US customs given powers to cache your data

[Charlotte]

Bloody marvellous 

I'm *so* cleaning up my eeePC when I travel to New York at the end of the month.

If I take any data at all, it's going to be Truecrypted and hidden.

What the hell happened to the Fourth Amendment?

[Julian]

I would strongly recommend not taking an eeePC at all and using internet cafes when the urge to log on becomes too great.

Not in the interests of foiling the US's surveillance state, or in case of dodgy files, but to prevent you from being forced to get into the debate with them, necessitating you battering a dribbling official to death with it and risk being carted off in irons. 

[border-rider]

I'm taking a sacrificial Dell ultraportable when I go to San Diego next month.  Not risking the eeePC

[mrcharly-YHT]

Bloody marvellous 



If I take any data at all, it's going to be Truecrypted and hidden.

"...CBP agents are free to deny entry to travelers who refuse to divulge their passwords. They may also be able to seize the laptop...."

[Dave]

Ah yes, but:

Cunningly it [trueCrypt] also lets you mount a hidden encrypted volume inside a regular encrypted volume.  Since the 'empty' space in any encrypted volume is random-seeming noise, the hidden encrypted volume is invisible unless you know the password.  So, you can create some chaff in the regular volume, and if the Bad Guys force you to disclose a password, give them that one.  They'll never know any better.

(From here)

[Charlotte]

I would strongly recommend not taking an eeePC at all and using internet cafes when the urge to log on becomes too great.

Not in the interests of foiling the US's surveillance state, or in case of dodgy files, but to prevent you from being forced to get into the debate with them, necessitating you battering a dribbling official to death with it and risk being carted off in irons. 

Hmmm, you're right.  So's Dave.

I have one of these, which is currently getting the Strong Encryption treatment with extra Brucie bonus points for plausible deniability:

[gonzo]

Another reason not to go to the US.

[andygates]

Permanently cached?  FFS.  Just keep on increasing the bloody haystack, why don't they?  Does anyone else get a feeling that TSA are clutching at straws here because they haven't really got a clue but want to be seen to be doing something? 

(ZOMG THINK OF TEH CHILDRENS!)

Look, if we can tinfoil up a stick, Al Realbadguy sure can.  Truecrypt isn't new so the provision that you have to provide passwords isn't going to catch any bad guys with even a homeopathic level of intelligence.  And the dumbass ones will board with a copy of Jihadi Women's Quarterly stuck out of their ass pocket.

Bloody security theatre. 

+1 to the tinfoil stick.  Are those Corsairs as preposterously over-engineered as they look?

[Charlotte]

They have a deliciously chunky metallic heft to them that you don't get in yer average run of the mill USB stick.  Muchly recommended for your post-apocalyptic equipment list 

As for the Department of Homeland Security, they can cache my documents when they pry them from my cold, dead AES-Twofish-Serpent algorithm 

[nuttycyclist]

...Does anyone else get a feeling that TSA are clutching at straws here because they haven't really got a clue but want to be seen to be doing something? 
...

They cut the padlock off my suitcase and searched my dirty undercrackers when I tried leaving the USA last November.

[andygates]

Poor bastards.

[nuttycyclist]

It did make me snigger when I realised.

They were kind enough to leave an explanatory note in there too.

[Wowbagger]

Another reason not to go to the US.

Hey, Gonzo, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Is this a first?

[rae]

As for the Department of Homeland Security, they can cache my documents when they pry them from my cold, dead AES-Twofish-Serpent algorithm   

"You can take our orange suit off and carry on with your holiday after you've decrypted the data on the drive ma'am".

"Oh yes, they all say that it is just gibberish and you were having a laugh, just be a good girl and make it say something in English"

US immigration is not a place where I'd be inclined to stand up for my rights to keep my data hidden.

This kind of dragnet does suggest that they've got their global "analyse everything" software working.  It would explain a lot....

[andrewc]

Giving them no reason at all to notice you would be a good plan.   People with uniforms, guns & rubber gloves can ruin your entire day...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14visa.html

[andygates]

As for the Department of Homeland Security, they can cache my documents when they pry them from my cold, dead AES-Twofish-Serpent algorithm   

"You can take our orange suit off and carry on with your holiday after you've decrypted the data on the drive ma'am". ...

This kind of dragnet does suggest that they've got their global "analyse everything" software working.  It would explain a lot....

First, the hidden encrypted volume in TrueCrypt is plausibly deniable.  It's inside a visible encrypted volume.  That visible volume is a block of solid gibberish as you'd expect; you can't tell the invisible volume is even there. 

Second, not to me it doesn't.  Suggests they want people to think it.  Suggests the TSA people want to look competent.  My vote is on security theatre, not meaningfully functional Big Echelon. 

Meanwhile let's cack up Charlotte's browser cache with jihadi plot fizzy bomb taleban bush mccain clinton tetragrammaton mic haarp tinfoil froth...

[gonzo]

People with uniforms, guns & rubber gloves can ruin your entire day...

Depends if you're into that sort of thing

I can see Auntie C standing there declaring; "not a chance I'm going to give you that password and what are you going to do about it?" *wiggles eyebrows*

[andrewc]

People with uniforms, guns & rubber gloves can ruin your entire day...

Depends if you're into that sort of thing

I can see Auntie C standing there declaring; "not a chance I'm going to give you that password and what are you going to do about it?" *wiggles eyebrows*

But she's going there for a holiday..... a break from the London Life......

Last year I was transiting an airport in India, one of the group was wearing a cycling helmet.   Security thought this could be used as a weapon on board the plane...

He had Common Sense on his side. The security chap had a uniform & FN rifle.. 

[andygates]

Goons with Belgian assault weapons: Just say "yes sir" and move on.  Weapon?  *giggle*

[andrewc]

The rifle was casually propped up against the side of the desk,  anyone who wanted to could have grabbed it.... this was Leh, the airport is shared between the military & civilian flights.

Common sense eventually prevailed & the Helmet of Death was returned.  My spare batteries were confiscated though, and I forgot to collect them at Delhi...

I've been watching too many Taser videos recently to wind security staff up..

[andygates]

I need to get tased.  For shits and giggles.

[Charlotte]

Would a pepped-up violet wand do the job for you?

[rae]

First, the hidden encrypted volume in TrueCrypt is plausibly deniable.  It's inside a visible encrypted volume.  That visible volume is a block of solid gibberish as you'd expect; you can't tell the invisible volume is even there.   

What makes you think that the bloke with the rubber gloves on doesn't know that as well?   Encryption and steg are good until someone shoves a gun in your face or starts making your life really miserable in some other way.  You get there, have a truecrypt drive full of pictures of kittens...and you send 38 hours in a holding pen while they make sure.  Worth it?    Not for me it isn't.   

Echelon, as in the eye of sauron?   No, the other thing.  The thing that is driving vendors to make highly intelligent super dense storage that has absolutely no relevance to modern business. 

[Mr Larrington]

Last year I was transiting an airport in India, one of the group was wearing a cycling helmet.   Security thought this could be used as a weapon on board the plane...

I was out cycling once and a car pulled in front of me on a roundabout, I hit the side and went over the bonnet. Walking back to my mountain-bike (grazes and bruises) to pick it up, he wound the window down to what I thought was apologise. He called me a 'blind OAF [The Censor]'. This is what I did.

1. Remove cycle helmet.
2. Clench fist inside cycle helmet, holding inside straps tightly, as if to wear a boxing glove.
3. Hit motorist square in centre of face with cycle helmet whilst watching nose explode most satisfactorally.
4. Dazed motorist pulls away in dazed frenzy, into a lamppost.
5. Mount bicycle (try to ignore the front wheel wobbling, it's getaway time).
6. Cycle like crazy whilst pandemonium ensues on aforementioned roundabout.
7. Pay £20 for new wheel whilst chuckling on the inside for weeks.

This is all true, I actually did this, it never came back to haunt me and the police never turned up at my door. Well, not for that incident anyway.

[andygates]

Would a pepped-up violet wand do the job for you?

Maybe, but I still need to get tased.  Just, you know, not where you might stick a violet wand.

What makes you think that the bloke with the rubber gloves on doesn't know that as well?   Encryption and steg are good until someone shoves a gun in your face or starts making your life really miserable in some other way.  You get there, have a truecrypt drive full of pictures of kittens...and you send 38 hours in a holding pen while they make sure.  Worth it?    Not for me it isn't.   

If they already suspect you, they'll hold you anyway.  "We think you're hiding something we can't see and can't prove to exist, we just don't trust your face!"  They may as well do a body cavity search and cut up my shoes at that point, and we're a long mile away from regular travel inspections then. 

Frankly, that's the point at which you give them the hidden stuff anyway, really, isn't it?   Because they've taken a dislike to your face and kicked off the whole rubber gloves scenario.  This isn't about evading detection so much as preventing your day-to-day chuff from getting into gods-knows-whose caches.  I don't want my handy password file and bank details and photos of my arse going to Untrusted Third Parties.  The agency may be trustworthy but the staff turnover is high and it's the skeezy individuals working for that agency that I don't trust.