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Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#361

Post by justin66 »

wang_li wrote: post #241
throwaway91872 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is not exactly welcoming to visitor. Particularly visitors that may have a mark on their background check from any number of years ago. Good luck getting in at all -- its becoming a common mention in hip hop lyrics even.

Americans who have concealed carry permits on their person when entering Canada will have their vehicle searched with a fine toothed comb.

> Americans who have concealed carry permits on their person when entering Canada will have their vehicle searched with a fine toothed comb.

If the Canadian border authorities are searching your person, such that they are likely to notice something like a concealed carry permit, your border crossing has already gone south.

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#362

Post by mikeash »

wang_li wrote: post #352
village-idiot wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s actually pretty reasonable. I don’t think anyone reasonable thinks Canada doesn’t have the right to enforce their firearm laws at their border.

I agree that no one who is reasonable thinks that Americans who travel to Canada get to exercise the rights they hold as Americans in America. But is having a concealed carry permit in your wallet a reasonable indication that you have a gun on your person or in your vehicle? Statistically, in the US, CC permit holders are the most law abiding group in the country.

Let’s imagine, hypothetically, that a visitor came to the US and had a permit from their country of origin allowing them to own and travel with slaves. Would border patrol be justified in giving them extra scrutiny to see if they might have one with them?

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#363

Post by village-idiot »

wang_li wrote: post #352
village-idiot wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s actually pretty reasonable. I don’t think anyone reasonable thinks Canada doesn’t have the right to enforce their firearm laws at their border.

I agree that no one who is reasonable thinks that Americans who travel to Canada get to exercise the rights they hold as Americans in America. But is having a concealed carry permit in your wallet a reasonable indication that you have a gun on your person or in your vehicle? Statistically, in the US, CC permit holders are the most law abiding group in the country.

But having a CC permit is an announcement that you own firearms, and you’re in the habit of carrying them on your person. It makes sense to check this person for firearms, even if to make sure they didn’t accidentally bring one out of habit.

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#364

Post by pbhjpbhj »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #301
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, perhaps he says that but has two passwords, one that decrypts and runs an OS and one that presents as if no OS is installed?

They can seize your stuff so your workaround won’t work when they pass it to their tech team for forensics. Also, if they find something now they have you lying to customs.

It seems (ha!) possible to design the logic for such a system with deniability, like the system has to use the second/third/fourth password to attempt decryption before you know if the padding is encrypted or random noise [if the specific encryption has a signature then each install could encrypt the empty space with a few keys taken from urandom].

First password accesses clean files, second one accesses dummy [legal!] fetish porn collection ... do border guards hold you to get a third password?

An analogue analogue might be: I have a book full of "random alphanum text", I have two (or more) one-time pads for decryption of portions of the book, I also know the page/line the actual cyphertext starts at. The rest of the text in the book is random quotations encrypted using a selection of further random one-time pads. Can forensics find that there is a "hidden" n+1 plaintext when I give them the n pads and starting points? Seems impossible??

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#365

Post by mikelward »

Macross8299 wrote: post #347
throwaway91872 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me put things into perspective for you. Cops raided the wrong house (battering ram and everything) which happened to be where I lived. They ripped up floor boards and broken holes in the wall -- they found $300 worth of personal weed. So they confiscated everything I own because it could possibly be related to drug money. I'm also incarcerated without the ability to post bail (because cops just took everything).…

You can't plead guilty to (what sounds like) a trafficking charge and then claim to be innocent and expect to be freely admitted to other countries. Canada has no way of knowing you're innocent so your logic is that they should just let you in anyways? I think countries have very good reasons to keep people with drug convictions from entering regardless of whether or not you believe drugs should be decriminalized or…

It's expensive and risky to go to trial, even if you're innocent.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocen... https://abovethelaw.com/2018/11/plea-bargaining-a-necessary-...

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#367

Post by realusername »

Diederich wrote: post #83
realusername wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not but this kind of issue tends to happen more frequently in the US.

Honest question: do you know where I can find the data to support that?

There's not going to be any data, border agencies are as non-transparent as you can get.

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#368

Post by alex_hitchins »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #257
alex_hitchins wrote: post #18

The message it sends to me is, never visit America. I appreciate horrible things likely happen in my own country, but this is just disgusting.

I think you mean "never visit Anywhere", since the UK (where you say you're from) does this exact same type of search and seizure, even to UK citizens. You could be subject to it when returning home from any trip abroad, not just the US.

> I appreciate horrible things likely happen in my own country

Yes, I know (as stated above). By no means am I saying it couldn't. Still, it doesn't excuse Americas practices in any way.

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#369

Post by greatpatton »

ProAm wrote: post #199
maximilianroos wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A forensic search would require reasonable suspicion. I'm not aware of any legal weight attached to batteries - what's the legal precedent you're thinking of?

Having a third party install anything new (i.e. battery) to the device that wasn't present when it was confiscated would put into question the integrity of anything found on the device.

Maybe just plug it...

Re: Ex-Mozilla CTO: I was grilled for three hours at US airport by border cops

#370

Post by pimmen »

jerf wrote: post #293
pera wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also Australia and the UK: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-08/if-a-border-agent-dem... https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/traveler-who-refused-to-gi... It seems to be mostly a Five Eyes thing.

It scares me the number of people who think that the US is in some uniquely bad place for some issue, not because of "whataboutism" but because of the blindness it can entail and skewed perceptions of all sides. No, it's not a dystopia in the US, but a wonderland paradise everywhere else. There's plenty of places that treat various people badly.

Agreed. I'm European and it astonishes me how a wall at the border is so divisive, with some even calling it un-American, and in the EU there are essentially no legal ways for refugees to enter at all (we've made it practically impossible to fly) and children die by the boat loads in the Mediterranean, yet we Europeans think we are in a position to judge the US.

Astonishing is the word.

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