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'Social Media Needs A Travel Mode' (idlewords.com)
Maciej CegÅowski, a Polish-American web developer, entrepreneur, and social critic, writes on a blog post: We need a 'trip mode' for social media sites that reduces our contact list and history to a minimal subset of what the site normally offers. Not only would such a feature protect people forced to give their passwords at the border, but it would mitigate the many additional threats to privacy they face when they use their social media accounts away from home. Both Facebook and Google make lofty claims about user safety, but they've done little to show they take the darkening political climate around the world seriously. A 'trip mode' would be a chance for them to demonstrate their commitment to user safety beyond press releases and anodyne letters of support. What's required is a small amount of engineering, a good marketing effort, and the conviction that any company that makes its fortune hoarding user data has a moral responsibility to protect its users. To work effectively, a trip mode feature would need to be easy to turn on, configurable (so you can choose how long you want the protection turned on for) and irrevocable for an amount of time chosen by the user once it's set. There's no sense in having a 'trip mode' if the person demanding your password can simply switch it off, or coerce you into switching it off.
As a former C++ app engineer, I've found adding "modes" increases the source and test complexity and often end up not being used very much.
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A sprawling generalization, but that's what I've got
Border guards can ask for your account passwords.
You don't have to provide them, of course.
But if you're not a citizen, you don't have to be admitted, either.
There are little or no practical appeals.
Not responding truthfully to a border guard is a very serious crime; it's not an option, although refusing can be, with consequences.
It will be interesting to watch the economic impact of this over time - I suspect there will be none, as people have adapted in the past, and this will just become the norm.
..don't panic
A "mode" will be detectable — looking at your screen whoever compels you to show it (a criminal or an officer or both-in-one) will be able to tell, you are in "travel mode" and demand to see the real deal.
The concept you want is Duress Password — which ostensibly unlocks "everything", but hides the things you previously marked for hiding whenever the "duress" password is entered instead of real one.
And you may wish to use it not only to fool overzealous border-guards, but, for example, to hide certain materials from bystanders at Internet-cafes.
There is a "duress" PAM-module in the works for folks compelled to login to their Unix-laptop and a move to add the feature to Cyrus IMAP-server.
But, to reiterate, it is of utmost importance, that your usage of such functionality can not be not only proven, but even suspected. Whoever is in a position to compel you to login, is also in a position to punish you for fooling him...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Because Travel Mode is an indicator that you've got something to hide, and thus, must be using social media to send encoded terrorist messages.
Sometimes I think terrorists are just nature's way of weeding out the violent and stupid- especially suicide bombers.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
That would violate the "real name" policies of services like Facebook and Quora — you can lose that "important" account if you do that...
Of course, you can another account with your real name — for example, there are over a dozen Facebook accounts with my own fairly rare Firstname Lastname combination already. None of them mine...
But that has its own difficulties — most client-applications remember your username-string, even if you tell them to not record the password. So, you will be seen overwriting your username with the fake one... And, even if you aren't, whoever forces you will see, you last logged-in a year ago — and become suspicious. No, what you want is a "Duress Password", which unlocks the same account but hides the things you want hidden.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Really, traveling without social media is a very pleasant option in most cases. My most memorable vacations are the ones I took where I was not worried about WiFi or 3G service. Your vacation should get you away from what consumes you during the rest of your existence; if you are worrying about that crap while you are away I'm going to tell you that your doing your vacation wrong.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
2). Travel under the name Joe/Jane Smith and claim you never use social media. Ever. For anything!
Smart move. Where do I get a passport that says I'm Joe Smith?
4). Boot into a fake, but plausibly real looking environment, with nothing interesting on it. Load it to the gills with internet cat videos and nothing more;
I'd load it with gross but legal porn. Give them something to vomit over. Lemonparty or Tubgirl... gee, if I only could decide...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You hand vital information about yourself to a device you don't own?
First mistake.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because Travel Mode is an indicator that you've got something to hide, and thus, must be using social media to send encoded terrorist messages.
Sometimes I think terrorists are just nature's way of weeding out the violent and stupid- especially suicide bombers.
For one thing, there has to be something for them to see, so they don't see a blank slate and, on that basis, assume you have something to hide and probe you ever more deeply.
Clearly if there were going to be a 'Travel Mode' it would have to be very very well hidden.
When I'm travelling I wipe the phone, factory reset it, and then set it up with my work account instead of personal. That way there are contacts and emails etc but its only work related. My work isn't sensitive so I don't care. But it looks like it has stuff on it so it gives the security guys a nice satisfying experience.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
It is a political one. If you travel to a country where they can demand your passwords, they can do equally bad things to you if you have a "travel-mode" configured. The problem is that they can demand your passwords. In a country that respects personal freedoms, that will not happen. Unfortunately, the citizens of most democratic countries are too unaware of history today to understand the value of those freedoms and how hard it was to get them and are not defending them. If you go to such a country, having them look at all your social media stuff from the inside may be the only option. Whether you want to go to a country run by honor-less and decency-less "authorities" that do these things with the general consent of the citizens there is another question.
Incidentally, doing a "travel mode" is easy: Create long random password that you cannot remember, write it down, set it as your account-password and leave the piece of paper it is on at home. Done.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
AFAIK, they don't ask for password. They ask you to "please, enter your password"...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You can powerwash a chromebook? Cool. I'm going to have to look into one of those.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What second password are you talking about? There is none.
Part of having a good duress password is not having to have one to make whatever you're using work in the first place...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Log out, remove it from your device and actually be fully present for your trip. The world's a fascinating place, experiencing it through a four inch screen really doesn't do it justice.