Securing Your Notebook Against US Customs

Nethemas the Great points out a piece from Bruce Schneier running in the UK's Guardian newspaper with some tips for international travelers on securing notebook computers for border crossings. A taste of the brief article: "Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for several days. ... Encrypting your entire hard drive, something you should certainly do for security in case your computer is lost or stolen, won't work here. The border agent is likely to start this whole process with a 'please type in your password.' Of course you can refuse, but the agent can search you further, detain you longer, refuse you entry into the country and otherwise ruin your day."

Comments

Dual Boot

[Rycross]

Set up a Windows partition and a Linux partition, set it to boot to Windows by default, keep all your data on the Linux partition. How well would that work, I wonder.

Re:Dual Boot

[hazem]

The problem is, this isn't the security check to get on a plane, it's the customs people when you enter the country. When you fly into the US, and assuming you are flying on to another destination, you get off the plane, get your bags, and go through customs. These people have an incredible amount of power over you and you probably have little legal recourse, even if you're an American citizen.

I find the contrast sad... when I recently flew into Amsterdam, I grabbed my bag, the guy stamped my passport, and I walked through a door out into the real world. No questions, no forms, no inspections, no going through my bags. And this while I'm coming from the "land of the free" to one of those wacky socialist European countries.

Re:Dual Boot

[bberens]

Do you really want to find out the limits of where your theoretical rights end and where your abridged, post 9-11 rights end? Yes

Re:Dual Boot

[the_bard17]

Add me to the list. The Grandparent poster and the rest of the country can sit back and watch their rights drain away if they want to sit in the corner with their security blanket, but I won't.

I'll be the guy raising a fuss and throwing a fit. It'll happen at the border, then in court. And if someone wants to slap one of those "letters of security" on me, they may as well send me right to jail... 'cause that letter won't keep me quiet regarding any injustice placed upon me.

If standing up for my rights "ruins" my life, then that "life" wasn't worth jack to begin with.

I suppose it helps that I'm religious, too... those religious fanatics got that right, at least. When you're looking forward to a long eternity, the time spent here isn't worth getting your rights trampled over.

That being said, I don't imagine it'll be too long before the black suit guys show up for me ;o).

Re:Dual Boot

[dgatwood]

You joke, but I've actually contemplated keeping a spare hard drive and sticking it in coming into the U.S. just for the entertainment value of watching the border security folks see a completely blank hard drive and watching how they react. Maybe get it on camera. That and the last thing I want is for border security to be poking through the confidential materials on my hard drive. My employer is pretty anal about not letting anyone get access to that stuff. Of course, it is encrypted, but again... "Please enter your password" comes to mind, and then I'm out of a job.

Re:Dual Boot

[Hatta]

While all of that is true, nowadays being put on the "naughty list", or having a name like someone on the naughty list, or being brown-skinned is enough to effectively punish you as much as if you'd been convicted.

Good, then you'll have standing to challenge the unconstitutional punishment without trial in court.

Re:Dual Boot

[rengav]

This isn't about liberty; it's about the arbitrary and warrantless invasion of privacy. Email, pictures, video's and even 'hacking' tools do not blow up airplanes. But they're checking you at customs as you ENTER the US, after your plane is already on the ground. The Customs inspectors should be looking for contraband, such as drugs, or "undeclared" items. I really can't think of what they'd be looking for on my laptop after the plane has landed. Why is customs searching for data, it's not taxable as far as I know.

Refuse you entry to the contry

[imuffin]

Can customs officials refuse entry to an American Citizen? Can they banish me for refusing to divulge my password?

Corporation Lawyers

[Johnny Mnemonic]

You can bet that before I type my password for a customs agent, I'm going to talk to my company's legal department. And I'll wait in the customs office as long as it takes. Or simply forfeit the laptop and put it in the trash.

The IP on my laptop is easily worth 10x more than the value of the laptop itself.

Grabbing your data isn't the worst they could do

[lowsinon]

No doubt they just install a rootkit/keylogger on your box after ripping your HD so after you leave their rootkit calls back and gives them your truecrypt passwords. Don't use a laptop you've lost sight of.

Go ahead search my Laptop officer....

[old dr omr]

My Mobile phone has a 4Gb flash card the size of my little fingernail. If I had any files that I didn't want customs to see I'd keep them on there and hide it somewhere they'd never find it. Come to think of it I'd probably never find it once I got there. :)

Single Boot

[rgmoore]

An even better approach would be to have just a Windows partition. Then do your real work under Linux by booting from a memory stick. If you want to get really paranoid, you could keep all of your sensitive data on a separate, encrypted memory stick, camera memory card ("hidden" in your camera), phone memory card ("hidden" in your phone), etc.

Of course, you should go ahead and do some unimportant work under Windows. Play games, surf the net (safe, unimportant web sites, only, of course), keep your golf scores, etc. That way, if somebody ever does search your laptop, it won't look like a system that's just been wiped to avoid generating any evidence.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[Bill_the_Engineer]

IANAL.

Maybe someone can explain why the act of entering the country nullifies my constitutional rights.

Because technically it doesn't. You said it yourself:

Not according to the Fourth Amendment to the US constitution: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...

I changed the emphasis, but as you can see the 4th amendment only protects you from unreasonable searches. Most people believe that searching a person's belongings before granting entry into a country is a reasonable search.

Re:TrueCrypt

[trifish]

Schneier actually mentions TrueCrypt in his article too. However, strangely, he ignored the single most important feature of TrueCrypt regarding this topic, the plausible deniability. The hidden volume feature is exactly designed to prevent Big Brothers from breaching your privacy.

Re:TrueCrypt

[netsharc]

Or, write the real first few seconds (maybe 15) of the trailer to the beginning of the file, et voila, it plays in Windows Media Player!

I think TrueCrypt needs to have an offset for its containers, so that it expects the data to begin at that offset, and ignore whatever is before that..