New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices • Hacker News Board

Re: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

#71

Post by piva00 » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 10:08 AM UTC

kylec wrote: post #59

stedaniels wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World Travel & Tourism Council Travel & Tourism Economic Impact 2017 United States "Visitor exports generated USD 212.3bn, 9.5% of total exports in 2016. This is forecast to fall by 0.6% in 2017, and grow by 3.9% pa, from 2017-2027, to USD 309.7bn in 2027, 9.3% of total." [0] US GDP in 2016 was USD 18624bn. [1] So I suppose it's only 1.1% of GDP. What's USD 212.3bn between frenemies huh? ;-) [0] https://www.wttc.org/…

Exactly. The complete loss of international tourism (and realistically there wouldn’t ever be a complete loss unless we closed the border) would result in a 1% loss for the US GDP/economy. Not nothing, but certainly not devastating.

You do understand there's also a downward spiral for tourism, right?

Tourism generated 1% of the GDP but you don't know the impact on other industries, you haven't seen figures on lost of tax revenue from jobs lost, cost of retraining people to find new jobs, burden on society from unemployment, etc.

I don't think that tourism will cease in the US but any downturn on it has larger effects than just the GDP figure brought by the industry itself.

Of course, if you only care about numbers the dollar figure won't look much, if you care about the lives affected by idiotic policies then you have to look deeper.

Re: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

#72

Post by jonathanstrange » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 10:08 AM UTC

jimnotgym wrote: post #18

I don't know if it worries my American chums, but I won't visit the USA. As a foreign tourist bringing money into your economy I feel there is a very real risk to my privacy and increasingly my person. I am beginning to favour goods and services from EU where human rights still mean something. Perhaps it doesn't matter to you how the US is perceived overseas, perhaps you don't want my money. Perhaps you don't mind be…

I have a similar policy for my work at university. Not so much as a political statement but for mere convenience I have avoided going to US conferences during my scientific career so far, even though some of them were quite interesting. Too many border controls/visa requirements. It's not worth the hassle.

Luckily, it's not hard for us to get US researchers to our place for a visit, they tend to like sunny, peaceful places in Europe where you can stroll through the city by foot.

Re: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

#73

Post by tomalpha » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 10:11 AM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #69

Unfortunately the recommended behavior is to be "difficult". Trying to somehow state your own rights, demand that officers perform searches in accordance with law etc. - which is "being difficult". If you are on your way to a great holiday, important meeting etc, you aren't going to risk it. Because anyone "being difficult" will be detained or rejected. So I'll just fold and give them my password. And they know this.…

This. Being "difficult" might be an option for US citizens, but if you're a visitor you're really only going to have a choice between cooperating and being refused entry. If you're refused entry you'll have a much harder job returning.

Re: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

#74

Post by tomalpha » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 10:12 AM UTC

cjslep wrote: post #21

I feel sorry for the bloke whose legitimate password is thisisjustadecoypasswordthatwillblowupthebombibroughtloljk

Going through immigration and customs is definitely not the time to try develop a sense of humour ;-)

Re: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

#75

Post by dukeflukem » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 10:14 AM UTC

What about don't bring any tech at all. Keep it all on the cloud encrypted.

Re: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

#76

Post by piva00 » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 10:15 AM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #69

Unfortunately the recommended behavior is to be "difficult". Trying to somehow state your own rights, demand that officers perform searches in accordance with law etc. - which is "being difficult". If you are on your way to a great holiday, important meeting etc, you aren't going to risk it. Because anyone "being difficult" will be detained or rejected. So I'll just fold and give them my password. And they know this.…

Wanting to preserve my privacy is very different from having something to hide.

I don't want border officers looking into my personal pictures that might have nudes from my girlfriend, fiddling around conversations with friends with jokes about drugs, conversations with my girlfriend about her mental health, same with some other close friends.

Those are private things, not necessarily harmful or criminal but things I surely don't want to be sharing with random people making decisions about entering a country.

Unfortunately the effect on me is a full deterrent: I have the money, time and desire to visit more parts of the US. I have been to San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York for vacations once and would love to go back to the West Coast and check out national parks like Redwood or Yosemite but I really can't be arsed to be "digitally frisked" around, the world is huge and I can afford to go to other places.

Re: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

#77

Post by tomalpha » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 10:15 AM UTC

kqr wrote: post #42

Is it an option to just feign ignorance and claim not to know the password? Sure, they might confiscate it but I guess then you'll have to find a cheap alternative to restore your backups to until/if you get it back.

It wouldn't be too hard to assume they'd simply take that as a refusal (which it actually is). You might try to say that you've got some corporate policy going with your employer where someone else knows the password and you don't I suppose. I suspect that answer wouldn't go down well either though.

Re: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

#78

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 10:20 AM UTC

jimnotgym wrote: post #18

I don't know if it worries my American chums, but I won't visit the USA. As a foreign tourist bringing money into your economy I feel there is a very real risk to my privacy and increasingly my person. I am beginning to favour goods and services from EU where human rights still mean something. Perhaps it doesn't matter to you how the US is perceived overseas, perhaps you don't want my money. Perhaps you don't mind be…

[deleted]

Re: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

#79

Post by alkonaut » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 10:21 AM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #76

alkonaut wrote: post #69

Unfortunately the recommended behavior is to be "difficult". Trying to somehow state your own rights, demand that officers perform searches in accordance with law etc. - which is "being difficult". If you are on your way to a great holiday, important meeting etc, you aren't going to risk it. Because anyone "being difficult" will be detained or rejected. So I'll just fold and give them my password. And they know this.…

Wanting to preserve my privacy is very different from having something to hide. I don't want border officers looking into my personal pictures that might have nudes from my girlfriend, fiddling around conversations with friends with jokes about drugs, conversations with my girlfriend about her mental health, same with some other close friends. Those are private things, not necessarily harmful or criminal but things I…

> Wanting to preserve my privacy is very different from having something to hide.

Absolutely agreee. But as long as the only people who argue their privacy actually are those that have something to hide, the two will eventually be conflated. And the way they implement this is by giving a lot of wiggle room for border staff to implement these terrible laws.

> I don't want border officers looking into my personal pictures that might have nudes from my girlfriend, fiddling around conversations with friends with jokes about drugs, conversations with my girlfriend about her mental health, same with some other close friends.

I don't want that either. I don't think anyone wants this.

The bottom line is: all you can do, at least as non-citizen, is a) don't visit or b) comply with whatever stupid laws there are, including complying with officers that don't follow the law. Because if you want to enter you do as they say.

Re: New DHS policy on demands for passwords to travelers’ electronic devices

#80

Post by cesarb » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 10:24 AM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #67

ATsch wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your computer can boot from it, I can recommend using an SD card with a bootable partiion.

As the decoy, or as the main OS? I suppose disconnecting the SATA-cable would make the hdd/sdd invisible to the system...

> I suppose disconnecting the SATA-cable would make the hdd/sdd invisible to the system...

On a laptop? All laptops I've seen have the hard disk plugged directly into the motherboard, with no cables in between. Having a SATA cable is more of a desktop thing.