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

[lorenzino]

How well ? Good enough. They don't have any clue what linux is. They don't have any IT degree right ? Actually, if they even *SEE* linux they might think you are a terrorist/communist/american_favourite_evil. So yeah, I like your idea. Also, I suggest truecrypt with the drive within the drive .. that gives you deniability, doesn't it ?

Re:Dual Boot

[blueg3]

If they choose to store the contents of your hard drive for later analysis, not at all. Nor will it protect you against minimally-clever forensics tools.

It depends on what, in particular, you're concerned about. As far as I know, they don't currently routinely search laptops, so it'd be speculation to guess at what a routine search they don't do would miss.

Re:Dual Boot

[krog]

Of course not. The Department of Homeland Security doesn't hire any lower than a Master's degree.

Re:Dual Boot

[ColdWetDog]

Likely "pretty good". It all depends on how nosy the Customs Agents want to be. The vast majority of the time, they just stare at the laptop, maybe make you boot it (but that's TSA's responsibility, really) and let you wander off. The issue is that you don't know when the Agent 1) had a bad night 2) thinks you're a smartass / druggie / on The List or 3) anything else (no probable cause here).

If they want to clone your hard drive and disassemble it later, your secondary boot OS is going to stick out. Not that it is unusual for anyone to have more than one OS on a hard drive, but it won't be hidden. Remember, they essentially have physical control of the computer. "They" win. Unfortunately, it comes down to 1) security by obscurity or 2) nothing to hide.

Roll up your sleeves and bend over.

Re:Dual Boot

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Set the GRUB timeout to 0; you can only boot Linux iff you hold escape.

Re:Dual Boot

[Anonymous Coward]

are border agents so dumb to not diferentiate a dual boot from a simple windows ? Probably

Re:Dual Boot

[Anonymous Coward]

Works very well. I had to set this up due to being detained at the border for several hours because they didn't know linux. They keep the laptop, computer plus some external drives and let me go. Still working on getting them back, hence anonymously. Bought a new laptop after that, set up the dual-boot with short times to select something other then windows and no log-in required. Been inspected several times after that with no problems.

Re:Dual Boot

[Altus]

if your under suspicion for who you are then you are pretty well fucked. But if your just worried about a random security search and wanting to keep certain data private you only need to get past that first step because they will not spend the money to dig deeper even if they do copy your hard drive.

if you are a known individual (person of interest) and you expect to be stopped at the border, don't carry sensitive material with you. Hell, just mail a flash drive.

Re:Dual Boot

[electrictroy]

>>>"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."

Sounds like a small price to pay in order to protect my right to liberty. Just because the government demands access does not mean I have to comply.

Other people have paid a far higher price for liberty ("the full measure of devotion" aka death).

Re:Dual Boot

[quentin_quayle]

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.

Better: set up dual boot, and hide lilo or grub. Have it wait for a moment between BIOS and default OS, and if you press a certain F key combination it shows the choice; otherwise it goes right into innocent, typical-seeming Windows installation.

You'd still be subject to either having to unencrypt your real data or having the notebook confiscated if you refuse, if this is discovered - but if they don't know to look at the disk display applet in Windows, it's unlikely to be discovered. And you can disable that applet.

Re:Dual Boot

[Frymaster]

If they choose to store the contents of your hard drive for later analysis, not at all. Nor will it protect you against minimally-clever forensics tools.

of course there's always deniable encryption, ie rubberhose.

Re:Dual Boot

[belmolis]

Being detained by customs does not give you a criminal record. If you're a non-citizen, it may indeed cause trouble in entering the country again. To get a criminal record, you must be tried and convicted of a crime.

Re:Dual Boot

[compro01]

Set grub timeout to 0 with default to windows. When you want to go into Linux, bypass the timeout by holding escape.

Re:Dual Boot

[Ollabelle]

I heard they shipped it back to you already, through Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport.

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

[gstoddart]

Being detained by customs does not give you a criminal record. If you're a non-citizen, it may indeed cause trouble in entering the country again. To get a criminal record, you must be tried and convicted of a crime.

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.

There has been a Canadian citizen in Sudan who has (had?) been trapped there because, while he had never been charged with anything, he had been suspected of doing something. He got trapped, and could come home due to being on the no-fly list. Basically, years in legal limbo.

I wouldn't assume getting detained by customs wouldn't necessarily cause you problems. When your name ends up on the unpublished, unfixable, or secret lists of people they don't want to fly ... it's as good as if you'd been convicted.

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

Cheers

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

[MBGMorden]

That and I know some decent degree of people encrypt their porn anyways (on their home computers - most people stupid enough to download porn at work aren't going to be smart enough to hide it). For the married guys, it keeps the wife from seeing it or the kids from stumbling across it if they're playing on the computer.

In my own case, I encrypt it (using Truecrypt - awesomest OSS program I've found in a long time) because while my family knows I keep porn on my computer, if I ever have a random car accident or something I don't want them to see exactly HOW MUCH I have on the system once they start looking through my files ;). Heck Truecrypt can even store an encrypted volume on an unformatted unpartitioned chunk of hard drive. There's little way they can prove that that's anything other than some space you haven't allocated yet.

Re:Dual Boot

[Anonymous Coward]

trucrypt has a dual password feature with a hidden encryption sector in the main sector. Give the border inquisitor the primary password that unlocks your grandmothers receipe collection - truecrypt claims it's impossible to determine if a second password to a hidden volume exists - the hidden volume is stored in seemingly random data.

or wear more tinfoil, i hear that protects against multiple vectors.

Re:Dual Boot

[xtracto]

Sounds like a small price to pay in order to protect my right to liberty. Just because the government demands access does not mean I have to comply.

Except that you do not have such liberty while going through customs. And that is not a special thing of the USA customs. Almost every country usually has this rule where some of your basic privacy rights get removed while you are entering a country.

Remember, it was *your* choice to enter such country (either by booking a flight directly or a flight with a stop in such a country). Therefore, you must fully comply with its legislation.

That is one of the reasons I refuse to fly through the USA (even if the flight prices are around $600 usd instead of $1100... I choose not to get my ass probed in order to obtain a USA visa (even a transit visa)

Of course as I said before, such behaviour is not exclusive of the USA, therefore I think it is really smart to do what the article suggests.

I prefer a different approach however. I usually put all my data in a secure server connected to the internet and just travel with my "barebones" laptop (with only Windows or Linux installed and whatever software I must use).

When I am at my destination, I connect to the server and retrieve my files. As the author of the article says. Customs can not read what is not there.

Re:Dual Boot

[hoggoth]

> Truecrypt can even store an encrypted volume on an unformatted unpartitioned chunk of hard drive. There's little way they can prove that that's anything other than some space you haven't allocated yet.

sorta.
Unallocated space wouldn't be filled with high-entropy random bytes. That's a tip-off that it has encrypted data.
Of course, you certainly have deniable plausibility there.

Re:Dual Boot

[Kadin2048]

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.

Well, to be fair, this is the exact same treatment I've had every time I've re-entered the U.S. (as a U.S. citizen). It's usually always via Boston Logan, and a few times when I arrived in the evening there weren't even any Customs officers working the Citizen's lane. You could have walked through there with a 2,000-pound bomb on a hand truck and I don't think anyone would have noticed. (Which was good, because I was pretty sure I was over my liquor quota...)

There usually is someone working Immigration (which is distinct from Customs -- Immigration is where you get your passport checked, Customs is the luggage business) but even that was just a bored, cursory lookover.

I'm not minimizing the seriousness of these inspections (I can't get my mind around how they're possibly constitutional, at least when applied to Citizens), but in practice I think you have to be doing something that attracts attention before you become a target. U.S. Customs is still largely a joke, at least if you make a modicum of effort to look like an upstanding citizen. Which is ironic, because I assume smugglers/terrorists would at least bother to do that.

Re:Dual Boot

[Cajun Hell]

If they choose to store the contents of your hard drive for later analysis, not at all.

Well, it's a question of whether or not "later analysis" is something you wait in line for, or something that happens later when you're already through. As long as you get through relatively unmolested, and with your machine, it's not too bad if they later want to spend their time detecting that personal secrets might have been present, and then try to crack AES -- all on their own time while you're not waiting and missing your connecting flights, appointments, etc.

As long as the machine appears to be "normal" to a superficial peek, you win. Their only countermeasure is to quarantine every entering machine for a few months, while they spend a few hundred (or thousand?) dollars (per machine) to examine them -- just to see if there's anything further to look at. Then they can mail you a letter if they want your key. In other words, the countermeasure would be so intolerable that the public wouldn't stand for it and Congress would have to take away the power.

It depends on what, in particular, you're concerned about.

Anything, really. As soon as bribable officials have access to your browser's password manager database or your email reader's stored login credentials, the risks resulting from the resale of the information, are so broad that there's simply no person who doesn't have something to be concerned about.

If we give the government all our data, everyone loses, except the bad guys that they're supposedly protecting us from.

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

[gordyf]

Even as an atheist, my time here is important enough not to waste it with trampled rights.

But otherwise, yes, you're right.

Re:Dual Boot

[vidarh]

Or have something that would plausibly be worth protecting. I'm sure you could find plenty of specs or requirements documents that aren't sensitive at all, for example, but that you could believably claim are terribly valuable trade secrets.

Re:Dual Boot

[vidarh]

Knowing the British government it wouldn't be your hd image that would get lost, but a DVD with a summary of all the valuable or embarrassing information present on your and millions of others hd images, nicely formatted and caegorized to make sure whoever gets hold of it doesn't have to do any forensics themselves.

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

[vidarh]

I've had the same experience with customs in 15+ trips to the US (Washington Dulles and San Francisco) - I've never once been even asked a single question in customs.

In immigration it's a little bit more annoying, but they've only ever asked fairly simple questions, even when I last year arrived for the 10th or 11th time in less than 18 months.

Re:Dual Boot

[gnuman99]

"When you're looking forward to a long eternity"

As opposed to the short eternity?

Sorry, but most people cannot grasp what hell eternity would be, *anywhere*

Re:Dual Boot

[Sancho]

I've oft-wished that you could have a completely transparent boot loader that used held-down keys to determine which OS to boot into (with one key to boot into a menu.)

Re:Dual Boot

[Anonymous Coward]

"if your under suspicion for who you are then you are pretty well fucked."

If only that were the case! I know somebody who is constantly under suspicion every time he travels for who _someone else_ is. He happens to have the same initials (not even same full name), and the government happens to have crappy systems, and border crossings tend not to use logic or reason or really any form of independent thought. So he ends up on no-fly lists, watch lists, and the like through no fault of his own. The best part is he travels regularly as part of his job and after two years of trying to address the issue it still happens.

So, I guess what I'm saying is everyone is under suspicion and we're all fucked.

Re:Dual Boot

[W1BMW]

Returning from numerous business trips to Mexico over the years, I've received extra scrutiny twice. Once because I had declared liquor on a prior trip and I was over my limit. I actually got to keep the booze and was told to 'watch it' next time. The next time, I came back with some medication for dysentery and looked pretty rough (my next stop was a hospital for a week long stay) The customs guy asked, "Where did you get this strange Mexican medicine?" I answered, "From a strange Mexican doctor. Where is the bathroom?" The guy laughed and sent me on my way before I shat on his floor.

Re:Dual Boot

[harrkev]

Another option might be to take a spare 512MB memory module and accidentally apply 120V to a couple of random pins, thereby frying the module. If you insert that, your computer won't boot. Leave your good RAM at home, travel with the dummy RAM. "Gee, officer. My computer is dead. A friend of mine at the destination knows how to fix them." Buy new RAM at your destination. Sell the RAM to a friend or pawn shop before you leave, and put your original RAM back in when you get back home.

Re:Dual Boot

[Hyppy]

Yes, they want the best diploma mill degrees money can buy

Re:Dual Boot

[Fred_A]

As if the customs in Amsterdam were worried about you smuggling drugs or porn...

I infer it was your first visit...

Re:Dual Boot

[nospam007]

... Leave your good RAM at home, travel with the dummy RAM. "Gee, officer. My computer is dead. A friend of mine at the destination knows how to fix them."

"Gee officer, what did you do? You killed my computer, it worked flawlessly on the plane until you touched it, please call your supervisor, I will sue for damages."

Re:Dual Boot

[fbartho]

OSX... single key press to boot to cd/dvd or firewire or to get a boot selection menu which scans sources and lets you select via mouse or keys where to boot from.

Re:Dual Boot

[the brown guy]

being brown-skinned is enough to effectively punish you as much as if you'd been convicted. Fuck...

Re:Dual Boot

[Anonymous Coward]

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. hazem ... I hear your... Look, from my central European point of view your so called "land of the free" is almost a facist state.

If not mistaken, your country treats foreigners legally different from citizens, and cherishes concentration camps like at Cuba's coast in Guantanamo.

In opposition, the Netherlands appears to be a free, democratic, and liberal country. A core member of the EU, part of the Schengen States building EU's joint border.

Much appreciate that you have found EU immigration convenient, sad to see that "the land of the free" tends to become "the major bully" country on this planet. Taking all possible means to erode privacy, even stealing your data from your electronic devices, or widely wiretaping its major telecoms data into secret government databases.

By the way, I was once a huge admirer of the prior 9/11 free kind of US society. Now I can only say ... I pity the US for the time being ruled by "secretive, nosy, merciless bullies" of your current government.

Cheers,
Mike

Re:Dual Boot

[Grizzled Old Scout]

Preach on, brother, to the notion that many of us aren't willing to sacrifice in the name of protecting our liberties, but there is a difference between fighting the good fight and slamming your head against walls. Remember that the TSA/Customs agents are, in general, doing only what they are told to do, and their incentive structures bias them to be more restrictive and confiscatory, not less.

A better option, as TFA mentioned, is making sure your congressdroids are aware of your displeasure with the erosion of you rights and that you are willing to make protection of your freedoms the primary issue on which you base your vote. Then commence shouting from the rooftops. If data or hardware are confiscated, call the ACLU, write letters to the editor. Post on well-populated political blogs.

But don't think that you're effectively advancing the cause by letting the TSAers detain you (or, far worse, challenging them to do so). That just wastes time that you aren't going to get back.

Privacy and freedom of movement are worth fighting for, and anything important enough to be worth fighting for important enough to be worth fighting effectively.

Re:Dual Boot

[mibus]

Or have something that would plausibly be worth protecting. I'm sure you could find plenty of specs or requirements documents that aren't sensitive at all, for example, but that you could believably claim are terribly valuable trade secrets.

Or you could show your stash of pr0n that you've encrypted so your partner doesn't find out ;)

Re:Dual Boot

[mrchaotica]

Ah, not an American. So I DON'T have the right to US due process.

Actually, you do:

U.S. Constitution, Amendment V:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Note that the bolded word is not "citizen!"

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.

This is why you make sure...

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

...that your desktop is the Goatse guy and you have 14 videos of horse porn set to auto-play the moment your laptop gets opened. If you're going to snoop through my stuff in public, then the whole terminal is gonna get their money's worth, you fascist bully-boys.

Re:This is why you make sure...

[Z00L00K]

And in addition the sound must be played at maximum volume. Including the "TaDa" in Windows or some other classic clip; "Computer Standing By..."

But I think that "1 minute to auto-destruct" can be a bit too bad.

Re:This is why you make sure...

[Meriahven]

Security by obscenity?

Re:This is why you make sure...

[CogDissident]

I'd suggest against the horse porn, it "is" technically illegal in the US.

I personally would use the tubgirl "taste the rainbow" picture as a desktop icon. You need to use both a disturbing visual, and a (semi-common) catchphrase that will trigger that visual to further torment them.

Re:This is why you make sure...

[SnapShot]

It just might work. It their eyes are bleeding they can't read your sensitive data.

Re:This is why you make sure...

[Cairnarvon]

Whenever someone talks about standing up to whatever injustice in some way, someone always comes along to point out the people they're standing up to won't like that.
No shit, Sherlock. That's sort of the point.

If nobody ever stands up to this kind of bullshit, even in these kinds of small ways, it's only going to get worse and we're *all* going to spend a lot more time in tiny cold waiting rooms whenever we try to get anything done.

Re:This is why you make sure...

[jandrese]

Standing up for something only works if you can inconvenience the other guy somehow. Border agents aren't paid by how many people they pass through the border, they're more than happy to let you rot out in the waiting room for hours if you try to make their job difficult. They're not even under any obligation to let you in the country unless you're a citizen returning from a trip. If you give them too much hassle they can (and will) just turn you away.

Re:This is why you make sure...

[Cajun Hell]

I'd suggest against the horse porn, it "is" technically illegal in the US.

Actually, that raises an interesting question. I suspect horse porn is not a violation of any federal laws, but probably a violation of some state laws. Does U.S. customs have a legitimate interest in that? Maybe anti-liberty states (e.g. Texas) need to put up their own state-customs on their highways and airports. Your international flight lands in Dallas, and a man says, "Congratulations, you have passed U.S. customs. Now stand in line for Texas' thoughtcrime filter."

Re:This is why you make sure...

[Cajun Hell]

If you ARE a POI, they will probably [do a lot of shitty things]

I guess the trick is to help make everyone a POI. Do all that crap to everyone, and 10 people will be able to enter the country per day. Then someone in power with some sense -- no wait, let's be realistic: someone in power who is tired of getting thousands of complaints per day and being the subject of a TV news show every week -- will say, "fuck it, we have to stop doing this. I just got into government for the drug and 'escort' money; I didn't run for office to be ridiculed and impeached all the time. I have a meeting with a rich industrial lobbyist in 20 minutes, and those '60 Minutes' reporters are still here in my office, asking me what my response is to the recall petition. *sigh* Julie, get me Senator Disney on the phone. We need to talk about a bill that dissolves customs. I can give him 20 more years tacked onto copyright, if he'll support this for me."

TrueCrypt

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.truecrypt.org/

        * Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.

        * Encrypts an entire partition or storage device such as USB flash drive or hard drive.

        * Encrypts a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication).

        * Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.

        * Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:

            1) Hidden volume (steganography â" more information may be found here).

            2) No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).

        * Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: XTS.

Re:TrueCrypt

[Frosty Piss]

People here keep talking about encrypting your files. Fine, but the second the Customs Guy figures out you have encrypted content on your laptop, you can kiss it good bye. They *will* keep it. You may not see it again for several years.

If you're going to carry stuff over the border you don't wan't The Man to look at, put it on a thumb drive and attach it to your keys.

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..

Re:TrueCrypt

[spazdor]

or, if YOU can't prove there ISN'T one, they keep the notebook.

Re:TrueCrypt

[SanityInAnarchy]

See, the problem is, there can be an unlimited number of encrypted volumes -- they can even be nested. So no one can ever prove that there are no more hidden, encrypted volumes. If someone demands that you show them the second one, you can show them a second one -- and not the third, fourth, or fifth ones.

So unless you're suggesting that anyone using Truecrypt, for any purpose, will be detained indefinitely, it seems like a pretty solid bet.

Re:TrueCrypt

[CRG]

. . . I think TrueCrypt needs to have an offset for its containers . . .

It does. The hidden partitions in TrueCrypt start from the end of the file (this allows you to keep the non-hidden partition intact at the front of the file).

When you enter a password, TrueCrypt first tries to decrypt the random data at the front of the file -- and, if that doesn't look like a TrueCrypt partition, then it tries to decrypt the end of the file where the hidden partition would be.

So... what you're proposing should already be doable. Create a standard file container of size "Video + N" that contains a hidden container of size "N". Once the hidden partition is set up, simply overwrite the front of your file with the video. TrueCrypt shouldn't complain, because random noise (from the encrypted, standard partition) and a random video file should be equally unintelligible from its perspective.

Mess with them

[loafula]

Make a folder called "Terror Plans" and fill it with images of cute, cuddly kittens.

Re:Mess with them

[Phroggy]

Reference

Note that this study fails to consider whether the shiny side goes on the outside or the inside, and also does not explore the use of true tin foil as opposed to aluminum foil.

Re:Mess with them

[Anonymous Coward]

oh hai

i bomd ur bildings

Not enitrely true...

[Anonymous Coward]

Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country.

As they should be able to. Any sovereign nation has the right to control who and what enters the country.

They can ... keep it for several days.

No, that would be seizing it. They need a reason to seize it. Customs can search without cause, but they cannot seize things without cause.

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."

Not entering your password is not grounds to refuse you entry into the country. On the other hand, lying to US customs IS grounds to ban you from entering the USA for five years.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[Tim C]

But if they have the right to search it and you refuse to cooperate, then what choices do they have other than to seize the laptop (arguably you've given them cause by refusing to cooperate) or refuse you entry?

Otherwise what you're saying is that they have the right to search it, you have the right to refuse, and they have no legal powers to try to enforce their right - in other words, they don't have the right at all.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[Altus]

I have been denied access to countries for less than not providing a password. They can pretty much turn you away because they feel like it.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[thestuckmud]

Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. As they should be able to. Any sovereign nation has the right to control who and what enters the country.

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...

This amendment exists to protect citizens from a government that may object to the content they create or possess. Maybe someone can explain why the act of entering the country nullifies my constitutional rights.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any sovereign nation has the right to control who and what enters the country." That is one view.

There is also the question of what consitutes 'what'. While I would agree that they have the right to ensure that my laptop is a laptop, and not a container for contraband (tangible 'what'), I would not agree that it includes the right to search the information stored upon it (intangible 'what'). If I have a letter on my person, while they should be allowed to ensure that it's a letter, they shouldn't be allowed to read it. And while they should be allowed to check that I'm not carrying contraband, they shouldn't be allowed to probe my mind (if such technology existed) to find out what information I'm 'carrying'.

Of course, what they should do, and what they do do, are two different things because in most countries customs take the position that you do, and so are a law unto themselves.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[Anonymous Coward]

This amendment exists to protect citizens from a government that may object to the content they create or possess. Maybe someone can explain why the act of entering the country nullifies my constitutional rights.

This is why the recent supreme court ruling matters, even if the GP doesn't know it. They ruled that computers files are not your papers. Silly I know, but that's why they can search.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[tinkerghost]

They can ... keep it for several days.

No, that would be seizing it. They need a reason to seize it. Customs can search without cause, but they cannot seize things without cause.

Actually, they can 'detain' the laptop without cause/warrant/etc. If you would like to wait with it that's your option ---- going on 2 years for some of the people who've filed the suits that resulted in the ruling so you might want to make sure you have some vacation time stored up.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[Deadplant]

Any sovereign nation has the right to control who and what enters the country. Well, that's one opinion.

I would say that most sovereign nations have the power, not the right, to control who and what enters the country.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[LynnwoodRooster]

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

Because legally you have not entered the country until you pass through customs. Up until that point you are in international waters, so to speak.

If you're not here, you're not under the jurisdiction of our laws.

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:Not enitrely true...

[the plant doctor]

Whaaa? So the Constitution doesn't apply to me as a US citizen is what you're saying? I thought the constitution applied to citizens, not a place.

So apparetly it only applies to people on US soil? With the way things have gone lately I guess it shouldn't surprise me, but it does, or more disappoints me.

That said, I've never had issues coming back through customs. They've never even glanced at my laptop let alone asked to handle it.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[rthille]

Does that mean I can shoot the border agent and not be prosecuted under American laws?

Try not to confuse 'legal fictions' with reality :-)

Re:Not enitrely true...

[Anonymous Coward]

But if they have the right to search it and you refuse to cooperate, then what choices do they have other than to seize the laptop (arguably you've given them cause by refusing to cooperate) or refuse you entry?

Not providing a password is not cause. Not providing a password is not refusing to cooperate. That was one of the rulings from the recent court case.

Cooperating is handing over the laptop to them for them to search, and you can wait for them to finish. What if the battery is dead? What if windows has crashed & won't boot? You have still cooperated.

Otherwise what you're saying is that they have the right to search it, you have the right to refuse, and they have no legal powers to try to enforce their right - in other words, they don't have the right at all.

Not at all. They have the right to search it, as is. That is their legal power. You are not required to provide a password. If it's encrypted, it's up to them to decrypt it.

You do not have the right to refuse a search at the border. If you do not want to take the chance that you will be searched at the border, then do not cross the border.

You are not required to actively assist a search. For example, Customs might think that you're smuggling something inside your tires, but you are not required to jack up your car and undo the wheel nuts. It's up to Customs to do it.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[Pros_n_Cons]

This is exactly it.
America is just now doing this? I was returned from Canada and they searched my luggage, laptop, read private conversations, opened letters all cause i was going to be staying 2 months which was too long of a vacation/job for them apparently. The guy was just a prick and didn't want anyone taking jobs. Canada is terrible for this but on Slashdot everything is the big bad USA. I'm so sick of the slant on slashdot. All countries do this its their right to refuse what type of people in their country. Some agents turn away illegal Mexicans cause they're scared of them taking jobs, some customs agents dont like the idea of a foreigner getting paid more than them.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[LargeMythicalReptile]

Maybe someone can explain why the act of entering the country nullifies my constitutional rights. It's called the border search exception. Like it or not, it's been upheld by the Supreme and federal courts.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[crazytisay]

The US decided a long time ago that the protection of its borders outweighed the protections of the constitution. See this for a nice summary:

http://law.onecle.com/constitution/amendment-04/18-border-searches.html

When customs searches your bags for contraband, it is basically the same as when they search your laptop. The problem is that we tend to store much more personal, professional, or confidential information on our computers than we would ever carry around in our luggage (mostly because you know ahead of time someone will see it). I mean when was the last time you took your vibrator with you to a foreign country? It seems so much more invasive simply because of the context. Now, unless you are demanding an end to all searches at the border (which will never happen for obvious reasons) I suggest you move on to how to get around it.

As far as solutions go, I like the idea of dual booting if its your only option, but I have 3 laptops. I can always take one with nothing on it for use on the trip and check my flashdrive with the luggage. Once they start demanding the contents of the flashdrives, it will have to be remote access only.

Good luck :)

Re:Not enitrely true...

[adsl]

You are certainly right that entering any country can be an interesting experience. Some years ago as a Brit I re-entered the UK and was waived on, by a male customs officer, thru the green passage. A female voice from behind me called out "Stop". I complied and asked why she was giving contrary intructions to another officer? She simply told me "I am in charge". Cut the story short, this female customs officer tore all my baggage and suitcases apart for 1 1/2 hours in a desperate attempt to justify her "suspicions" to her lower ranks. Eventually she decided I owed TWO POUNDS duty, on a minor gift. As I was attempting to put my belongings in order, which were by now strewn over a wide area, she demanded payment. I pulled out a 50 pound note from my wallet and handed it to her apologizing for my lack of small change. She turend and walked towards a door with the money. I called out "Stop" and she turned with a very annoyed look on her face. I said "Excuse me, but your lack of trust of me has been very evident, so you will foregive me if I have similar reservations towards yourself. Please sign this piece of paper saying you hold my 50 pound note and will return with 48 pds change". She turned red with anger, but complied. Meantime the rank and file officers just about fell apart and all ran away rather than laugh out loud. Yeah I know I pushed my luck. But I had retained my cool for 1 1/2 hours while being treated as if I were the worst form of low life..... I also knew I had nothing to hide. Trust is a two way thing anyway. The moral of all this is that when entering ANY country you are and can be subject to officials who have "god" like powers. And there is little one can do but smaile and be responsive and stay cool for as lonmg as possible.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[adsl]

I have many stories of entering countries. Ask me about Dubai in 1980 someday..... Well I flew from New York to Paris on business one day and arrived early morning. I had been somewhat rushed leaving the house and had grabbed my UK passport on the way out of door. So at immigrations I place my passport on the table for the immigration guy. He opens it and grins for a moment pushes it back to me and says. Take a look! I do and open it. To my horror the first thing I see is a picture of my very young daughter staring at me. In error I had picked up her passport. Fast fwd. I get politely lead away to a corridor and asked to sit and wait. About 20 minutes later an aristocratic looking man around 30, in slacks and blazer turns up and leads me into an interview room. He says "Do you speak French". I say: "Not enough to handle this situation!". He smiles, look at the passport and smiles again more broadly. "Ian, he says, I am NOT your problem. Nobody would try to enter France illegally this way. You are free to go now". "Thanks" I say. "Don't thank me he says, think about how difficult it will be now for you to leave France. Good luck" He was right. The Britush Embassy also fell part with laughter at my story. Everyone appeared from counters and doors to hear the oft repeated story. I finally resolved the situation by having my real passport couriered to my hotel. Check ALL important documents B4 travelling, it really does help. And if you mess up, find officials with a sense of humor.....

Re:Not enitrely true...

[AK Marc]

It is like that guy going out of the WalMart with a ladder and then the guard asked to see his receipt. Instead of just getting the receipt from his trousers' bag and showing it, the guy had to do a complete show. It does not take you more than 10 seconds and on the other side it can prevent you a lot of trouble.

They have no right to detain you for not showing a receipt. You have no obligation to show a receipt. The worst that can happen is that they ask you to leave, something you were obviously doing anyway. If you really piss them off, they can tell you to not come back. But they can't hold you, charge you, ask you for identification, or anything else of the kind (well, they can ask for whatever they like, but you don't have to comply with any order or answer any question). They have to have evidence for that, and being an ass isn't evidence of anything other than a poor upbringing.

Shit, it can even save your life, imagine if the guard guy was just about to go postal and decides that you are the straw that broke the camel's back and decides to fill you with pieces of lead.

Yes, I should live my life like everyone is armed and willing to kill if I don't do everything they say. Even if, like the guards at Wal-Mart, they aren't armed.

Re:Not enitrely true...

[ceoyoyo]

Well, if you're not on US territory then yes, you can shoot the border agent and not be prosecuted under American laws. If you're in international territory that means you can be prosecuted (and not by lawyers) under international law, which doesn't really have a whole lot to say about individual murderers.

Yup

[alexborges]

I got it in my biweekly dose of Cryptogram and found it disheartening. The GOD of security says: all you can do is make sure they wont find anything that will mess you up.

The sad thing is that citizens think this idiotic idea of checking laptops at airports serve any kind of law enforcement objective other than generalized panic and further diminishment of democratic values such as the right to privacy.

This is your government fucking people up (and "people" can be foreigners or locals entering the country), attempting to find in informations traces of delincuent activity that, if youre a two bit moron you know you can save it anyhow, in a mostly anonymous fashion on google's, yahoo's or microsoft's servers for free, and any number of services that are available today.

True criminals simply have huge botnets and hidden servers behind the huge pr0n/spam nets and they DO NOT carry incriminating evidence with them and EVEN IF THEY DID, how in hell is a custom's agent going to find them?

I mean, i have a better solution than that of bruce: change your initab so initdefault is 3, make sure that that level does NOT turn on the wifi card or any networking at all, change your shell to ASH (hopefully temporarilly) and let them have the root password, who cares.... good luck, mister customs agent.

Re:Yup

[squidfood]

further diminishment of democratic values such as the right to privacy.

I'm as libertarian free-rights paranoid as the next slashdotter (while not quite), but a healthy dose of history here. Customs, border crossings, etc. have never had anything to do with democratic values, check out all your local 17th century smuggling legends sometime. There's never been anything there to diminish.

Picking battles, I'd concentrate on what happens internally, domestic flights, internal travel, etc. and not worry about this one so much (cue "thin end of the wedge" argument).

Re:Yup

[agwadude]

I'm as libertarian free-rights paranoid as the next slashdotter (while not quite), but a healthy dose of history here. Customs, border crossings, etc. have never had anything to do with democratic values

Completely incorrect. Many of the British actions to diminish liberty in the 1700s were directly related to enforcing customs and duties: writs of assistance, vice-admiralty courts, etc. The Founding Fathers were reacting in part against British regulation of customs and duties so many of the "democratic values" like the 4th Amendment, the requirement that trials be held in the locality where the crime was committed, etc, were in fact developed in response to customs enforcement.

The most poignant example is writs of assistance. These were open-ended search warrants that authorized the holder to conduct any search whatsoever and were issued to British customs officers in the colonies to catch smugglers. They outraged the colonists, who saw them as an affront to their liberty, and directly led to the requirement for specific search warrants in the early state constitutions and later in the 4th Amendment.

I find it most ironic that the restrictions on search warrants came in response to arbitrary customs enforcement by British customs officers, but today no restrictions at all apply to searches by American customs officers. Whatever court ruled that the 4th Amendment doesn't apply to border crossings ignored significant precedence to the contrary.

See Writ of Assistance in Wikipedia for a pretty decent overview.

A naive suggestion

[rumith]

1. Upload all of your data on a web host with SFTP support and lots of bandwidth.
2. Purge your hard drive.
3. Be politeness incarnate to the customs officer and get through fast.
4. Once inside, use any available network at your disposal to download all of your data back.

The downsides? You probably won't be able to work in the airplane, but is it worth it now that the Customs are being so much trouble?

Re:A naive suggestion

[rcamans]

You could probably load all your work on a usb drive? then have a clean laptop, and slide thru?

Re:A naive suggestion

[q-the-impaler]

This is a job for Johnny Mnemonic!

My laptop

[Z00L00K]

Is set to boot MS-DOS by default.

It's actually because I need to load a device management driver that overrides the BIOS data for the hard disk, but it may actually be worth it for them to try to fiddle around at the MS-DOS prompt...

Fading memory

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't recall the name right now but one of the disk encryption utilities creates a dummy encrypted zone for just such a purpose. You make two passwords. The real one gets you your real encrypted data. And another one for entering under "duress" gets you your dummy files. They're both stored in the same encrypted space, one looks like random noise to the other, and supposedly nobody can tell they're both there. Anybody know which utility that was?

One more reason not to fly.

[AmazingRuss]

I quit flying a couple years ago after being repeatedly hassled by TSA troglodytes. Looks like I may never get to fly again. Maybe if enough of us stop flying, the airline industry will set its lobbyists to get this fixed. Chances are slim though. Why lobby to get your customers back when you can just lobby for handouts?

Re:One more reason not to fly.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I quit flying a couple years ago after being repeatedly hassled by TSA troglodytes. Like this?

Re:One more reason not to fly.

[goaliemn]

This isn't the TSA.. its customs. A huge difference.. They can do this if you're crossing in a car, on a bus, on a horse, on foot, etc... They've had this "right" since the country was formed, and older countries have had it for much longer.

Yes it will work.

[Bobb Sledd]

That is what TrueCrypt is for (but don't encrypt the entire drive). Just encrypt what needs encryptin'. Set up an encrypted volume with a shadow volume inside a regular file. Call it something that looks like a system file like MSDOS.SYS or DBLSPACE.BIN or something. (That would explain the unusually large size of the file.)

So first, they would have to know you even have something encrypted (which is just a guess if they see TrueCrypt installed). Then they'd have to know what/which files was/were encrypted (which can't be determined by examining the file). Then they'd have to ask you to mount the volume and provide the password (at which time you then provide the shadow volume password, which only contains innocuous files).

I can't be the only dummy to figure that out.

Re:Yes it will work.

[rsborg]

So first, they would have to know you even have something encrypted (which is just a guess if they see TrueCrypt installed).

On OSX, disk utility will create encrypted disk images for you, so every mac user potentially has encrypted content (apparently Vista also has something similar).

Furthermore, you could also make TrueCrypt portable on XP, putting it, and possibly even your encrypted volume on a USB Key. Include this with a simple file rename and extension change and you'll have hidden encrypted content.

Re:Yes it will work.

[Hoplite3]

I've suggested this before, but I think it should be repeated.

You should also put something mildly embarrassing in the shadow drive. Something so that when the customs dude sees it, he can construct a plausible narrative of why you encrypted it. Naked pictures of a girl who could be your girlfriend (but definitely looks over the age of majority in the country you're flying to), steamy love letters that aren't over the top, evidence of a fake affair. Nothing illegal, just "improper." Bonus points if you blush when the customs agent sees them.

Re:Yes it will work.

[ZeroPly]

It's actually relatively easy to find TrueCrypt volumes assuming that you know you're searching for one - they contain completely random data and are thus distinguishable from most other files. Remember that most compressed files (ZIP, MP3) have easily distinguished patterns, so when you find a large file with no pattern and random data, you can be fairly certain you're looking at an encrypted partition.

Luckily, that doesn't matter one iota. Hidden volumes in TrueCrypt are specifically for this very reason. Assuming you admit that you use TC and show someone the contents of the "dummy" volume, there is no way for someone to determine the existence of the hidden volume.

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?

Re:Refuse you entry to the contry

[Anonymous Coward]

Can customs officials refuse entry to an American Citizen? Can they banish me for refusing to divulge my password? They cannot. They can only detain you "for a reasonable period of time" while they investigate what you may be carrying, but they have to justify the length of detention by some reasonable suspicion. i.e. we suspect he swallowed drugs and so can take 3 days to see what comes out the other end. But they need to back that up with why they suspect that.

Or another example is detain you and/or the computer until they can image the drive.
And they can confiscate contraband (your definition may vary).
Ultimately, you have the right to enter the country.

Re:Refuse you entry to the contry

[King_TJ]

I don't think the issue is whether or not an American citizen might be "banished from the country" upon making a return trip. I'd say, no, they're NOT able to do that.

The problem is, they could confiscate your expensive computer gear, and there's no guarantee you'd ever get it back. (There seems to be no real statute of limitations on the time these people are allowed to take to "examine" your property, if they claim a potential "security risk".)

CF/SD cards?

[future assassin]

Maybe depending on the amount of data you have you could store it onto a CF/SD card and put it into your camera? There has to some way of storing the data on the memory card so that the camera will not see those files but still leave enough space to take a few shots of the customs agents.

Depends upon how proficient they are.

[khasim]

They can also image your drive. As Bruce says, the easiest way to avoid this is to not have your data on your laptop. Put it on something else.

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.

Re:Corporation Lawyers

[goaliemn]

Unfortunately, you won't have that luxury. No matter what country you're going into, they can do this and you don't get a phone call. They'll sieze your laptop and you'll have no other options. If you smash it, you'll probably get arrested for interfering with an investigation, or the work of an officer. IF you throw it in the trash, they'll collect it and get what they want.

If the IP on your laptop is worth that much, you shouldn't be carrying it outside of the country on a laptop. I worked at a company that prohibited us from carrying certain information on our laptops to some middle eastern countries, as they were known for seizing/replicating hard drives from employees in certain industries.

If anything, you may face legal issues from your employer if you're taking that valuable of information out of the country.

Re:Corporation Lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL, but it seems to me that the customs agents are requiring travelers to break the law by disclosing data. No, the hypothetical traveler you described broke the law by exposing it to such hazard. Its the same reason companies subject to HIPPA and (in less-corporate countries) broader data privacy laws are still held responsible if the knowingly outsource handling of the data to companies in offshore companies without guarantee that the privacy law protections will be observed.

Once you pass 6 years old, please stop trying to sell that "I'm just swinging my arms and if you run into them that's your own fault" BS. Eesh.

Imagine the pre-computer days...

[Boron55]

Imagine the pre-computer days, when the customs could stop you, do a naked search and go through all your papers without any passwords. What could you do at that time? Just do not take the sensitive papers with you or mail them with certified mail.

I think there is no difference now. Email your files and do not put them on your laptop. That is what TFA is basically saying too.

So, IMHO, complains here won't work. The only problem that travelers have with laptop/cellphone search is inconvenience (since everybody is used to store all your files on your hard drive), but otherwise it is not any bit less legal than it was before the laptop era. And inconvenience is not any concern for authorities at all. So consider your laptop to be your briefcase and just not put any documents there that you don't want custom officers to see. End of story.

US Customs has always been like this

[querist]

Having returned from my second trip to China, I still find it amazing that it is easier for me, as a foreigner, to enter China than it is for me, as a US citizen (born a US citizen to parents who were US citizens, etc.) to enter the US after a trip abroad.

I just pretty much walked right through in China - I handed them the entry form (one half of the two part form - the other half you give them when you leave) and they waved me through. Customs in China did not even ask to see my laptop, never mind read files or anything like that.

On returning to the US at Detroit International, I was given the 3rd degree by US Customs agents, and I'm a US Citizen. "How long were you in China?" (as if he couldn't tell by the side-by side entry/departure stamps in my passport) "What were you doing there?" (visiting friends) "What do these friends do for a living?" (A couple of college professors and a financial analyst)

This happened on both of my trips.

And I noticed that they were doing this to EVERYONE, not just me. (The plane had several hundred people on it.) I'd hate to see what they were doing to Chinese citizens entering the US.

I hope they realize that they are going to scare businesses away from the US if they keep this up.

I find it somewhat ironic that the captcha for this post is "undergo".

Re:US Customs has always been like this

[Dionysus]

I didn't have any problems flying into SFO or Chicago last times I went through those airports. Then again, I was on a student visa at the time.

Addendum:US Customs has always been like this

[querist]

Just to spare the speculation, etc: I'm caucasian, of Western European descent, so no, I don't look "Middleastern" or "Asian" or anything else. Just your typical "white male".

Two Drives

[Archangel Michael]

Some of today's higher end laptops have easily removable Hard Drives (some multiple drives). It shouldn't take more than a minute or two to replace a functional secondary HD for Customs, and have the other drive tucked into your bag.

Though, they'll probably protest the phillips driver you'll have to carry to accomplish this, because you know that is a dangerous weapon.

Not dual boot; the network IS the computer

[Junior J. Junior III]

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. Probably pretty well unless they're doing full-disk imaging, in which case the Linux partition is still in their hands when you walk away. Best thing to do is not to take a *computer* with you when you travel, but rather take a *terminal* with you (or find one), and use a secure connection to your computer, safely still at home, and then access your data, accounts, apps, etc. over that secure connection.

Re:Not dual boot; the network IS the computer

[sexconker]

Yeah, but if you've got a lightweight laptop with you, with nothing interesting on it, they'll head straight to your house and snoop around your PC, and anything else they think is interesting.

All the while, you're on vacation, completely unaware.

But hey, maybe they'll feed your fish while you're away.

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.

Re:Problem?

[shentino]

Yes it's wrong to buck the system and cause trouble for other people.

However, I advocate cooperation simply because conniption causes more porblems than it solves. I would protest this however I could, legally, by picketing or voting or radio station callins.

Just because it's wrong to buck a system doesn't make the system right.

We have a bill of rights for a reason, and getting all panicky and security crazed is just going to let someone powerful step in and take over.

If you give up your freedom, you invite a tyrant. Trusting the government to do everything right only works with saints, which humans most definitely aren't. It's why we have checks and balances.

Simplest solution. Canada

[arthurpaliden]

Have all your US and overseas clients meet each other in Toronto, Vancouver or anywhere in Canada for that matter.

Re:embolden?

[indifferent children]

That's cromulent.

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. :)

Truecrypt + Thumbdrive = Hidden OS

[Gregoyle]

There are a couple of ways to hide your data; one is to have two Truecrypt volumes, one hidden and one standard. This is easy, but it still lets the customs agent know you are using Truecrypt. This may not be a problem in the US (right now) but what about other countries where simply knowing about a program like Truecrypt could look suspicious?

This post on the Truecrypt forums describes a way to install two OSes, one for show, and one hidden. Unless there is a Truecrypt rescue CD or bootable USB thumbdrive inserted the system will boot to a normal Windows desktop. This method would hold up to any casual sort of inspection, such as those customs agents carry out dozens of times per day. There are a couple of traces that would need to be removed in order to actually have "plausible deniability", but to me not having the questions asked in the first place is preferable to being able to deny one of the potential answers.

It's sad that you might need to do things like this, but there are often technological solutions to social problems.

Re:Problem?

[GottMitUns]

Your comment implies that the government and its representatives are infinitely kind and benevolent. That is not so. There is but one step from arbitrary airport search to Guantanamo. This is Slashdot. Government is evil.

Re:Problem?

[japhering]

What's the problem here? Is this a matter of principle or is there something to hide?

The problem is that it is plan and simple grab to take away our rights under the 4th amendment without any probably cause or do process.

Not to mention that it does NOTHING to improve the security of our borders.

And it is seemingly becoming the new standard by which TSA agents get laptops for friends and family members. Confiscate the laptop, telling the poor smuck that it will be returned shortly after the disk is cloned for professional examination. Voila, laptop never comes back.. lots of cases and complaints on file of this particular situation.

Principles

[pryoplasm]

Things like privacy are sacred to some people, and unimportant to others. People who advocate that they have nothing to hide is all well for them, however it does not apply to every single person in the world.

And it does not necessarily have to be work related, or something proprietary that can be stolen and sold for cash. Perhaps it is embarassing information on the person, private pictures of family, or something else that is legal and legitimate to keep private. If you have no problem forceing big brother on yourself, that is ok. That just doesn't work for everybody...

A steganographic file system? Psssh.

[CatOne]

Dude, Sandra Bullock can crack that.

So can Tom Cruise, and that's without invoking Xenu.

FAIL.

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:but without being dishonest.

[Dare nMc]

Then swap laptops with a co-worker 1) without them knowing the password 2) make sure he takes the secured data through security after you, here's why:

Then they'd have to ask you to...

that is where the ultimate question comes, if you can access the data, and it is their, then are you willing to commit a felony (lie to a federal agent) to protect the privacy of that data. (most likely my company's data.)
Thats clearly a big NO for myself.
IE if I true crypt a partition, I know it will be (within all reason) safe from "offline attack" like a imaged drive. So if the agent doesn't ask, and just snoops or copies this is not helpful to them. If the agent simply asks, do you have any encrypted data, and show me all of it. Assuming your not willing to commit a felony (granted a nearly impossible felony to prove), the you have limited options not really helped by true-crypt, over just a encrypted file. IE you can either say No, in a nice way like, "I have to talk to my company lawyer for permission" or give it up.

swapping laptops helps the second person the most, cause their not telling a lie when they state either, "not that I know of" or "it's my company's equipment not mine, I cannot access anything more than..." Since the guy with the password is "in the clear" since challenges to him have to fall under the full US constitution. If the guy with the password is standing behind you, well...

Re:Problem?

[ledow]

My own opinions on your blinkeredness shall remain unsaid. I'm sure you can guess them.

First, I'm not American. I have visited but these incidents literally remove the country from the list of viable or "safe" foreign countries I could travel to.

"I carry corporate source, designs and some customer data on my laptop. Yes, it would be a problem if it were made public. I encrypt it, but do not hide it. I see no reason that a border guard, a TSA guard or even the (whisper) NSA would choose to give it to a competitor if they had it."

-Several thousand dollars.
- Industrial espionage.
Even in the UK, some staff at airports have been caught selling on items stolen from baggage, there's nothing to stop a corrupt official doing so. By giving them to ability and "legitimate" reason to search ANY laptop for ANY reason, it's inviting problems.

- A letter from Microsoft offering a reward for non-licensed or pirate software.
- Anything that could accidentally tag you as a terrorist.
Customs officer browsing through my web history: You read wikileaks lately? We'll have that as evidence of, in your own words, being an anarchist.
- THIS POST. Say I took a laptop with a copy of my posting history to slashdot to the US... they could EASILY use this very post against me. Evidence of "wanting to avoid customs" or some such rubbish.

"What's the problem here? Is this a matter of principle or is there something to hide?"

Neither. It's my data. You have no right to go through it without reasonable suspicion FIRST. And then in a certified, supervised way to ensure you keep within your stated use of the data. No other civilised country in the world currently does this and the UK has been dealing with terrorism for FAR, FAR longer than the US has (a UK airport security expert was told that he was "being paranoid" before 9/11 when he visited a US airport and complained about their lax security - within days he was on BBC News recounting the tale because 9/11 happened).

My workplace cannot even throw a hard drive out with having it professionally destroyed, whether it's been exposed to confidential data or not. What makes you think I can let a customs officer copy it without MASSIVE assurances of everywhere the data could end up? The chances are I'd be in a questioning room while all the copying was going on.

"Consider how important your data is to a customs official. News flash: I'd bet a lot that they don't give a rat's ass what you've got, as long as it's not illegal. If it's illegal, then the problem is totally different and you have no right to complain about it."

Define illegal. I think you'll find it depends on jurisdiction, for a start, and includes such things as data protection laws. This is the problem.

As a business, I would be required to NOT TAKE SOME DATA into the US because of this - UK and EU data protection laws means that I *can't* let anyone see it, whether or not it's "secret". If your salesman is going to have to break British law to make a sale in the US, then he's not going to GO to the US. Or he'll have to take the steps mentioned in this article.

Say my office gave me a laptop with copy of Windows that was installed from a pirate key... that's "illegal". I could get detained *without reasonable suspicion* and possibly convicted because of that. Say I *don't know* the password to an "encrypted-looking" file on the laptop (like, I don't know, say a database contained within a business program accessed only by Word macros or company-created utilities - I have seen many such systems loaded on laptops for employee use). I'm detained until I release it.

It's not that I have anything illegal under US law - the US is not the world, though. Things that the US does are considered illegal in other countries. Let's not go too far down that avenue because it's just too easy to get into country-bashing.

It's that the US customs have no reason to demand inspections without reasonable suspicion. They certainly s

Re:Problem?

[Wog]

Your losses are horrible, but they don't make you an authority on either security or my rights.

Please explain to me how searching hard drives is "securing the border" when we live in the age of the internet. I don't mind a customs agent making sure that my laptop is, in fact, a laptop, but asking a marginally-trained TSA employee to examine all the data on a computer within the few minutes is like asking someone from your lawn service to do a five-minute inspection of a 2" square patch of vinyl siding to determine whether you have a mold problem in your basement.

In both cases you're asking the wrong guy to look at the wrong things, giving him no time or tools to do his "search", and then wondering why it didn't do anything to actually improve the situation.

If it's illegal, then the problem is totally different and you have no right to complain about it. We have every right to complain. Since when have law and morality been linked in this country?

We have arrived!

[erroneus]

Some would say we have arrived long ago, but this is certainly a telling mark.

We are discussing "hiding legal and unincriminating" stuff so that we don't get hassled by government police. We have gone far beyond the "if you don't have anything to hide, you have nothing to fear" argument where now, even when you don't you have plenty to fear... in this case, potential loss of ability to work!!

They have been going too far for a while, but this is a point at which even the most common person can appreciate and understand the problem with this.

If the EFF were buying "public awareness" ad time on TV, radio and print (I haven't seen any if they already are) I'd donate $100 each month from now until "we've won" whatever that means. I'm sick of this.

Re:We have arrived!

[erroneus]

Encrypting data or not is not the issue. It's that they can and will seize your devices. They can and will copy your data. And if, on principle alone, you resist, they can and will make your life even more miserable.

The TSA is not the government police doing the searches and seizures -- that would be Customs. TSA does not carry guns... Customs does.

Paranoia is fear without basis in evidence of common practice. I would say there is ample evidence of common practice. Unless, of course, you call it paranoia that a speeder would be afraid he might get a ticket for speeding. In this case, the fear is based on previous examples of such unreasonable searches and seizure. In all other areas of law, this would be warrantless and identified as a fishing expedition. It is amazing that this practice has passed a court ruling in its favor.

I'm going to leave the country in a couple of months and let me tell you, I plan on installing a new hard drive in my laptop with only the bare essentials installed on it leaving everything else at home. That's really not enough, though. If I were to be targeted by either my own government or a foreign one, I am hopeful that I can convince them to just take my hard drive and leave my expensive computer in my custody. I can't just buy new machines when some jerk decides to hold onto it for an undetermined amount of time. We're talking about expensive gear being taken without cause of suspicion and no accountability.

I'll grant that I've never actually even been hassled by Customs before. In fact, my last three trips out of the country and my last three returns have been completely hassle-free and neither the US TSA or the foreign country's security screeners even opened my luggage or checked my carry-ons beyond an ordinary scan. But with what's going on, can anyone really count on not being hassled or having your gear taken?

And I sure as hell don't want to have to resort to cloak-n-dagger crap just to appease screeners who have never seen Linux before.

Re:embolden?

[gstoddart]

That's so 15th century, Bruce. How about "encourage"?

Because ... they mean different things? No, seriously.

We have a whole plethora of words at our disposal with which to convey subtly nuanced meaning and/or sound like pompous gits, depending on the gravity and artifice of the situation. Why, the sheer range of verbal and literary shenanigans available to us is both rejuvenating and invigorating -- allowing us to express ourselves through many permutations of linguistic machinations. ;-)

I suppose we could go the 1984 route and strip out all of the words for which people think there is no longer a valid purpose. That way we'd all come down to a nice, easy level of communication, and eventually strip certain kinds of thoughts from people.

In the meantime, some of us will reinforce the veracity of our arguments and interactions with our more polysyllabic linguistic choices to more adequately articulate the lucidity of our positions on topical considerations.

Cheers

This probably won't work, but:

[Ralph Spoilsport]

it would be funny.

Using Director or some similar app, make a "movie" that looks and acts like a BSOD or a "Sad Mac with chimes of Death" play on start up. They start it up, it seems to boot fine, then suddenly it "BSOD's" or the Sad Mac comes out and DING DING DONG" and goes black.

Then you get to yell at then for fucking up your laptop, and demand they buy you a new one RIGHT NOW GOD DAMN IT. And make 'em feel guilty. "LOOK - MY COMPUTER - THEY KILLED MY COMPUTER!!!" Start to cry about how much work you just lost because those numbskulls broke your computer.

They'll close it, right quick, and give it back to you and put you on your plane and hope you shut up.

Maybe?

RS

Re:This probably won't work, but:

[Two9A]

No, they'll take you away for disturbing the peace, and you won't see the light of day for a long, long time.

Mind you, I didn't even have to do that last time I flew into Newark. Looking brown and having a Pakistani name is enough to hold you for 6 hours.

Re:Make it not boot

[Lieutenant_Dan]

Should have been clearer. Flying to Toronto to Buffalo; so it was effectively entering the US. US Customs are on site in Toronto Canada.

Obvious solution

[Sir_Lewk]

ipods. I mean, come on, they're nothing more than several dozen GB thumbdrives, you can easily put all your stuff on there and carry it with you without suspicion.

Suspiciously unsuspicious

[dazedNconfuzed]

(volumes cannot be distinguished from random data)

Aye, there's the rub.

Most files CAN be distinguished from random data. If not outright human-readable (text, XML, etc.), they start with header data which can be visually recognized with a little experience. File sizes are predictably reflective of the directory context. Browsing the rest of a file's content usually reveals non-random components.

TrueCrypt claiming to be indistinguishable from "random data" is kinda like the hotel security guy who was checking out my activity when I was bored (playing with video camera menu settings, waiting for someone) in a hotel lounge. It was obvious he was hotel security because he didn't have any official-looking paraphanalia AND was dressed in "I'm trying to blend in but don't know how" attire. It was obvious he was checking out my activity because he wandered close, looked around like he was looking for someone, and left - when there was absolutely nobody else in the lounge. And from his "I'm not hotel security, no really" dress & demeanor, I knew something would come of it - manifest a few minutes later when the Federal Marshals showed up.

A TrueCrypt file (or partition) hits the "uncanny valley" realm: it tries so hard to blend in that we become keenly & deeply aware that it doesn't; the deep-seated human mechanism for sensing "something is wrong here" kicks in.

It stands out precisely because it so completely doesn't.

Re:Suspiciously unsuspicious

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly don't understand what you are talking about. When you create a Truecrypt volume, the empty space is initialized with random data.

The hidden volume that you set up is then within the the empty space of an existing Truecrypt volume. Nobody can tell without having the key whether there is a hidden volume or not since it looks exactly like the random data that the empty space was initialized with.

Re:Suspiciously unsuspicious

[Jozef Nagy]

I'm sorry, but truecrypt volumes have no header....

Sorry, but TC volumes DO have a header. If you read through the documentation there's a section on backups. In it it states that you should backup your volume headers. Heck, even the GUI in KDE Linux for TC has an option to export or import a volume header.

Here's the link to the documentation on backing up volume headers: http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=backing-up-volumes-and-headers

Holy Shit!

[hassanchop]

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...

That's amazing, you'd better get that info to the 9th circuit (where the decision was made), I can't believe they'd overlook something like that... /sarcasm

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

Have you read the judgment? That might be a good place to start.

Re:He used tinyurl for a link, WTF?

[noidentity]

See TinyURLs are evil URLs. Why does the URL length matter when linking on the web? For example, the link above has a fairly long URL, but it's not a problem. There's no reason to use a URL shortening service for links on web pages.

The reason such services should only be used where actually necessary, like in print or when verbally relaying a URL, is that they are a good way to hide the site. By using them unnecessarily for web links, users become less wary of them, making it easier for malicious uses. It's the same reason banks and similar entities should not send email with links to their site.

the last time this happened to me...

[Cookie3]

Customs agents (US and Japanese) stopped me several times over the years to inspect my laptop. In every case that I can remember I was able to dodge "inspection" by simply saying that I couldn't turn my laptop on because no battery was installed (which was the truth). I would only carry a power cord in my laptop case, no batteries.

My battery was actually located in a separate carry-on; a backpack or a suitcase or some such.

I guess if they were really interested in the laptop they could've plugged it in to a wall outlet and gotten into it that way.. but they never asked to do that.

Need One of These

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Put all your important data on one of these - or better yet, don't rip the cable up - leave it alone so it looks like any other cable.

Fixed

[HalAtWork]

No, that would be seizing it. They need an excuse to seize it. Customs can search without cause, and they can seize things by giving an excuse.

There, fixed that for you.

Security through Obscurity requires Good Camo

[gobbo]

[theory, of course]
What is this, people? Waving flags screaming "I'm hiding something!"

If I actually had something to hide, say, key NDA-restricted docs, and I HAD to carry them on me, I wouldn't put up red flags like obvious encryption or a partition with some weird-ass hippiecommie suspicious linux install. If you want to fly below radar, you need stealth.

First: a vanilla install of windows or macOS. Standard business apps, standard documents folder with typical usage, such as correspondence, presentations, expenses, etc.

Second: family photos. Friends on vacation, etc. Make them more than typical: lots of them, and innocuous. If you're too straightlaced to keep personal stuff on your computer, that's suspicious too.

Third: on a different computer, encrypt your files with decent encryption, AES or something, using strong password. Make sure the file name isn't interesting. Doesn't matter, if a professional gets the files, they'll be cracked; the point is to keep them unobserved, so this part's kind of optional.

Fourth: mask them inside innocuous files like the photos. Transfer them to your laptop. Now you're camouflaged. Smile, respect, make eye contact, be naturally a tiny bit nervous but with nothing to hide.

The secret to security? don't get caught.

[/theory]

For the fifty thousandth time

[SuperBanana]

Hidden volume

Only on Windows. On MacOS X and Linux, this is not available, for unstated reasons.

get free tech support

[TRRosen]

Next time your laptop breaks down leave the country and come back in and let the TSA figure out whats wrong. Better yet just to screw with them every time you go out of the country buy a cheap busted laptop and carry in though customs.

Very BAD advice...

[Bazman]

He gives one piece of very bad advice, on the subject of keeping your data on a big memory card and keeping it in your wallet. He says:

'If someone does discover it, you can try saying: "I don't know what's on there. My boss told me to give it to the head of the New York office."'

  Never ever lie to customs guys. If they ring your boss and he denies it, or if you later change your story and say "oh yes, that's really all my files", or if you can't instantly give the address of the fictional 'New York office', then you better start relaxing in preparation for them gloving up to see if you are hiding any other memory cards.

  Same with hidden partitions. If, by sheer bad luck, you do encounter a tech-savvy customs guy and he says 'have you got any hidden partitions on here?', say 'Yes'. Better than saying 'No' and having them find out later.

  I'm not saying roll over and give them everything - you have rights - just don't lie.

"Good faith"

[marxmarv]

Law enforcement has "good faith" exceptions to just about every rule in the book. Besides that, the AAs need the lawyers and guns on their side to ensure a predictable market for bubblegum teen music. Would you give that up for one shot at a paltry $222k?

"or"

[spazdor]

You know Sudan's on a whole other continent, right?

That's the beauty of it... and the pitfall...

[Animaether]

...you can't prove there isn't one. Neither can they prove that there is. They may argue that it's likely, but whatever.

However, it's also one of the pitfalls. They're not 100% stupid and I wouldn't put it past them to say "okay, then you won't mind if I zero out all the stuff that you claim doesn't have any data". That wouldn't take particularly long, so what is your defense going to be?

However, I don't know if they can actually write data to your machine; I think the current provisions are read-only? whatever.

Actually, the do

[Anonymous Coward]

And I know a few there. They were TOTAL idiots when I worked them. I have every reason to believe they remain in the same position. In fact, DHS is probably the dept, where the major qualifier for getting in, was belonging to the republican party.

Pussies

[PingXao]

Anyone who does NOT refuse a border agent's request to "type your password" is a coward and not worthy to call themselves an American IMO. It may seem like a small thing, a way to avoid being detained and hassled all day, but it's the little things like this that define the boundary of where our freedoms are being slowly stripped away.

The old Ben Franklin statement about those who would trade liberty for security comes to mind. It's a shame when people say, "It's all about the benjamins," that it's not THAT sentiment they're talking about. Stand up for your rights NOW - no matter how "inconvenient" it may be - or soon you won't have any to worry about. Sheeple, indeed. Pussies is more like it.

Re:Pussies

[Ant P.]

Okay.

You go first, we'll follow your example.

Put It Elsewhere

[nick_davison]

Buy two MicroSD cards.

Put one in a camera. Leave a whole bunch of inane pictures of it.

Use the second one as your main file store. At $20-25 for a 4GB card, they're cheap. They're also 15x11mm, so small you'll "lose" them - oops - in your checked luggage and are never going to be spotted by a bored inspector, that barely graduated highschool, watching hundreds of thousands of large bags going by.

Alternatively, stick it in a GameBoy DS. They have SD readers. Look utterly bored as you wander through, in flight toy in hand. Odds of their bothering to inspect a children's toy and find something that looks like it's supposed to be there anyway, are next to zero.

At customs, look bored, hand over your largely empty laptop and meaningless digital camera.

Let them copy off anything they feel like. Don't fight it. Don't complain. Let them think they've got everything.

Once you're back on the other side, put the other card back in, get access to your files again.

No, it won't stop them if they're utterly convinced you're a terrorist. They'll take everything apart and will eventually find that tiny thing. The abusive copying of anyone's crap, with no grounds for suspicion, is going to leave them copying junk that means nothing to them. There's simply no time to search everyone to the degree they'd find the few people with a MicroSD card. And, even if they do, it's a totally legitimate thing to do so you can claim total ignorance.

4GB should be plenty for most trip type info. Sensitive business docs should easily fit in to that. If you store porn on your laptop, leave it on an external drive at home for when you get back. If you really must have some with you, if you need more than 4GB, it's time to admit you've got issues.

Socialism and freedom

[LandOfConfu$ion]

I'm coming from the "land of the free" to one of those wacky socialist European countries.

I know it's hard for US residents brainwashed during the cold war, but socialism is not an alternative to freedom or even to democracy . Socialism is an alternative economic system and as such would be an alternative to capitalism .

How about steganography MPG cheap hack?

[naz404]

Video files are expected to be large and thus won't arouse too much suspicion if you hide your data in them.

Just append bigg-ish data in binary format to highly compressed mpeg files.

That'll keep allow 'em to play in media players, thus avoiding suspicion.

Just remember at what index/byte point you appened it so you can snip out the "header" mpeg file.

Solutions

[farbles]

1. When conferences are being organized, avoid US sites right there in the planning stage. (This is already happening in my field.)

2. When travelling to a US conference, travel with a blank default install Windows or Mac box with no personal or private data on it at all. Do not carry any form of data with you (whether encrypted or not). If it is necessary to access private data, do it over an encrypted connection to the non-US based home server using a terminal session. No data is stored on the portable computer. If the hard drive is seized, there is nothing to get. (This is the solution being used by local doctors and lawyers travelling to the US where there are no privacy laws.)

Anything on your person when travelling to the US can be seized and you can be forced to give any passwords to anything encrypted.

Obama bin Laden must orgasm every single night at how spectacularly successful the 9/11 attacks were. It has to be the greatest success story of any kind thus far in the 21st century. Hate the guy all you want, he got everything he could ever want and then some.

Re:Solutions

[Atti K.]

Obama bin Laden must orgasm every single night at how

My vote for the typo of the day!

And the number one safety tip

[archont]

Make a boot loader that plays islamic religious songs and displays a three minute countdown in big red digits in addition some arabic text. The bigger and older the laptop the better the effect. The only problem with this little trick is that there's a high chance you'd be offered a free and unconditional tour of one of the US military facilities along with a hands-on waterboarding demonstration.