What is Digg?121 Comments
- xkorbin, on 03/14/2008, -1/+38If customs officials examine my laptop, they might not be impressed with all of the LOLcats and images from icanhascheezburger.
Is collecting images of funny cats so wrong? - rmxz, on 03/14/2008, -1/+36"Executives have been told that they must hand over their laptop to be analyzed by border police"
I bet some of these border police guys do very well trading stocks. - TheHayze, on 03/14/2008, -3/+26How is this even legal? We should certainly have legal cause to say "No. Get a search warrant." under several Amendments. The one that pops to mind is the Fourth, and maybe even the first. Even moreso if it's a companny exec, who will most likely have trade secrets on their labtops. Damn them taking away our rights. we should probably do something about it, and, again, not caring if some mayor gets a little sex on the side.
- smartguy4932, on 03/14/2008, -2/+24Dugg for the Thumbnail?
- vertice, on 03/14/2008, -1/+22I flew through washington back to south africa this week. I had just bought a MBP, and not wanting to drag 2 laptops around airports with me, i carefully wrapped my old powerbook in my clothing, and checked it.
So i get back home, and I find a TSA slip in my bag. I open up my laptop (which was on sleep, although i had turned it off), to find it had restarted what I had been doing last on my laptop. Browsing my hardcore gay porn collection.
I laughed so hard =) - BusterBl, on 03/14/2008, -0/+17I went through IAD airport and was selected for secondary screening ..... when I turned back to collect my laptop it had been taken. Stolen from right under the eyes of the security people. Lesson to be learnt even if they do ask to pat you down insist on turning so you face your luggage. Even if someone had taken the wrong laptop there would still be a laptop left over but no such luck.
- PocchieTheMan, on 03/14/2008, -1/+16The easy answer is yes.
- deviouskoopa, on 03/14/2008, -0/+15This scares me and my GB's of pr0n.
- meuge, on 03/14/2008, -0/+14the words you're looking for are "stolen BY the security people".
- legoalert33, on 03/14/2008, -0/+13I can has WMD?
- thugok, on 03/14/2008, -2/+15Unless you were originally planning on traveling to Guantanamo Bay.
- mnederlanden, on 03/14/2008, -0/+13LOLcat images have been shown by the Pentagon to have hidden meanings and are a way for terrorist to communicate.
- grat2001, on 03/14/2008, -1/+13All you have to do is take out the battery and put it in your carry-on or 2nd piece of luggage with the power supply. Luggage never stays together and TSA can't spend that much time on 1 bag. Re-assemble at you destination
- bromac, on 03/14/2008, -1/+13You do not have those rights when crossing an international border. You are subject to a full and complete search, barring any cruel and unusual punishment or harassment.
- UncleCrapper, on 03/14/2008, -1/+12I had a similar experience a few months ago, except that I never had a gay porn collection.
- UncleCrapper, on 03/14/2008, -0/+11I keep nothing on my laptop and RDP, use terminal service/Citrix or SSH into my box at the office and home.
I have always done this, not out of paranoia, but because it's just easier. - elementop, on 03/14/2008, -0/+10Explain to me why. The Bill of Rights does *not* say "unless crossing the border, the right of...shall not be infringed." The only reason Customs gets away with it is because not enough people have pushed the issue.
- grat2001, on 03/14/2008, -0/+9With a lot of padding or in a Pelican case.
- sp3kter, on 03/14/2008, -2/+10simple solution - Fedex.
Seriously if you dont want costums digging around in your laptop when you go traveling across a border. just next day air it to your pre-arranged hotel room. - inactive, on 03/14/2008, -0/+7Hmmm. so this would be a good time for may goatcex screensaver and background?
- stix213, on 03/14/2008, -0/+7Your laptop still goes through customs when shipped via fedex
- deviouskoopa, on 03/14/2008, -0/+7Your confiscated laptops are fueling the fight against global warming and dependence on fossil fuels!
- theredwhyno, on 03/14/2008, -1/+8@TheHayze: Remember, as the article says, you are not afforded rights under the Constitution at the airport. Airports are kind of like 'legal limbo zones' where you don't really fall under any country's legal protections.
However, it bothers me immensely that in recent years (basically ever since 2001), it's practically been codified by American authorities that the legal protections of the Constitution (which, in that document, are regarded as 'inalienable rights') are simply impediments to effective, efficient law enforcement. It's the blatant violation of spirit and intent that is the issue here. Another case in point is that shortly after the passage of the Patriot Act (i'm talking about under a month), the Dept. of Justice hosted several large law enforcement conventions for the purpose of instructing police, district attorneys, etc. how to use the provisions of the Patriot Act in non-terrorism scenarios. Never mind that the legislators who passed the bill expressed specifically their intent that the laws be applicable solely to terrorism. Now, it's a well-documented fact that it's being invoked whenever possible. - briangig, on 03/14/2008, -1/+7I'm almost sure, not 100% they won't let you go anywhere with a laptop they can't power on...not to mention they would probably just remove the hard drive and have a peek that way.
- MrWhite7, on 03/14/2008, -0/+6I think they're talking about large amounts of data here, not jpg's from chirstmas.
- o0joshua0o, on 03/14/2008, -1/+7Great! We'll all be waiting here for your report.
- davidrools, on 03/14/2008, -3/+9fedex your laptop to your destination and relax while you're on the plane?
- eddieroger, on 03/14/2008, -0/+6Or the box it came in. I never thought of this, and think it's a great idea.
- oddball, on 03/14/2008, -0/+6it can take several days or a weeks to clear customs, there is no overnight air outside of us borders.....
- Evolutuon, on 03/14/2008, -0/+6Its ludicrous that they don't count a laptop as a container with the fourth amendment protecting it.
- elementop, on 03/14/2008, -0/+6Might be worth getting one, if only to fluster TSA :P
- gfxlonghorn, on 03/14/2008, -1/+7Im not all that well versed in this stuff, but I have used winrar to hide stuff in images, and it has been working fine aside from the fact that the image takes on the size of the stuff in it, so you have a 30mb image that is like 72p 400x400 jpg that is aweful curious.
- PdxPhoenix, on 03/14/2008, -0/+5I have always found the comment "If you're hiding anything, then you don't have anything to worry about when the police looking into what you're doing" to be missing the point.
As I'm not doing anything wrong, the police have no reason to look into what I'm doing... Otherwise they're just on a "fishing expedition," hoping to find ...something... - brickbat, on 03/14/2008, -0/+5truecrypt container on the ipod does the trick. My porn is my business. Get your own porn you sneaky bastards. And for those of you with a terabyte sized habit, there is the trick of getting a $5/mth 1.5 tb hosting account and using EncFS to connect to it.
- LogicBomB, on 03/14/2008, -1/+6This sounds like very good advice - it would only screw you over if they were really, really pissed off at you for some reason I imagine.
- elementop, on 03/14/2008, -0/+5If they technically are not U.S. soil, then what right does Customs have to even operate there? You can't have it both ways -- either it's U.S. soil and we are therefore subject to U.S. law (including the Constitution), or it is not U.S. soil and therefore Customs has no jurisdiction there.
- cerealjynx, on 03/14/2008, -1/+6YES, Dreadlocks lead only to dread.
- jftitan, on 03/14/2008, -0/+5Because I'm dressed like a hooker doesn't mean I am one..... "Then don't be wearing a hookers uniform." Your logic is so flawed that I can't even begin to start thinking of where to start.
So I'll point this out. "I travel across the border all the time and have NEVER been questioned or had my laptop seized?" Is that a question or a statement, because I dunno were to start other than tell you to STFU. you are obviously stating something out of your ass.
I'm a IT professional, I don't look smell, or act like a pothead, but I sure as ***** am one. Does that mean since I don't look the part that I must be a law abiding citizen? *****. Under the NEW and improved Custom'ers' and Boarder crossing rules, my laptop to which is MY personal property is open to inspection whether or not I am a suspect, terrorist or citizen. They can take my property without warrant, copy everything on it. Let me wait and see a years time my ideas and concepts be patented BEFORE I can even afford to start the process.
This is what I see happening. They take our digital electronics which we hold our lives to, and they can do whatever they want, for reasons unknown. BUT we as the owners have no legal recourse to protect our private property. I know my example above is hypothetical (take laptop, copy all important data, months/years later ideas are patented by large corporation or (name any similar situation). We as end user have no say in recovering our losses because we CANT prove that what happened to our data through government/corporations wasn't stolen.) - Hermmunster, on 03/14/2008, -0/+4I agree, there are simpler solutions:
Flash drives for data.
Keep and use an external HDD (there are 2.5 enclosure based HDDs).
Make an image the drive before you leave, save your data on flash, reimage the drive when you return.
Fedex the drives both directions.
Wipe the drive and reinstall clean after you return. Be sure to do a low level on the drive before you reinstall. Don't use the recovery partition to reinstall as they may have placed special files in the recovery partition.
This isn't about hiding illegal activities. It's about protecting your privacy and your rights. Choose the least invasive. Don't give the feds the choice to go through your files. You know they are after pictures of your naked wife, there are crooked cops that certainly will target important people for the purpose of stealing sensitive information.
Whether they put spyware (fedware) on your computer is not relevant as you can easily wipe and reinstall.
You could also replace your HDD with a formatted HDD containing only that which you need to conduct your business and use an UBUNTU live CD to boot and run your programs from during your trip.
See lots of not so difficult ideas that can get you past these anti-democratic lawmakers. - eddieroger, on 03/14/2008, -0/+4Target Disk Mode?
- Daniel591992, on 03/14/2008, -0/+4Just hope it gets there!
- rhesuspieces00, on 03/14/2008, -0/+4or put all your important documents on an encrypted external drive and keep the laptop relatively spartan, so if its searched, they won't find anything. its a lot cheaper to fedex the drive (which is easily backed up), with lower liability, and the option of having a laptop to use, even if only for watching dvds, during your 18 hour flight to beijing. its still possible TSA could confiscate the laptop that way, but at least your docs are secure. you'd have to do your own risk analysis on that issue.
- toxicshok, on 03/14/2008, -1/+5you can say no. But then you won't make your flight.
- geodescent, on 03/14/2008, -0/+4Just thinking about trying to upload 1.5TB over a cable modem makes me cringe...
- edverb, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3Article fails. Here's how enterprises can solve this right now.
Issue all travelers a thin client laptop, which is to be powered off before reaching customs. The machine connects to a virtual client OS hosted in a secure datacenter. There is no local storage. For 99% of situations, problem solved.
And for threat level red -- that other 1% -- you could even create a decoy server-hosted client for a traveler to log into if they had a gun to their head -- of course the act of logging into it would trigger an alarm that said traveler had a gun to his/her head. - KingGorilla, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3I'm curious, what are some things that would require such searches of my laptop?
- schroeder, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3If you used truecrypt you could make a large partition with lots of fake private data like banking info, passwords, porn etc. On the hidden truecrypt plausible deniability area you could hide your real data like real banking info, passwords, your personal sex tape. No one would think that the data is false nor would suspect there is more secret stuff in the remaining area, just that you haven't filled up the partition yet. There would be no way to prove the data is false without illegally trying to gain access to the false accounts. *IF* I had a sex tape that I didn't want customs fapping to and posting on the internet, that's what I'd do.
- HarleyQuinn, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3Have your computer boot into a Commodore 64 Emulator-- sit back and laugh. Tell them to see the files they must type (Load "$",8).
- DesolataX, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3How can this be legal? What about us businessmen who have extremely confidential data on our computers? I already use whole drive encryption and an extremely complex password, and I have to take my laptop with me when I travel, so I have to give my password so that they can search my laptop? That is an extreme breach of security.
At least I haven't been asked if customs can search my laptop. - rmxz, on 03/14/2008, -0/+3That's pretty much what truecrypt does - except it's "with one password it's a normal OS / with 2 passwords it's everything"
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