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Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

nytimes.com

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Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#401
post #189

For exactly the border search scenario, I wish smartphones could be imaged and restored as easily as PCs. Imagine booting the phone from a flash drive, making an encrypted image of the phone on said drive, and writing a fresh OS before reaching the border. There's no deception required to protect sensitive data or avoid the seizure of an expensive phone. Consent to unlocking the phone, refuse to unlock the drive. The…

> I wish smartphones could be imaged and restored as easily as PCs. Imagine booting the phone from a flash drive, making an encrypted image of the phone on said drive, and writing a fresh OS before reaching the border.

Backing up and restoring an iPhone is extremely easy. You don't need to imagine all of this flash drive or encrypted imaging stuff. You plug it into your computer and do a backup. You can then wipe the phone through the menus. Restoring from the same computer is easy.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#402

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

> if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech. I'm pretty optimistic that after the next general America will be ready to give up on the extremity of late turn over a new leaf. I fully expect a new president to be ushered in, whether R or D, and for some level of normalcy to start creeping back. The Sovie…

I'm skeptical that we will have an exchange of power in the next 40 years.

The USSR is a great example: it took 65 years to fall, and the collapse didn't bring it to anything particularly good.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#403
post #2

According to the article, he was actually using GrapheneOS and gave the border official the Duress PIN. So I guess technically it was the official that erased the data :-)

No, to my knowledge, they ask you to enter your PIN/password yourself. They don't enter it for you. I believe he entered it himself, at which point the erasure began. The erasure process was witnessed by the officer.

So the real problem in the end is that your duress system should not put a big message "erasing all data" but "loading" slowly and just look mostly empty.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are apparently problems with wipe/restore under GrapheneOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060780 > (From the HN GrapheneOS account about a month ago.)

It has an encrypted backup/restore system. We were talking about an attacker taking an image of the SSD prior to it being wiped not helping them because information needed to derive the key encryption keys is gone from the secure element. It similarly doesn't help them to do a brute force on a server farm since they're rate limited by the secure element. It only allows 20 attempts and has rapidly increasing delays be…

Thank you!

(Very much appreciate your active participation here.)

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#405

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

> if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech. I'm pretty optimistic that after the next general America will be ready to give up on the extremity of late turn over a new leaf. I fully expect a new president to be ushered in, whether R or D, and for some level of normalcy to start creeping back. The Sovie…

> I don't think America can lose

It has already lost. America lost in Vietnam. Lost in Afghanistan. Turned Middle East into a humongous mess. Now losing badly in Iran. The only "wins" it had were against Countries where odds were already heavily in its favor (in other words invading tiny countries that did not have the technological wherewithal or the will necessary to fight back).

> 10y later they're richer than ever

The rich are richer than ever yes. Ask any common American citizen and he/she will come chasing after you for saying this.

> its companies have global dominance of the most world-changing technology of the last 20y. I just don't think "the collapse" is coming anytime soon.

That dominance is fast eroding. America itself has ended globalization. It is retreating from many crucial positions: like when it comes to cross-border payments, protecting freedom of navigation in high seas, deals that it had previously negotiated with all countries of the World, unable to protect allies in the Middle East and even in South East Asia, not delivering on defense commitments with partner nations... the list goes on and on.

> If anyone's interested in a friendly wager, my email is open. I'll happily go 1:1 odds that America will have a new president come 2029 and the country will still remain the world's richest and most powerful.

None of us believe America will collapse by 2029 and that there wouldn't be another President (unless Trump is really stupid enough to go down that route which I don't think he will). But by 2045? Yeah absolutely is possible.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are apparently problems with wipe/restore under GrapheneOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060780 > (From the HN GrapheneOS account about a month ago.)

What problems are you referring to?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49394193>

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#407
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49389273 >

In the truecrypt scenario you’d be using the hidden and encrypted volume only for what you explicitly want to keep hidden and use the other one for your daily life. So in the article situation, the guy is a protestor and presumably suspects he’s going to be targeted by the police for it. He’d keep that stuff isolated from his usual activity. There’d be no need to generate convincing fake activity. Certainly more of a…

For a much better-informed source than me, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49392816>. (GrapheneOS HN account.)

Burner phone / clean phone for border crossings seems the more accessible option.

As others have noted, this is standard policy amongst many organisations, some on account of US policies and practices, some on account of other states.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#408

The naivete of some of the comments here is astounding. It doesn't matter whether you're right, it doesn't matter whether it's the law, it's irrelevant that you have rights, etc. Those things are of the past now, for the US. I think it would be easier to understand the playing field and choose your actions accordingly, if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of cours…

This has been legal since long before Trump, if you don't like it there's laws in motion to ban it you can support, but entering across a border you've been allowed to be searched without a warrant for decades at least. And if you're being searched and then you destroy what they're trying to search... Here you are.

From the article:

“ he has been ensnared by National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, or NSPM-7, a sweeping directive issued by President Trump last September that expanded the definition of domestic terrorism to include crimes like getting in the way of immigration enforcement. His prosecution is one of the earliest known instances of the federal authorities charging a person with destroying evidence using a program designed to wipe a device clean after a specific code is entered.”

So, while “no privacy at the border” has always been a thing, the re-categorisation of this as “domestic terrorism” is new.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you accept the US has entered its East Germany / late 20th century Soviet era -- except of course with 1000x more invasive and effective surveillance tech. I'm pretty optimistic that after the next general America will be ready to give up on the extremity of late turn over a new leaf. I fully expect a new president to be ushered in, whether R or D, and for some level of normalcy to start creeping back. The Sovie…

Your day to day is still pretty much normal. If you turned off the news and never read about Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data [1] you'd just in your head remember there are tens of millions of folks flying, going through customs and border security and all that with 0 issues. What you wrote I think regarding the decade of silliness precisely supports the point, in my opinion. [1] I'm not defending the b…

You have no real rights when police can kill, maim, or otherwise fuck you up with impunity even when you have done nothing wrong. Philando Castile and others demonstrate this. You may win in court but your life can be fucked up if the police decide to inflict non judicial punishment.

This is precisely the time to “overreact”. The government is clearly targeting dissidents and if we don’t “overreact” shit will get much worse.

We have kids sent to concentration camps. We have illegally deported U.S. citizens. The President has canceled monies allocated by Congress and signed into law. He is waging war against Iran without Congressional approval. He is openly selling pardons. The list goes on.

This isn’t enough to get you to “overreact”?

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#410

All Archive pages, when accessed from Italy, now are blocked by the Government: "PAGINA INTERDETTA DAL CENTRO NAZIONALE PER IL CONTRASTO DELLA PEDOPORNOGRAFIA ONLINE (C.N.C.P.O.)" “PAGE BLOCKED BY THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR COMBATING ONLINE CHILD PORNOGRAPHY (C.N.C.P.O.)” Oh, we live in an interesting age.

We can research on what happened, but it is pretty obvious...

You are nonetheless talking about the .ph - only that.

And: italy has done much, much, 1000000 orders much worse (Gutenberg).

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