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Australia Air Travelers' Laptops To Be Searched For Porn

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the all-real-problems-solved dept.

bluetoad writes "Australian customs officers have been given the power to search incoming travelers' laptops and mobile phones for porn. Passengers must declare whether they are carrying pornography on their Incoming Passenger Card. The Australian government is also planning to implement an Internet filter. Once these powers are in places, who knows how they will be used."

7 of 647 comments (clear)

  1. So... by epiphani · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So they can search for porn. What can they do if they find it? Is porn illegal in Australia now?

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    1. Re:So... by dncsky1530 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is only the latest in a string of censorship proposals that the government claims are targeted towards protecting people from child pornography.

      As the article says, if child porn is the issue then why not just limit it to that? The same question has been asked about the proposed internet filter, which the government also claims is for protecting people from child porn but has been extended to cover all refused classification material.

      Just as filtering the internet as has been proposed isn't really feasible (at least with little impact on speed), I highly doubt customs agents would or can search the tons of laptops and phones coming into Australia. All it would take is one person with 10GB of porn to keep them busy for a couple hours.

    2. Re:So... by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Photos of Iran from before the Islamic revolution of 1979. It's happened before and it could happen again.

  2. Imagine this... by ZeroExistenZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Scenario 1:
    You have a drive full of happy family pictures, with your 2yo running around naked on the beach.

    Scernario 2:
    You lend your laptop to your 14-15yo something teen for homework or an assignment, who ends up collecting sexy pictures of current love-interest or webcamfling, or whatever. You walk through security with a confident smile because you don't look at pron (on that laptop).

    You're jolly entering Australia for a nice warm vacation or business, but you did not get in because you're now in jail for childpornography.

    "Sir, did you leave your laptop unguarded? Did you pack your laptop yourself?"

    Australia, it could happen to you!

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    I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
  3. Yep, that's exactly right by BenEnglishAtHome · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Probably it just means corporate and national security outfits will have all sensitive data pass through a nice strong VPN connection. The laptop you carry through customs will be freshly formatted and ready for any amount of probing.

    That's exactly the way we do it. We send people to France with some regularity and it's illegal to take an encrypted device into that country. Thus, we wipe the machine and put a base, unencrypted image on it. User flies to France. Once inside, an encypted blob of user data is VPN'd to the local IT guy who puts it on the laptop. User does his job. Before flying out, local IT guy wipes the machine.

    If Australia is going to start insisting on poking around in our machines, we'll have to do the same for employees going there.

    Of course, if it's optional I imagine our folks won't be subjected to it. Those red passports open a lot of doors. :-)

    (Actually, I've never seen one of our "official business only" passports. International travelers have their official passports stored in a safe in Washington D.C. and only get them issued right before departure. So I'm not sure they're red but that's what I've been told.)

    1. Re:Yep, that's exactly right by BenEnglishAtHome · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Some of that I can answer, some I can't.

      Generally, we don't get any sort of diplomatic treatment when we travel abroad. Yes, tax attaches are housed at embassies. (The Paris assignment is much coveted.) But we're not diplomats in any legal sense. No diplomatic pouches for us.

      As for the actual mechanics of the process, it's a part of the culture. The IRS doesn't put sensitive data on any computer that's not owned by the IRS. (At least, as far as field workers are concerned this is true.) We also don't (again, a deeply-ingrained cultural thing) issue multiple computers to one person for extended periods nor do we leave spares in any place outside certain centralized equipment depots. We don't let our hardware be held by third parties except when absolutely necessary. The notion of picking up a computer in-country from the embassy and using it for day-to-day business falls completely outside our security culture.

      Remember, after Richard Nixon misused the agency, the IRS got severely slapped in many ways. We're more secure than most agencies. We pay far more attention to customer privacy. We're subject to far more oversight than most. Our people get led away in handcuffs for leaking information that wouldn't even get you fired in private industry. Given that background, our security folks insist that we keep control in-house to the extent possible, even when doing so is pretty darn inconvenient.

  4. Like some third world countries by cpghost · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A friend of mine usually puts a couple of Penthouse mags in his suitcase when traveling to some third world countries (North Africa in this case) on purpose to bribe local customs officers. Works like a charm every time: they "confiscate" the material and wave him through with a big grin without bothering him anymore with his electronic gadgets, netbooks, video cam etc... I guess Australia is finally catching up with those countries.

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    cpghost at Cordula's Web.