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."

Comments

First Post

[Ethanol-fueled]

Fuck the TSA goons. Those fucking low-rent frotteurs have it coming to them.

Re:First Post

[hairyfeet]

He is called a "hacker" which after Wikileaks is right up there with kiddie fiddler as far as the USA gov is concerned. As for what he has done according to the wiki he goes to Black Hat conferences and shows tools and ways to break into websites. Now I don't know how exactly that gets labeled as "white hat" except maybe that he isn't selling the hacks first, but if he isn't warning those affected first like Kaminsky did with the DNS flaw I'd say at best he is a gray hat.

Re:First Post

[kainosnous]

It seems to me that the "whitehat" lable is simply to make people feel sorry for him. This might work a little for a slashdot article, but if writing software to crack SSL was "whitehat" then that just helps to prove the case against most "hackers" (so-called by the media). Furthermore, he was being searched by customs after returning from a know drug smuggling point. This kind of thing is just muddying the waters when it comes to a much needed honest debate about security vs. privacy. It only makes my side (the pro privacy side) look week.

Nevertheless, I am still opposed to all of the misguided screenings from the government. I can see why customs might want to physically look through his laptop, but I strongly oppose them attempting to look at the data. I'm not sure what contraband they think could be in the data comming into the states. As for the TSA screenings being talked about lately, my concern is that when they do catch a terrorist, they let them go. IIRC, the underware bomber didn't even have his own passport and was allowed to board. Recently, we see a known war criminal tried and almost aquitted in a civil court. The way I see it, the governemnt doesn't care if we are safe, they just want more power to control.

Re:First Post

[kainosnous]

Reporting vulnerabilities is a lot different than making software to exploit them. Certainly, finding vulnerabilities is whitehat work, but there is a process to go through to make a reasonable attempt to make product vendors aware of flaws before releasing tools to exploit them. My point, however, is that rather than just presenting him as an ordinary guy, they chose to portray him as a "Whitehat Hacker". With all the misinformation on what a Hacker is, I think we should use a little more discretion. I propose that it may be his travel that sparks interest, and not just his vocation.

Re:Link to longer article at CNET

[Entropius]

The Right has too many Americans scared shitless of the brown people to the south. Will never happen.