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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.
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.