How Safe Is Your Laptop From Official Eyes

[fishhooks]

During a chat with an American friend recently, he mentioned that when entering the USA from abroad, Customs can demand to examine the contents of your computer. Seems rather strange!

I've never heard of this in this Asian or Australasian part of the world.

Any experiences?

[Toxane]

During a chat with an American friend recently, he mentioned that when entering the USA from abroad, Customs can demand to examine the contents of your computer. Seems rather strange!

I've never heard of this in this Asian or Australasian part of the world.

Any experiences?

Yep. They do if they want to. They ring up a geek and he hacks into your box right in front of you. Takes about two hours, depending on the amount of files. Part of the US Patriot Act i believe. I had plenty of unlicensed software on my mac, but that was obviously not the point of interest.

No problem if you don't have a 'Laden, Bin' contact entry on your storage i guess...

[OriginalPoster]

During a chat with an American friend recently, he mentioned that when entering the USA from abroad, Customs can demand to examine the contents of your computer. Seems rather strange!

I've never heard of this in this Asian or Australasian part of the world.

Any experiences?

American Customs can inspect your hard drive just as they can inspect your luggage. There've been threads before on ThaiVisa about how outrageous it is or isn't, but it doesn't seem to be high on Obama's list of things to change in either case.

If you're worried about proprietary or classified data being seen, you might want to consider creating a TrueCrypt drive with a hidden volume. As a pratical matter though, Custom's have the time to be rifling though everyone's PC, I've gone through US customs alot of time over the past few years and never had anyone even glance toward my laptop.

Edited February 22, 2009 by OriginalPoster

[OriginalPoster]

...

Edited February 22, 2009 by OriginalPoster

[zaphodbeeblebrox]

It has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. A court of appeals decision came down a couple of years ago that permits customs to confiscate any electronic media brought across the borders for an indefinite period, to allow customs to do a complete forensic examination and identify and access all encrypted files. The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari which means it is the law, until a different court of appeals holds otherwise. Most companies are instructing their employees to transmit all files electronically while abroad, and wipe notebooks clean before re-entering the U.S. You are best advised to do the same.

[Toxane]

It has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. A court of appeals decision came down a couple of years ago that permits customs to confiscate any electronic media brought across the borders for an indefinite period, to allow customs to do a complete forensic examination and identify and access all encrypted files. The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari which means it is the law, until a different court of appeals holds otherwise. Most companies are instructing their employees to transmit all files electronically while abroad, and wipe notebooks clean before re-entering the U.S. You are best advised to do the same.

Thanks for the info!

[dmanpdi]

Yes, they can. The US Customs is particularly interested in your FINANCIAL data. They are looking for tax evasion, drug transactions, money laundering and the like. I used to carry my bankbooks and statements in my baggage, but now I mail (and email) to myself all my private financial information. In the US first class mail is still private and secure. I believe it cannot be opened legally without a court order. Currently I think your email is scanned for keywords and phrases.

Setting passwords on files won't work either since you will be forced to reveal them or they will make a copy of your data. The rights you have from the fourth amendment against illegal searches and seizures don't apply when crossing into the US at international borders.

[angiud]

Land Of Freedom...

[OriginalPoster]

Land Of Freedom...

Chip on shoulder...

[slackula]

Land Of Freedom...

Chip on shoulder...

Yeah, let's cower in terror of terror whilst the government of the Land Of The Free rapes the globe of the rights it purports to uphold.

I welcome the TSA to have a peek at my hard drive, they are welcome to it on my laptop. How many Paris Hilton pics do they want to see?

[OriginalPoster]

Land Of Freedom...

Chip on shoulder...

Yeah, let's cower in terror of terror whilst the government of the Land Of The Free rapes the globe of the rights it purports to uphold.

I welcome the TSA to have a peek at my hard drive, they are welcome to it on my laptop. How many Paris Hilton pics do they want to see?

Who's cowering in terror? You're presuming a lot.

[slackula]

Who's cowering in terror? You're presuming a lot.

ROFL

[Phil Conners]

Setting passwords on files won't work either since you will be forced to reveal them or they will make a copy of your data. The rights you have from the fourth amendment against illegal searches and seizures don't apply when crossing into the US at international borders.

Read up on plausible deniability - see www.truecrypt.org.

[britmaveric]

No they are looking for child porn, and nothing more. Lad - did a half arse job when my notebook was searched - all they did was go to mypics directory under my profile. Got bored after seeing a few hundred temple shots. I don't mind if they look - just wasting my time and their own at the end of the day.

[MisterBean]

The US is not the only country to check computer contents. Australia caught an airline pilot with porn on his laptop. I read a story about someone having their laptop checked after arriving in Rome from Bangkok. Canada also has the right to examine the contents of your computer.

They can check my laptop if they want, I have several thousand vacation photos and thousands of MP3's, made from the cd's that I own. The only thing I object to is them reading my mail, and looking at my personal financial information, not that there is anything exciting there I just think it's none of their business. I use a U3 sandisk usb key and use gmail with firefox and email my bookmarks and scrapbook pages to myself and then format the U3 drive and overwrite it with music or photos. My laptop has no history of ever signing into any email system, and not much in the way of internet history as I seldom use the browser installed on the laptop. They could probably find a hotel or airline reservation printout with my email address on it, I wonder if they could force me to log into my email for them to examine it?

[spacefruit]

Most countries have the right at customs to search electronic media. If they have just had a lecture on Child pornography they start checking all the Cd's they see.......for about a week. Then pressures of work make them realize that it doesn't make time sense.

I know that the two top things are financial info and child porn. Frankly I think that the financial info is more important to them. US and UK governments are especially short of cash and their revenue (tax) departments have large targets to meet in terms of investigations results.

Without wishing to be antagonistic, the UK and US have truly become police states, where individual's rights have been massively eroded by counter terrorism laws, that are out of all proportion to the threat. I travel around the world frequently and the worst is US followed by UK. In a way UK is more frightening, as the oppression is electronic (1 CCTV camera for every 14 of the population).

As an aside, last week the UK passed a law forbidding the photographing of policemen. The mind boggles at the thought of bus loads of Japanese being carted of to St James Police station after photographing Buckingham palace.

All in the name of freedom.

[Rimmer]

Never mind the borders the FBI is probably reading your hard drive right now

Edited February 23, 2009 by Rimmer

[Crushdepth]

Just leave your sensitive files at home and access them remotely over a VPN when you get there. I doubt that the authorities can require you to give access to a remote computer system physically located in another country - especially if you explain that the remote system belongs to someone else.

[fishhooks]

Most countries have the right at customs to search electronic media. If they have just had a lecture on Child pornography they start checking all the Cd's they see.......for about a week. Then pressures of work make them realize that it doesn't make time sense. "quote spacefruit"

Only CD's? With the advent of these numerous Thumb Drives, they must need little USB sockets everywhere checking these too!

Although you could probably stick one of these thingos in your ear and say it's Bluetooth

Edited February 24, 2009 by fishhooks

[astral]

The UK has similar laws and can even send you to jail if you refuse to give up the password

for encrypted data on your machine.

[livinthailandos]

safe is your labtop for offical eyes. Heck anything done over online can check your labtop to as long as your online though. If you really didn't want to have officals check your labtops 2 options would be either

1. Complete wipe the entire hard drive clean

2. Take out drive out and put in a new one containing nothing but the bios ( no os, no files )

3. I didn't seen anyone mention things but I read once about setting up a SSH, wouldn't that be more effective in a way to. I do realize both computer ends would have to be on. at least from what I understand

4. Thank the minority of people who cause problems and we have to pay for it aren't we lucky

nobody's ever mention this but this is a reality, you know besides

mr shoe bomber

liquid explosives

I really wonder when someone is gonna use a labtop or ipod as somekind of deadly weapon on a aircraft then they start banning all electronics, i know this may sound pointless, stupid or whatever but anyone who has the intent to do harm will find a way to get it done. Technology isn't perfect. After all the U.S. is using or wants to use RFID in passports, many academic articles, or other articles I've seen show already RFID are useless and as technology gets better and small it is already possible to read the passports unless you shielded it. As of now i read its possible to read RFID passports up to 20 -30 ft away.

just so everyone knows i'm on topic and not on topic officials looking at labtops but yet put RFID in passports

[Crushdepth]

The UK has similar laws and can even send you to jail if you refuse to give up the password

for encrypted data on your machine. bah.gif

Yeah but its a bizzarre law. If someone seriously wanted to protect some information it would probably make sense not to transport the encrypted data and the key/password together. And who hasn't forgotten a password at some point? Difficult to prosecute, I think.

But who wants to get into an argument with customs? Just retrieve your data remotely.

[trunknuk]

Read up on plausible deniability - see www.truecrypt.org.

They can put you in jail for not revealing a password, but hiding an encrypted partition should allow you to plausibility deny that hidden data exists.

Of course there is always the dban option.

[t.s]

The US is not the only country to check computer contents. Australia caught an airline pilot with porn on his laptop. I read a story about someone having their laptop checked after arriving in Rome from Bangkok. Canada also has the right to examine the contents of your computer.

They can check my laptop if they want, I have several thousand vacation photos and thousands of MP3's, made from the cd's that I own. The only thing I object to is them reading my mail, and looking at my personal financial information, not that there is anything exciting there I just think it's none of their business. I use a U3 sandisk usb key and use gmail with firefox and email my bookmarks and scrapbook pages to myself and then format the U3 drive and overwrite it with music or photos. My laptop has no history of ever signing into any email system, and not much in the way of internet history as I seldom use the browser installed on the laptop. They could probably find a hotel or airline reservation printout with my email address on it, I wonder if they could force me to log into my email for them to examine it?

that is alot of trouble to go to if you have nothing to hide.