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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

#481

Post by makeitdouble »

zmmmmm wrote: post #432

If you initiate a wipe before approaching immigration, which swaps the whole phone contents to an encrypted backup that you physically can't decrypt without a key that (say) a friend knows. Then you would be offering immigration the device in an unaltered state between when they request it and when they receive it. Any request for an alternative pass code or whether the pass code given will alter the state of the dev…

This case has a very specific legal framing to it, but border agents don't actually need anything more than suspicion to keep you locked for a day or two.

Then it could last a lot longer. Technically they don't have the right to do that, but you won't have any physical mean to enforce your rights, and suing afterwards won't lead you anywhere in the current climate.

We'e had a few of these stories in HN before.

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

#482

Post by [deleted] »

btbuildem wrote: post #227

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…

[deleted]

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

#483

Post by WindyTree »

spl757 wrote: post #389
btbuildem wrote: post #227

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…

The US has it's mid-term elections this november, and it's possible, and even likely, that the Democratic candidates will win overwhealmingly. The Democrats are not a monolith, either, the Democratic Socialists of America political group is the very progressive part of the Democratic party, they are the ones that are not accepting dark money campaign donations. I do not agree with a lot of the unrealistic things that…

People have no idea. They’re destroying old books. Just like the last time (1), and the time before that (2), and the time before that(3), which were:

1) Nazi Germany, following debt/inflationary collapse of Weimar Republic.

2) Bolshevik Revolution, following WWI induced debt collapse of Tsars.

3) French Revolution, following debt collapse of Monarchy.

Now where are we? 40 trillion in debt. The interest is $1.1 trillion the amount added to it yearly is $2.1 trillion. The entirety of a government spending would need to be wiped out just to keep it where it is.

If you had the books that got burned, you’d know the cycle, and the fact that electing democrats isn’t gonna change a damn thing.

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

#485

Post by blobbers »

Does anyone know if this border security inspection is a goon scrolling through your photos, or do they just copy the whole memory of your phone to a real “threat detector”.

When I used to work in cell phones and I was debugging them, when they crash I would analyze the OS core dump for things like repeated phone numbers or emails etc. Basically any thing that signifies a memory leak. But that core dump would be the entire phone’s RAM and storage.

Border guards have always been of questionable value: they inspect your TN-1 and made somewhat arbitrary decisions on your documentation. You’d go one week and they’d send you to secondary but another they’d glance at the docs and just wave you through.

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

#486

Post by [deleted] »

rootusrootus wrote: post #435
kbrannigan wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very insidious, first you look all over your neighborhood flock cameras Hundreds of them came out of nowhere Nobody fought back . it's as long as you're not doing anything wrong you don't have to worry about it Then once changed the definition of what wrong means. If you're not a criminal you don't have to worry about it That's for your safety Then they changed the definition of what a crime is

This differentiates the US from who, exactly? If anything, US a latecomer to the public surveillance game.

[deleted]

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

#487

Post by ceejayoz »

lukan wrote: post #437
Morromist wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean its so much easier to do stuff the Stasi could only dream of with technology today.

The very big difference to the Stasi is, people back then were really afraid to speak their mind, as there were real consequences fast, for doing things as stating your opinion about ghe government. And not creating attention while saying, I cannot speak up anymore! while speaking up all the time. And yes, there are also consequences today .. but on a whole different level. So the US might head into a Stasi regime (o…

There are other big differences in the other direction, though. The Stasi couldn't have dreamed of the manpower efficiency of modern surveillance.

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

#488

Post by sfRattan »

grapheneos wrote: post #322
jmyeet wrote: post #195

I don't agree with all this and this increasingly fascist regime but... this was the most predictable outcome. Consider these two scenarios. 1. You factory reset your phone before entering the US and give it to CBP blank. There's nothing to find; 2. You have a self-destruct PIN like this guy did and give it CBP so it destroys the phone's contents. Tech people will say that these two things are functionally the same.…

A court has not yet determined whether the use of the duress PIN/password was legal. There's definitely no consensus among legal experts of it being illegal as you're portraying it. The US has strong legal protections against self-incrimination and unreasonable searches despite erosion of how much people's rights are respected. A factory reset done in anticipation of a search is not as different from using a duress f…

> A factory reset done in anticipation of a search is not as different from using a duress feature as you believe it is. Forensics software would have clearly identified the device was recently factory reset. It would provide another defense argument by arguing it was wiped for another reason, but whether that would be believed by a court is unknown.

This is where machine-like personal consistency is deeply important to opsec. Not just for technical reasons, but for legal reasons also.

If you wipe your phone before every national border crossing and restore it after every border crossing as a part of your standard procedure for travel, it will be much harder for a prosecutor to argue that you have ever done so in anticipation of some particular search. If your employer's security policy mandates doing so, that is even more evidence against anticipating a specific search. If a large body of infosec/cybersecurity professionals advise a wipe/reset of your phone before any and all international travel, that is further evidence for defense.

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

#489

Post by [deleted] »

btbuildem wrote: post #227

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…

[deleted]

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

#490

Post by krferriter »

hamburglar wrote: post #307
patcon wrote: post #213

I used to play around on projects adjacent to Tor and TailsOS, and had an idea for a setup I was researching. It's a little intense and probably has annoying failure modes, but sharing in case anyone else finds it helpful: - Tasker is an automation app for setting up rules for triggers and actions. It allows extension apps to be created to add new triggers and actions. - someone at one point made an extension to add…

I like the idea of a phone that automatically wipes itself if I don’t act to stop it. I wonder about the legality of that if the duress code is considered “destroying evidence.”

Action vs inaction seems like an important distinction.
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