Should International Travelers Leave Their Phones At Home? (freecodecamp.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader Toe, The sums up what he learned from freeCodeCamp's Quincy Larson: "Before you travel internationally, wipe your phone or bring/rent/buy a clean one." Larson's article is titled "I'll never bring my phone on an international flight again. Neither should you." All the security in the world can't save you if someone has physical possession of your phone or laptop, and can intimidate you into giving up your password... Companies like Elcomsoft make 'forensic software' that can suck down all your photos, contacts -- even passwords for your email and social media accounts -- in a matter of minutes.... If we do nothing to resist, pretty soon everyone will have to unlock their phone and hand it over to a customs agent while they're getting their passport swiped... And with this single new procedure, all the hard work that Apple and Google have invested in encrypting the data on your phone -- and fighting for your privacy in court -- will be a completely moot point.
The article warns Americans that their constitutional protections don't apply because "the U.S. border isn't technically the U.S.," calling it "a sort of legal no-man's-land. You have very few rights there." Larson points out this also affects Canadians, but argues that "You can't hand over a device that you don't have."

Comments

Ways around this

[Anaerin]

Depending on how long you're staying, you could send your phone via courier to meet you at your destination. Of course, then you have to trust the courier company and the customs agents handling the package.

Re:Ways around this

[Ol Olsoc]

Why do you feel the need to use so many negative words: bullshit, killing, evil, hatred, hatred, lies, evilz, hate? Could you not have carried your point across with regular, non inflammatory words?

Absolutely, I can wax rather poetic, and have quite a vocabulary.

However, I have to admit that patience is not one of my virtues when presented with complete fabrications and dissembling. While it might seem to some and adequate representation of the state of the US customs system by comparing it with the Canadian system, as it turns out, that is not even remotely correct nor true. It is demonstrable in fact that a person who enters Canada can be detained in order to have the contents of their phone searched, and the contents used as part of a process that results in conviction, and the conviction upheld on appeal.

I have traveled outside the country on occasions, and have been warned about carrying any sort of data retention device without rather extensive precautions.. This has been the case since the early 2000's. Any device you carry might leave your possession, and the contents might be searched. This includes work and personal computers, and phones. Any country, any where. If I had to take a work computer, it had to be one with a freshly wiped and imaged drive. No exceptions allowed.

If a person feels that entrance to the USA is fraught with personal risk, if they feel that they will have all manner of indiscretions visited upon their persons and their data retention devices, then that of course, is a right to which they might exercise. However, when it is put forth with great authority that a country to the north of the United States is somehow a safe haven from such inexcusable intrusions, perhaps I might be forgiven when dealing with people on Slashdot and making the mistake that they are not only technically inclined, but intellectually adroit, and would at least check their sources. I would confess to that guilt. Perhaps I have read many of these same posts, and find a running theme of what - if you will forgive me holding a contrary opinion - are likewise applying one rule of acceptable behavior to one country, and a different one to all other countries, perhaps it is time to reply in a manner that might not only stimulate their attention, but also point out their hypocrisy.

Now indeed, the state of the world, where it is quite in vogue to express great disdain for the United States of America, and that this disdain is often applied for multiple reasons, that I am indeed perhaps tilting at windmills in my replies, as in obvious, one does not often convince dissemblers of the falseness of their notions and statement, even when presented with attributable facts - unless of course, you believe that Our neighbors to the north in Canada are also in the "Fake News" business as is so often spouted when information contrary to one's particular version of the truth is disseminated.

tl;dr It gets fucking old to read the same lies over and over again.

Can't imagine you'd actually want replies like what I just made. But I certainly can - if people need that sort of thing. One part of my job is telling people to go to hell in a way that they look forward to the trip.

Re:Ways around this

[Gussington]

Yeesh, calm down will ya. Just be cause I don't want to visit your country due to the protracted, draconian and at times even humiliating process I'd have to subject myself to in order to get a Visa, that does not mean that I hate Americans.

This is an important point which is often overlooked in diplomatic relations. When you hear leaders speak, they'll say Russia this, or America that, or Japan this or China that etc, but what they really mean is the current administration, not the country or its people. If I was the boss of my country I'd come out and say we love Americans, the people are great, the countryside is great, it's just the current head of state is a fuckwit with so we choose not to engage for the next 4 years. We look forward to dealing with the American people again whe they choose a competent leader. Regards.
This would prevent this from using it as a wedge to boost patriotic support, because the attack is purely on the person only, and not the country.

Re: Ways around this

[Grishnakh]

There should be a way to do this and just move all the data to a microSD card. Then you can bring the card with you and transfer the data back later.

The microSD card, since it's so incredibly small, would be very easy to hide somewhere, like your wallet.

Re:Ways around this

[whoever57]

He has some skills, but the idea that he amassed billions is laughable. He inherited a large amount of money and his investments have not performed as well as the overall market.

And that's based on the best estimate of his wealth. It's quite possible that his wealth is significantly less than he claims. As a concrete example of this, in the disclosures he made as a presidential candidate, he listed some $20M in income from his golf course in Scotland: problem is, it's losing money. The $20M is revenue, not profit.

So, let me throw that back at you and suggest that you are not as smart as you think you are.

Re: Ways around this

[ezdiy]

I'm using a 64GB sd card a bit differently. Forget copying things back and forth, that's too much hassle with plenty of room for mistakes.

Instead, get a phone with vendor supplied sdcard backdoor (there's plenty of those, just look for root tutorials of your favorite vendors). For example huawei ones look for dload/update.app, This is made of kernel and squashfs image. You can just rip those from internal ROM, except modify the sdcard version /system squashfs slightly so that fstab mounts sdcard partitions to /cache and /data (running whole system off sd is possible too, but a bit involved to bastardize the rom for it). Put the card in, start the phone and voila - entirely different world boots up, remove the card, and its back to original.

I did this mainly because the sdcard image is rooted and heavily customized, while the internal rom is the original vendors (to not void warranty). But as a side effect, this way you get perfect plausible deniability. Without the sdcard, the phone is pretty much stock, with no indication that entirely different world exist on some card that isn't there.

Attack Software

[pubwvj]

So what happens when travelers start carrying attack hardware & software that bites back. Imagine that the border agent sticks your phone into his reader and along with your data your phone injects a virus into his system. This can be done at very low levels. Or your 'phone' might simply send out 200,000 volts of power through the connection frying boarder patrol's expensive equipment.

Sounds like a good plot for a thriller spy movie...

And it's all possible.

Need more layers of encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

You must give border agents a key that will unlock your phone, but what if your phone had multiple levels of unlock? One key unlocks it to show a minimal contact list, texts and phone call histories of only select contacts and web history of only whitelisted sites. Sign in with a different key and suddenly your full history is available. If the filesystem is encrypted who is to know you haven't done a full unlock for the border goons.

No Different From Laptops

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

This is no different from the drill for laptops. On your travel day, back up your phone, encrypt the backup, send through your by vpn to a server stateside, reset the phone to factory defaults. Download the backup when safely stateside.

The border exception is a usurpation.

[jcr]

The US Constitution is the entirety of the legal basis for the very existence of the American federal government. Is it binding upon all American government officials, agents, and employees at all times and all places. There is no provision in the constitution for the suspension of the bill of rights at the border, and the fact that our rights are routinely violated when entering the country is because our courts are derelict in their duty to enforce the constitution.

-jcr

Not having a phone is not normal

[AHuxley]

So have a phone. A new phone with a new account from back in your own nation thats account ready for your destination.
It powers on, has a list of apps. It can be called. So any security questions about devices will fit in with what is expected of most people in 2017.
A laptop should be new. Only have productivity apps.
A camera should have a new card/s in it. Do not use the card. Any images on it will be looked at. Any camera deleted images can and will be recovered.
For any paperwork use your work or normal home email. If asked to produce any account passwords do so.
Lying is the most easy way not to enter a nation when asked.
Talk to your boss, company security if you have a work phone. That you will have to show it and any data on it. Any accounts, data on that phone might be copied, inspected. Buy a new phone for the trip.
Expect any social media accounts to be on file when questioned. Expect questions about any aspect of social media use going back years.
If a user was happy to support political movements, leaders, showed support for wars, a cult, faith or other issues in their own nation expect most nations to have that found that information and have questions ready.

Most nations do not have to let a person in. Their entry points are created to be a void of most legal protections. If every person wanted court access, a lawyer no bags or devices could be searched. Anyone could enter a nation with anything just by holding up their passport.
So questions can be asked and lying is not going to help. You will be searched and all devices will have any and all data extracted. Any encryption efforts will be discovered. Decryption may not be an option but lying will result in removal.
If your a citizen of that nation, your rights then apply but you have been discovered with something legally interesting.
Courts and other issues happen after questions. Lying is the most easy way to block a person from even entering a nation.
So be ready for a lot of questions, don't have anything on file, or thats been deleted. When asked to give an email password, give it.
If asked about social media, give the password. All your details are on file anyway. The question is asked in the hope that the person will lie and can be removed.

How to avoid all that? Dont use social media outside a work account. Only have email accounts.
Most nations will track down social media by 3 hops. Friends of friends. If any of them have been political interesting in any way, expect a lot of questions.
Telling lies about friends of friends is another easy lie to be caught in.

Re:Stay away.

[Spaham]

yep !

I even used to live there as a student.
I'm not planning to come back any time soon now.
Why bother with all the hassle ?

Worse than North Korea

[psychonaut]

I've made scores of international trips in my life, for business and pleasure, and on only one occasion did the border guards demand access to my laptop. That was at Pyongyang International Airport in North Korea, in August of 2015. And at least the search was conducted in full view of myself -- they even asked me to do a lot of it myself, since they were completely unfamiliar with KDE and couldn't type on my Dvorak keyboard. It turns out all they were looking for were South Korean movies (which they didn't want me distributing to the locals), and as soon as it became obvious that I had none, they called off the search.