NZ Traveler's Electronics Taken At Airport; Interest in Snowden to Blame?

An anonymous reader writes "A New Zealand backpacker stripped of all electrical equipment at Auckland airport suggests attending a London talk on cyber-security following the Edward Snowden leaks may be to blame. Samuel Blackman was returning home for Christmas on 11 December from London Heathrow to Auckland via San Francisco when a customs officer at his final destination took the law graduate's two smartphones, iPad, external hard drive and laptop, demanding the passwords for all devices." For a quieter version, see also The New Zealand Herald.

Comments

Highway Robbery

[Anonymous Coward]

It is baffling how easily civilization reverts to medieval behaviors.

Re:Highway Robbery

[i kan reed]

It's weird to me how Obama does all sorts of terrible things(most of which aren't new, but that's no excuse), but his primary antagonists seem to always be presenting the most discredited or irrelevant nonsense as defining evidence of his totalitarianism.

Re:Highway Robbery

[mrchaotica]

This, this, a thousand times this! Why the fuck do the the talk radio assholes blather on ad nauseum excoriating Obama for Obamacare when they could be calling him a totalitarian traitor to the Constitution instead?

(The answer, of course, is that the Republicans (and Democrats) are perfectly okay with totalitarianism.)

Re:Highway Robbery

[flanders123]

(The answer, of course, is that the Republicans (and Democrats) are perfectly okay with totalitarianism.)

Actually this is the "this".

The Snowden saga and politicians' and media response to it prove that there aren't 2 teams in politics. Dems and Republicans are part of the same corporation that pays them handsomely with the public's money.

It's like any professional sport organization (NFL, etc). Sure the teams are competitive to a point, but at the end of they game most of them don't give a rip and are chuckling and hugging each other, meeting for drinks and dinner afterwards.... Because they all get paid millions of the public's money, regardless who "wins" a single game. Only the public cares about that single game.

Same with American politics...The debates about healthcare, abortion. The elections. The political news shows. It is all just to see which team is best funded by the special interests. The special interests have big plans for the public's money and/or social behavior. In this system the politicians are always paid, at the public's expense.

It is no wonder why no politician or politically bent media organization will tip this system. It is their cash cow. We Americans need to wake up.

Re:Highway Robbery

[CanHasDIY]

Did you just mention "Rush" that senile, racist, sexist?

Even a broken clock is right twice a day, you know.

Your opinion is completely irrelevant go back to your confederate flag draped tent...

You know the difference between you and whoever you're attacking? All they did was mention the name of someone who, occasionally, gets one right; All you've done is attack them and imply that they're racists because they mentioned the name of someone you've obviously decided to form a personal vendetta against.

So, who's the irrelevant one here? Not the guy talking about Rush - at least he managed to stay on topic.

Re:Highway Robbery

[mrchaotica]

Lets contrast the two issues.

Indeed, let's.

One is blatant unconstitutional totalitarianism, and proof of acts of outright treason by scores of public servants (including the Commander-in-Chief!).

The other is additional regulation that makes an already-fucked-up-by-regulation industry a little more fucked up, a tax increase, and an incompetent IT project deployment (whoop-de-fucking-do).

It is blatantly obvious which issue every patriotic American (or indeed, every less-than-treasonous-himself American -- there is no 'no true Scotsman' fallacy happening here) should be more concerned about!

I'm sorry, you think it is a criminal act for a radio talk show host not to talk about what you want him to talk about and express only your opinions, and you are calling THEM "totalitarian assholes"?

I think the extent of their dereliction of their journalistic duty is so huge as to be figuratively criminal.

Double secret probation

[sandbagger]

We'll take your stuff, which you possibly use for your business or work, and won't tell you why, or for how long.

There need to be laws and yes, intelligence agencies, but barring a crime, this ends up being bad PR.

I Viviidly Remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

taking the piss out of the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain satellites nations and their citizens for the entire "Papers, please!" nonsense that occured whilst I was growing up in the 70s-80s. Is this crow I taste?

Re:I Viviidly Remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

Our lords have found a new enemy, and it's us.

Ok, so...

[BringsApples]

I guess the next step in this array of bullshit is for random folks to dress up like cops, secret service, airport authorities or any other scheme that fits the area, and detain people randomly and take their stuff. If enough people do this, then maybe people will remember why the fuck laws exist at all, and why the legal authorities have rules to follow as well. If we all allow for mere mankind to represent the universal authority (unquestionable authority; same authority that makes gravity a "law") then we're all doomed, as mankind is not fit for such authority.

Re:Ok, so...

[BringsApples]

Granted, after you do this, you're in for the full treatment, but that's a judgement call you need to make.

This is the mentality that these type of cops love, and wish everyone would develop. If you feel that by simply verifying that you're not about to get raped by someone who is acting outside the law, you are then "out of line" and deserve some form of "the full treatment" (whatever the hell that is) then you are the reason that things have lapsed into the state as they have. Allowing someone to push you around in ways that are illegal, simply because they represent the legal authority, is placating and nourishing the wrong mentality. What good do you expect to come from that? I'll tell you what. Eventually every woman and child will be anally probed by such "authorities" because they'll see you as weak and possibly doing wrong. Stand the fuck up for yourself when you're in the right. It's what the actual universal authorities demand! It's how things naturally balance themselves out.

Re:The lesson in this

[wonkey_monkey]

The lesson in this is NEVER carry sensitive information on you when entering an international airport.

That's not the lesson at all. This guy probably didn't have any sensitive information but that didn't stop his devices getting nicked.

The only people with lessons to learn are not the travellers but the security services unreasonably targetting them. Unfortunately, they're not interested in lessons.

Re:First

[rlp]

Looks like Saruman is now running The Shire.

The leaks are to blame!?

[Mister Liberty]

Don't play that game.

The Whole Issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole issue is contained in the US Constitution where it says,

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." - Amendment 4.

This needs to be a universal human rights declaration world wide and it needs to be a condition where no government is tolerated forcing people to give up their computers or their passwords. In the mean time anyone taking a computer on international travel is an idiot! We also need that every computer has a kill password where it is reset to factory default condition and the disk is wiped with a single password. You just give the government demanding your password the kill password and the game is over for them. Every OS should contain this in the future.

Re:The Whole Issue

[hawguy]

Standard forensic procedure is to keep everything in the condition it was in as far as possible. This includes removing drives and imaging them and working on images, and if your home is raided, and they anticipate you might be set up to destroy data on shutdown/loss of power, even going so far as to bring a generator along.

Fortunately, my home computer self-destructs based on its GPS location. Loss of signal or moving it more than 5 meters away from the house sets off the thermite.

Re:Figures

[SuricouRaven]

Here in the UK, refusal to give a password to the police upon request is itsself a crime.

Re:Figures

[Anonymous Coward]

Not many countries are worth traveling to these days but the UK and the US are probably on my bottom 10 list for reasons like this.

Re:Figures

[wonkey_monkey]

...my girlfriend...

Hah! You NSA boys have a got to learn about blending in on teh internets.

Re:know your rights

[sirkumi]

Sadly I don't think you have any rights - at least not in Australia - where I come from, and which has very similar customs laws to those of New Zealand.

It would appear that they can take any and all of your electronic devices and storage equipment - including laptops, smartphones, usb keys - and they don't have to explain why or state what "reasonable suspicion" they have that you might have something illegal. On the whim of the customs officer, they can keep it for 14 days, or longer if they feel they have cause to.

At most all you can do is lodge a complaint...

Detained in AKL but not SFO?

[Kagato]

The biggest surprise here is this happened in AKL instead of SFO. There is no transit freedom in the united states. If you're connecting you need to clear US customs and immigration and then re-check into your connecting flight. So if this was really a US demanded search one would think the phones and electronics would have been taken in SFO.

Re:Go ahead, take my stuff

[magic maverick]

Google Docs. Lol. You may as well just print your shit off and hand it to the authorities directly. In fact, print it off, and fax it to the national police forces of all the major anglophone countries (including NZ). Because if they want it, they'll get it from Google anyway.

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[Anonymous Coward]

You post is interesting but lacks whitespace. I will not be subscribing to your newsletter.

Re:Figures

[mrchaotica]

See http://www.androidauthority.com/smartphones-have-a-second-os-317800/

Cellphones have two processors, a main processor (running an open-source OS in the case of Android) and a baseband processor built into the modem chip (running a closed-source OS in all cases). The baseband processor can be used to hack the phone. For a phone to be truly secure, you need a firewall between the main memory and the baseband processor, and AFAIK no phone is designed that way (except this one).

Re:The lesson in this

[Anonymous Coward]

The lesson everyone is supposed to get is "Be afraid". It's not yet "Be very afraid", but just wait and we'll get there. So this guy was in a meeting where the Guardian editor Rusbridger was present. Perhaps that fact was what the intelligence services used to tag this guy as suspicious? If so this is sending a signal that you shouldn't be too (physically or intellectually) close to people like Rusbridger. This is a classic case of a "chilling effect" in action. If this isn't what the security services want, then they are stupidly incompetent. If it's what they want they are dangerously oppressive.

There doesn't seem to be any pleasant solution to this equation.

Re:Figures

[Hizonner]

In a phone, the GSM modem has its own CPU (and its own memory).

Most phones are based on SoCs (Systems on a Chip); everything's interconnected on the same silicon. Usually the GSM modem processor has access to the memory and I/O busses of the main processor (but not the other way around), can reset the main processor, and often boots before the main processor and must explicitly turn on the main processor before it runs. I believe that in some designs the modem processor actually sets up the boot loader for the main processor as well. The modem processor can definitely rewrite the flash where the main processor's operating system is stored.

The result of this is that the modem has total control of the phone. It can do anything it wants to any data on the phone, including the internals of the main OS, and there's basically nothing the main processor can do about it other than maybe be too obscure and complicated to manipulate easily.

The firmware in the modem is invariably closed source and secret. The modem will only boot firmware that's crypto-signed by the manufacturer, and anyway the hardware is totally undocumented.

The modems have "over the air" command sets that let the carrier manipulate the phone remotely without going through the main OS. Those command sets can be very rich... and can include the ability to reflash the main OS, or even to peek and poke its memory while it's running.

So on most (all?) phones, it basically doesn't matter what your OS is. The carrier (possibly together with the SoC manufacturer) can do whatever it wants if it's willing to figure out the complexity of doing so. And of course governments lean on carriers and SoC manufacturers to get access to that capability, and commercial "partners" also have influence.

Re:"Give us your passwords"

[Andrewkov]

No, that's my actual password, capital G and with spaces!

Re:I'm sure there is more to this story

[flyingfsck]

Whitespace is racist...

Re:Figures

[mrchaotica]

What you're missing is that people said the same thing regarding security concerns about all sorts of other things (SSL, TOR, deliberately-weakened key-generation algorithms, etc), but the Snowden leaks proved those concerns justified. Not all of the information Snowden found has been made public yet, so there's still opportunity for this concern to be proven justified too.

At this point, the only safe thing to do is to assume that if an attack is theoretically possible, then the NSA is exploiting it.