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Whitehat Hacker Moxie Marlinspike's Laptop, Cellphones Seized
Orome1 writes "The well-known whitehat hacker and security researcher who goes by the handle Moxie Marlinspike has recently experienced firsthand the electronic device search that travelers are sometimes submitted to by border agents when entering the country. He was returning from the Dominican Republic by plane, and when he landed at JFK airport, he was greeted by two US Customs officials and taken to a detention room where they kept him for almost five hours, took his laptop and two cell phones and asked for the passwords needed to access the encrypted material on them."
I'm still not giving up my passwords on fifth amendment grounds even if I have nothing to hide. In fact I've told a TSA goon exactly that when they asked me to login to my laptop at a screening checkpoint. They could see it wasn't a bomb from the xray and by me powering it up, the only thing that logging in could have possibly done is get me into trouble for the contents of my machine.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I travel to the US a lot for business. What I do is Fedex my "real" hdd to the hotel I'm planning on staying at, usually 1 day before travel to the US is enough for it to be there waiting for me when I arrive at check-in (obviously its an encrypted disk).
I travel with my laptop, with a small capacity hdd that has a clean install, some common oss apps installed, some bogus documents downloaded from scribed, some fake e-mail accounts with credentials saved in firefox and some typical surfing history. The aim is to make them feel like they've found the stuff they're looking for and that there isn't anything worth pursuing - rather than trying to be a smart-ass that makes them even more intent on performing those unwanted rectal examinations. I've had my laptop taken twice in the last 3 years, and on both occasions after providing access details, I was given the laptop back within 5-10mins, other people i know that tried to screw over the TSA/customs by not providing all the access details they wanted, ended up never seeing their machines again.
Though now with the new scanners at play in the airports, I'm trying to reduce my travel to the US to a minimum. If I have to travel, I charge a premium for the various inconveniences endured, most clients are sympathetic and pay without much fuss.
The courts, in point of fact, allow warrentless searches anywhere within 100 miles of the border, regardless of if you are, were, or ever planned to traverse the border. 190 million US citizens live within this region. Also, it is worth noting that the "4th amendment border exclusion" principle appears nowhere in the constitution. It's invented, unauthorized law. If they wanted it, the legitimate path to it was through article V. Consequently, it represents (yet another) usurped power.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I brought a just an internal sata hard drive to Canada from the US, while in Canada I wiped it clean. On the way back into the US they stopped me for a few hours.. They seemed to not get the concept of bring just a hard drive, I think if it would have been an external drive they wouldn't have gave me so much grief. When I got home there were large files all over the drive.. I can only assume they did that to overwrite anything hidden on the drive, which there wasn't. I found it to be a long waste of time and the people to be a bit clueless.....
s/©//g
The problem is not that computers are somehow different to papers.. if you were carrying papers across the border they'd be searched too. The problem is that, for some stupid reason, there's an exception to the 4th amendment around borders.. and that got extended into airports as being "effectively borders".. even when you're not flying international..
And what did people expect to happen? You exempt the government from honoring the 4th amendment in some "special" places that most people regularly visit.. you didn't expect them to apply common sense and decency did you?
How we know is more important than what we know.
So...
Whatever happened to him in the mean time is OK so long as it reaches a satisfactory conclusion?
Most^H^H^H^H Some Slashdotters are smart enough to understand that the ends never justify the means, that this person was picked on, detained for 5 hours and subjected to an invasive search was _not_ all well and good because he got his laptop back.
In the end, I'd put good money on this person being picked up because he was coming in from the Dom Rep rather then because he was Moxie Marlinspike. The TSA likes to pick on single males coming in from potential sex tourism destinations, perhaps because it's the low hanging fruit. Bust a few guys coming back from the Philippines with some home made porn (a pic of a naked Pinay is not hard to get) and make it look like you're doing a great job, after all who would defend these dirty sex pests (they are probably all pedo's anyway). Incompetence rather then malice, but the end result is the same.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
If the government had to build giant platforms 10 miles out to sea and require all people entering to stop there before coming into the country so their stuff could be inspected, they would. The courts give them some leeway as a nod to the fact that would be ridiculous for people trying to come in.
There is no rational justification for extending that "platform" to one hundred miles inland from the actual border.
As to "leeway", how about the recent case of a citizen of New Zealand who was flying direct to Canada. A mechanical emergency on the plane required it to land in Hawaii. All occupants were herded out into an open area in full sun, where they were required to stand for up to two hours while being interrogated, The citizen in question was, with all others, required to fill out a questionnaire including "Why do you want to enter the United States?", to which he responded, "I don't".
When he finally was allowed to have the questionnaire read, the TSA bitch gave him a hard time about his answer. He said, "I had no intention of entering the US -- the plane made a forced landing for reasons outside my control."
The bitch finally let him go.
Can anyone answer any of the following questions:
Why is not the "smartest nation on earth" not able to anticipate that a plane might have to make an emergency landing in the US?
Why were these people not simply sequestered outside of customs and allowed to reboard whatever plane was supplied for the rest of the trip?
Why were they treated worse than animals, with no shade or water? Even animals are protected by laws regarding reasonable maintenance. I know this because I have a relative who sends racing pigeons in crates to Hawaii, where they are released to race back to the mainland.
Why are passengers required to fill out all the bullshit when there is no intention to land in the US, just to perhaps fly OVER the tip of Maine.
What are the odds of a passenger on such a flight busting out of the plane and parachuting onto our glorious countryside?
Hilarious -- the captcha is "atrocity".
Uh, I don't know about you, but I would prefer to keep possession of my OTHER computer equipment. If you haven't realized already the authorities in most countries can seize "everything" given a good enough excuse.
When they figure out the truth, they could pretend to take you way more seriously than you ever want. And you would have given them the paperwork to cover their asses for it.
Perhaps you can do what you propose, then the rest of us can discuss the resulting story on Slashdot.
Actually, you might try rigging up a USB adapter for those old RLL disks and then just using an RLL drive mailing the adapter to you at home. Let's see how long it takes them to figure out how to access that data. Or better yet, you'd be limited to a minute amount of data, but those old 8" floppy disks have to be hard to read these days.
I have to say that after my last trip (on business) to the USA, I would never consider it a suitable tourist destination for myself or my family.
From the moment I debarked the plane at LAX I very much felt that I (and everyone else) was being treated like a criminal.
How dare we (foreigners) enter the glorious US of A -- the most wonderful nation in all the world?
The gentleman who walked the very long queue of people waiting to clear immigration repeatedly threatened (not warned -- *threatened*) all those present with severe penalties if we didn't correctly fill out the forms he was handing out.
The official who inspected my passport didn't welcome me to the USA and invite me to enjoy my stay -- the treated me (and everyone else) with massive suspicion and contempt -- making it very clear that *they* had all the power and that I was a someone who ought to be eternally grateful for being allowed to enter the country.
Is that really the way to treat visitors?
And as for the latest usurping of citizens rights in respect to searches -- well I feel very sorry for the USA.
It is (although perhaps somewhat less-so these days) truly a great nation, built on principles of integrity and freedom. Unfortunately (as they say) "Power Corrupts" and it would appear that those in power have seized the opportunity to use terrorism as justification for unreasonably extending the degree of power they now exert over the people who elected them to *serve*.
Every day that the sacred provisions and protections of The Constitution are ignored by the US Government is another day on which the Islamic fundamentalists can claim another victory.
Instead of fighting on their feet, the citizens of the USA are now living on their knees -- having compromised the very principles (The Constitution) that made their nation so great.
Of course it *is* a democracy so perhaps those of you who are US citizens might want to think about exercising those democratic rights (before they too are taken from you in the name of "the war against terror" and installing a government who appreciates that the principles of The Constitution are still worth fighting for and that no bunch of Islamic fundamentalists should be allowed to usurp them by way of a campaign of terror.
Perhaps it's time for a referendum to allow the US people to decide whether the constitution should be abolished because right now, it appears that such an abolition is happening by stealth -- and by the time the people wake up to that fact, it may well be too late. The very rights this document bestows on citizens will be lost and thus even the power to protect those rights will have gone forever.
Just my 0010 cent's worth.
It is _trivial_ to transmit data undetected into the US (nice to meet you, internet. how long have you been there?); what justification is there for searching laptops in the first place?
But you have to transmit the data to something. One of the things they look for when searching a laptop are clues as to which server systems you've been logging into. If they see by your browser history, for example, that you regularly visit hotmail.com, you'll probably be asked to log into your e-mail account so they can look for things there. If they don't find too many documents on your computer, they'll ask where you store them and have you log in there, as well. So, while the laptop might not contain the illegal data, it might contain clues as to where the Customs officers may find them.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?