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What To Do If the Laptop Ban Goes Global (backchannel.com)
"The U.S. is reportedly seriously considering a greatly expanded ban on laptops in airplane cabins," writes Slashdot reader mirandakatz -- sharing some advice from Dan Gillmor. If the government still allows laptops to be checked in with luggage, "the priority will be to discourage tampering and mitigate the risks associated with theft," he writes, envisioning that "If I have to check mine, I'll pack it in bubble wrap and tape, and do some other things to make it evident if someone has tampered with the machine." But of course there's other precautions:
[W]e can travel with bare-bones operating system setups, with as little personal or business data as possible (preferably none at all) on the laptop's internal disk drive. When we arrive and get back online, we can work mostly in browsers and retrieve what we need from cloud storage for the specific applications that have to run "locally" on the PC... You might also get a Chromebook for international travel. Chromebooks run Google's Chrome operating system and keep pretty much all data in Google's cloud. So you could carry a bare Chromebook through a border, go online, and retrieve the information you need. You have to completely trust Google with this method...
[The article also suggests encrypting the hard disk -- along with your phone -- or carrying an external drive.] I use the Ubuntu operating system, and this simplifies creating a special travel setup. In preparation for international hassles, I've put a copy of my OS and essential data files on an encrypted USB thumb drive, which holds 256 gigabytes of data... If I've forgotten to load some specific files, and I have them backed up in the cloud, I can always go there.
Because of all the additional security procedures, he utlimately predicts higher ticket prices, fewer business travellers, and, according to Bruce Schneier, "a new category of 'trusted travelers' who are allowed to carry their electronics onto planes."
[The article also suggests encrypting the hard disk -- along with your phone -- or carrying an external drive.] I use the Ubuntu operating system, and this simplifies creating a special travel setup. In preparation for international hassles, I've put a copy of my OS and essential data files on an encrypted USB thumb drive, which holds 256 gigabytes of data... If I've forgotten to load some specific files, and I have them backed up in the cloud, I can always go there.
Because of all the additional security procedures, he utlimately predicts higher ticket prices, fewer business travellers, and, according to Bruce Schneier, "a new category of 'trusted travelers' who are allowed to carry their electronics onto planes."
Honestly, who the heck trusts that their laptop would not be seriously damaged or stolen if they check it in their baggage? I've had things that were MUCH LESS fragile than a laptop completely destroyed in checked baggage.
My plan is to avoid travel by plane as much as I can. And if I really have to travel, then I'm going to leave my laptop at home. I don't trust the baggage handlers not to steal it, so checking in is not an option.
None of this will work with BIOS malware installed over ThunderBolt. Who knows what software attacks we don't know about yet. Glitter nail polish is fun and "cool story, bro," but why do you think tamper-proofing works on an adversary with unlimited time and tool-funding to attack your specific model, and, for example, how do you expect to tamper-proof your keyboard?
These responses aren't threat-proportionate. If the laptop has been out of your physical control it's less trustworthy. If it's been out of your control in a golden tampering opportunity like baggage, where it's tagged to you, it's moving so it's easy to set up Room 641A's to hide methods and employee identities, and the place is saturated with federal authority, constitutional suspension of searching everything because "safety" and spying on everything because "foreign," it would be hard for me to conscience not throwing it out.
If the explanation about a risk from laptops were the real reason for the ban, then the obvious solution would be to remove all of the Li-ion batteries from the laptops and to ban ALL electronics including iPhone 8+ and Samsung 8+ which do not have removable batteries and yet which are dangerous enough according to EgyptAir Flight 804 in 2016.
But that solution is not being used. Therefore, the real reason cannot be about protecting the planes. The real reason is more likely something to do with wanting to have unattended access to laptops by officials during the baggage security screening process.
Encrypting your dead tree notebook must have taken forever
You can travel with something like an Intel NUC Skull Canyon or a Compute Stick and just plug it into the hotel TV's HDMI port. No laptop battery, no fire hazard, etc. Or you can simply use your phone as a computer and plug it into an HDMI port.
You can carry sensitive data on a separate micro-SD card, which, realistically, airport security or passport control won't look for or find unless you're already on a terrorist watch list, in which case a laptop ban is the least of your worries.
It is will just erode the market share of laptops. We really don't need lug around a keyboard, screen, pointing device and a battery anymore. Just a simple nexus-4 sized pack with memory and cpu. Docking stations that can take this device and add a keyboard, mouse, pointing device and a screen will hit the market. Hotels will provide it, may be for a fee, may be free. We will have one dock at work and one at home. We might buy and keep more such docks for visitors and guests. This is going to be the future. Will happen whether laptops get banned on planes or not. If laptop ban goes global this will accelerate the timeline.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
easy to remove hdd / ssd card is needed now apple better keep this in mind.
I'm a doctor you insensitive clod, my handwritings already encrypted!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Or we could elect a different class of politicians instead of following blind tribalism. Sorry, but all this is self inflicted, and every chance they have, the voters only make it worse.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Just don't have any threatening math in your notebook.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Just don't have any threatening math in your notebook.
I write Roman numerals instead of Arabic numerals. ;)
Fly without a laptop. Arrive in the destination nation. Find a computer shop. Buy new ssd like media. Buy a new laptop that can have its installed ssd replaced.
Remove the factory ssd.
Update, install the productivity apps needed using a very secure VPN.
Use open source OS or a new copy of Windows 10.
Do all work with a VPN thats trusted and tested.
If your company demands you take their special secure "crypto" laptop, its a risk in another nation.
Do not trust any "cloud" brand, product or crypto service as other nations security services will be expecting that and have accessed it many times before.
Do not walk out of your hotel without your laptop. Staff will report that to their nations security services and the time will be used to access the laptop and plant gov malware.
On exit from that nation recycle the hardware after fully removing all data.
Do not return from any nation with any hardware or software. Ensure any uploads went to a secure VPN on an isolated secure network.
Even if the VPN fails the other nation gets nothing extra from your secure network or other projects.
Consider the same for any cell phone. Dont use the cell phone in the other nation for any normal calls or work calls. Buy a local phone only for urgent calls and give your new number via VPN. Expect all numbers called and voice prints to be fully collected by the nations security services.
If you want to take images of the trip, buy a cheap dslr or buy a much better quality cell phone. Use the card to move images to a different laptop, with a different VPN only to send images from.
Dont mix work files and another nations cell phone. Dont take the cell phone back with you. Dont mix the images with any other networks, data later.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
How do you know what OS / backdoor is on that laptop/device ?
It is already a huge burden to have a minimum level of privacy on "random" devices.
A device that is specifically given to foreign visitors is surely going to be snooped upon.
So far, the USB computer on a stick is still the best bet.
If this goes into effect, I'll get a hard case that's form-fitting for the laptop, and a larger hard case that and other things go into.
They are virtually indestructible, and if you have a good lock on them extremely hard to open. I had someone try, and fail to pry both locks off a hard case in Botswana.
Outside the US you can use non TSA locks which are much more secure.
Also in addition, foreign airports with questionable luggage handling security offer a plastic wrap service, that wraps a bunch of layers around your luggage and also makes it very hard to get into. Wrap a hard case in that and they cannot even get to the locks...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Meanwhile anyone with a truck and knife can cause terrorism." Yes, but they only kill 12 people, not 259 like on Pan Am flight 103.
They killed 89 in the Bataclan theatre. They killed 192 in the Madrid train bombings. There are enough crowded places that a handful of people with automatic weapons can create a massacre.
That's exactly what I'd do. There is no law against carrying a 3.5" HDD/SDD in your shirt pocket.
When airline travel becomes (literally) a pain in the ass, teleconferencing will grow big-time.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
I'll expense a Chromebook or netbook at my trip's destination, or get a loaner from IT if I'm visiting one of my company's sites. I'll throw the Chromebook in the garbage before I leave.
We beat the terrorist, but add millions of tons of electronics to landfills.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Company broadcasted sevelar months ago that the new policy is to travel with disposable laptops that do not hold any valuable information other than VPN clients. Believe it or not, there are other countries that can and will take your laptop because they think of the children. I mean, those countries do not allow any pornographic material in the country because of reasons. And I am not talking of the US but of some arid country in the middle east, and PRC. It may take weeks for you to recover the laptop.
Terminal problem is pretty well solved: termux, crosh, and others.
Eclipse isn't likely to ever happen unless someone ports it to asm.js, poor alternatives: Codiad, Project Orion, codenvy.io, and others.
Going into dev mode and installing crouton is a good compromise, but then you're really running Linux/Ubuntu/Debian and not ChromeOS.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
all laptops are wiped of any personal information upon return to the rental outlet,
Except for the keylogger deeply embedded in the system, of course.
Check your laptop with a gun in the bag. Luggage with a gun in it get extra special treatment; if one gets lost they just opened themselves up to all sorts of civil and criminal liabilities.
That won't work at the Philly airport, which is famous for guns stolen from checked luggage. Had a cop friend have his gun stolen from a locked gun case. This rule will also apply to cameras, which will impact the travel industry.
You don't even need a gun, you just need a aluminum receiver from something like an AK - you don't need a license, it's super lightweight yet it's considered a 'weapon' for TSA/FAA purposes and thus gets all the tags and treatment a gun gets.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Probably some kind of subcutaneous chip with your encrypted credentials that allows access to your encrypted data remotely and could be bricked with a single thought if there was impending risk of intrusion.
Another way is if we start using avatars of ourselves for business travel; beam a holographic AI-driven avatar of yourself to whatever business meeting you must attend and skip the queue at the airport! I mean there really is no need for travel apart from tourism if the technology would enable face-to-face meetings to happen remotely.
Flying is expensive and the face-to-face business model is old and bankrupt anyway, really. If your company sells goods and services that people want, they will buy from whatever vendor they can find and take the easiest path to solution they can.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I mostly do this now - when traveling for pleasure, I only bring a cheap Chromebook so that if it is lost/stolen I just buy a new Chromebook locally and move on with life. For business I bring a company laptop, but my data is all backed up so a loss/theft would be a PITA but once on the VPN with a local laptop I'd be back in business.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It's any gear larger than a phone, which means all your expensive cameras and lenses as well. I was hoping to see a few ideas I might not have thought of from fellow photographers already given there's over 100 comments, but since I appear to be the first here's my thoughts for travelling with a backpack's worth of high-end camera gear:
Firstly, define "global". If we're just talking about any flights flying to/from the US/UK (or any other countries that start doing this), then the obvious initial step is to route around the problem by flying via airports that don't transit the US and UK. If one of your endpoints is in the US/UK, then that's tougher and depends on your location - driving over the Candian or Mexican border may be an option for the US, while for the UK CDG is only a Eurostar and change from London, and Dublin a short trip from Northern Ireland.
If we *really* mean "global" - e.g. every international flight, regardless of endpoints - or the above is unworkable for any reason, then it's going to have to be a Peli Case or similar, and rolling the dice with theft by airport staff and genuine loss in transit. Where practical, I'd hope to mitigate against that by shipping ahead of time as freight - there's better insurance cover anyway, and I'd expect international couriers to start exploring opportunities in this area to make things easier and more cost effective if the ban does go global. If I do have to travel with the gear, then I'm thinking of going for a padded Pelicase I can just put my regular backpack and a few other items in, which means it's going to be big and heavy and will need to be run though oversize baggage. Actually, I'm probably going to make sure that it does, because while that means special handling and more cost, it also means better tracking and in some instances to put the airline on the hook for the full value of the contents if it goes astray. I'll probably put couple of "Fragile" stickers and maybe some of those impact detection stickers on there as well.
Finally, and regardless of the above, screw the compromised TSA locks. I use proper padlocks and security gets confronted with an inventory of the case's contents should they decide to bolt-cutter it - good padlocks are not that expensive, and it's a much better deterant against opportunistic theft by anyone with the magic key.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Whatever happened to teleconferencing: WebEx, Join.me, GoToMeeting, et al? I recall during the Clinton or Bush administrations, when the Indian Prime Minister (then a chief minister) Modi was denied a visa to the US despite being invited, he attended the session via teleconference, thereby neither violating any laws, but at the same time satisfying his would be hosts. For conferences that are about sharing presentations & documents, it should be relatively trivial to set up a network connection via VPNs and then let both sides present and talk to each other. Granted, they don't get to see each other, shake hands, visit the deli together or sleep together, but other than that, everything else that's a goal of the conference would be achieved. Icing on the cake: taking fewer flights helps reduce greenhouse gases and global warming, and also helps put evil airlines like United out of business.