the smartest people out there (otherwise it is unlikely they would choose working at border patrol).

So I understand all precautions but saying its "common sense" not traveling there is a huge stretch IMHO.

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

#328

Post by antris »

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.

Well, considering that the US considers some political beliefs and journalism crimes, "don't go there with incriminating devices" implies restrictions on free speech and journalistic freedom. Also, privacy is not only for hiding crimes. Equating privacy with criminality is a great way to get undermine people's rights further. It's perfectly ok to think that some random TSA agent shouldn't be seeing my family photos etc. when I have done nothing wrong.

If you believe these rights are not important, that's your own opinion. But I think it's perfectly valid to criticize attacks on human rights.

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

#329

Post by akimbostrawman »

Jare wrote: post #158
GenshoTikamura wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Detainment for having a phone without any content in it is just pure and utter fascism.

Authoritarianism always finds a way, but it's shocking that 60 million invited it for dinner.

These border searched have existed since the patriot act...

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

#330

Post by akimbostrawman »

iAMkenough wrote: post #167
throitallaway wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android 15 has a "Private Space" feature that can be somewhat hidden and used to sandbox apps/data. It will prompt for a secondary unlock if you know where to look.

"Private" in marketing terms only. Border agents have access to it all. If you refuse to turn over all of your passcodes and passwords for the access they're after (including social media profiles), they can detain you and seize your device.

Source? Even law enforcement are limited to grayshift and cellebrite for access.
Post reply on HN