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Erase Your Porn
The Ninth Circuit becomes the second federal appeals court to rule that border agents can search your laptop without probable cause. The ruling wasn't surprising, but it is unfortunate. Probably good for the external drive and web hosting industries, though.
T|4.23.08 @ 11:10AM|#
TrueCrypt, baby! The man
will never find your porn!
Works on thumb drives, too.
|4.23.08 @ 11:15AM|#
Well, I guess my "Michael Cheroff is a Terrorist" screensaver will have to go...
Jennifer|4.23.08 @ 11:18AM|#
Serious question: if you're going on a trip and decide to replace your lovely "Starry Night" screensaver/background with something vile like a goatse picture, is this kosher or are you expected to make sure nothing on your computer offends the delicate sensibilities of the overpaid high-school dropouts playing security theater roles these days?
|4.23.08 @ 11:20AM|#
I'd have a folder entitled "Secret Terrorist Plans" but every file in it would be the Rick Astley video.
LarryA|4.23.08 @ 11:28AM|#
Finally! Now at least someone will read my
stories. And who knows? One of the TSA folks may have a sister
who's married to a Hollywood producer who...
Aw, come on. It's as likely as them catching a terrorist by
randomly snooping hard drives.
|4.23.08 @ 11:30AM|#
Jennifer -
If you do that, try to get in line near a small child, so you can
also accuse the TSA guy of showing obscene material to a minor.
Dr. Logan|4.23.08 @ 11:31AM|#
I'd have a folder entitled "Secret Terrorist Plans" but
every file in it would be the Rick Astley video.
When you rickroll the TSA, everybody wins.
|4.23.08 @ 11:33AM|#
Serious question: how do they determine if a picture is child porn? There are some really young-looking 18 year olds, and for that matter, some frighteningly overdeveloped 14-year olds.
Neu Mejican|4.23.08 @ 11:36AM|#
Arnold argued that a laptop is like a home - and therefore
receives the same privacy protections. But O'Scannlain countered
that you cannot live in a laptop and it travels with you, so there
is less privacy expectation.
Doesn't your second life avatar have privacy expectations?
Warty,
Any more questions like that an you will be subject to a reasonable
cause search.
;^)
|4.23.08 @ 11:39AM|#
Ummm, what the fuck is the border patrol looking for? Virtual
illegal aliens?
If I have photos of the Hoover Fucking Dam on my computer, am I
going to be detained?
|4.23.08 @ 11:41AM|#
I have one of those really cool "earthrise from the moon" pictures on my desktop; will they assume I took it myself from my secret moonbase fortress?
|4.23.08 @ 11:49AM|#
Mr. Brooks, I'm afraid you're going to have to... "GET ON THE GROUND! NOW MOTHERF#(*#&@!"
Bingo|4.23.08 @ 11:51AM|#
What if someone brought a lethal computer virus across the border on their laptop?? I, for one, am glad that the TSA will be keeping us safe from such terrorist activities.
ed|4.23.08 @ 11:55AM|#
I don't own a laptop, cell phone or wristwatch.
I was a quiet man who blended in.
They never saw it coming.
Alex Jones|4.23.08 @ 11:56AM|#
P Brooks | April 23, 2008, 11:41am | #
In that case they would want to find out how you broke through the
radiation belt and reached the moon, since they never did.
|4.23.08 @ 11:57AM|#
Y'know, I don't have a huge issue with people being cavity
searched when they cross the border. That's just the way it
works.
The problem is "the border" is now defined as every square inch of
land up to 100 miles from the border, so huge
sections of this country lost the 4th Amendment decades ago and
never even knew it.
|4.23.08 @ 11:59AM|#
Uhm, Bingo, do you honestly think a TSA agent would have the slightest clue how to locate a virus on someone's laptop? If I have a heart attack from laughing this hard, I'm sending you the bill.
Naga Sadow|4.23.08 @ 11:59AM|#
T,
Awesome looking program, but I suspect that the NSA's code breaking
mainframes in the basement would make mincemeat of the virtual
encryption.
Bingo|4.23.08 @ 12:16PM|#
The borders of our internet are insecure! Millions of
IllegalMexicanImmigrants and IslamicTerrorists are free to browse
American websites on American servers. They have clear and open
access to the White House, FBI, Department of Defense. They can
insert a virtual weapon of mass destruction at any moment and
destroy millions and interrupt ebay and eshopping and email.
Do you want an Islamofascist foreigner talking to your teenage
daughter on Myspace? Or what about a Chinese spy looking at your
son's facebook information? The Russian mafia can send your
children pornography and drug information, completely
unhindered!
We should demand the government do something about this threat. If
we don't secure the borders of our tubes for the children, then the
terrorists will have won.
|4.23.08 @ 12:20PM|#
Bingo -
Where did you copy and paste that post from? It was way too good to
have been your own snark.
Elemenope|4.23.08 @ 12:27PM|#
Ummm, what the fuck is the border patrol looking for?
Virtual illegal aliens?
Yes. And virtual drugs. And usage of encryption and/or
steganography.
If I have photos of the Hoover Fucking Dam on my computer, am I
going to be detained?
Yes. Welcome to Amerika.
|4.23.08 @ 12:35PM|#
Millions of IllegalMexicanImmigrants and IslamicTerrorists
are free to browse American websites on American servers. They have
clear and open access to the White House, FBI, Department of
Defense.
Not only that, foreign investors, newly made rich by the debasement
of the Federal Reserve asswipe Note, will have
unfettered access to the Hud Home listings! Do you really want The
French buying houses in this country? Homes freshly repossessed
from god-fearing, red-blooded American house-flippers?
Oh, for shame...
|4.23.08 @ 12:46PM|#
~Naga Sadow
It's not virtual encryption, it is a virtual drive that is
encrypted that they mean. And while it is probably the case that
NSA can break AES-256 with their monster server farms, let's see
how they do when everyone coming across the border has many gigs of
material encrypted thusly. Are we all supposed to wait for them to
decrypt before I board the plane? Talk about delays...
If we'd all just encrypt every message we send online, even if it's
"hey Jennifer, go see this goatse picture..." then we'd not have to
worry about AT&T setting up listening posts.
Naga Sadow|4.23.08 @ 12:54PM|#
Johnnykrisma,
There was a computer engineer at USM who basically said the same
thing. So much information and too few personel to review
everything. He theorized that any eavesdropping was carried out by
using certain phrases and keywords, that were indexed by using
other databases such as the FBI's, CIA's, etc.
|4.23.08 @ 12:59PM|#
"Probably good for the external drive and web hosting
industries, though."
Until an Executive Order is signed authorizing, and demanding,
access to said external drive(s) and web hosting services in the
interest of NATIONAL SECURITY and THE CHILDREN a la the "terrorist"
phone call monitoring program.
Bingo|4.23.08 @ 1:01PM|#
Hey now Reinmoose! No need to doubt my snarkiness ;)
LMNOP: I think you mean steganography.
Time to encrypt all my important docs into 2girls1cup and
goatse
I'm actually surprised the social conservatives haven't tried to
get legislation for a national firewall (like China). For the
children, of course.
|4.23.08 @ 1:07PM|#
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess QTParted will do a
better job of erasing/ formatting my hard drive than whatever crap
Windows has built in.
----
Once upon a time, I had an atom bomb mushroom cloud as a desktop
picture. All I have to do is find it, and photoshop the Chrysler
building into it, and I won't ever have to worry about flying
again.
But I don't really want to spend the rest of my days in a dog
kennel, either...
fuck it.
I better get to work.
Jennifer|4.23.08 @ 1:09PM|#
And while it is probably the case that NSA can break AES-256
with their monster server farms, let's see how they do when
everyone coming across the border has many gigs of material
encrypted thusly. Are we all supposed to wait for them to decrypt
before I board the plane? Talk about delays...
Actually, I wouldn't put it past the government to adopt the
default attitude "if it's encrypted, it's probably illegal and
proof that you need to be detained." What does the TSA have to lose
if everybody misses their flight? Nothing. TSA gets paid either
way. Why should the Border Patrol give a shit if citizens are
stranded outside the country and forbidden access back in? It's not
like they're ever rated on matters like "customer
satisfaction."
|4.23.08 @ 1:15PM|#
Bingo -
It wasn't in doubt of your snarkiness, it just looked too life-like
to be snark. It's a compliment.
Other Matt|4.23.08 @ 1:16PM|#
Actually, I wouldn't put it past the government to adopt the
default attitude "if it's encrypted, it's probably illegal and
proof that you need to be detained."
No, they'll let you go on, leaving your laptop behind until it's
decrypted, or destroyed. Or, you can give them the password, it's
your choice.
Bingo|4.23.08 @ 1:28PM|#
Other Matt: The TrueCrypt hidden volume feature works pretty well there. One password pulls up the fake volume and the other password pulls up the real one. Put some financial docs and some soft-core porn in the fake volume and let 'em take a look if they want. They can't tell if you have a hidden volume and you get a plausible excuse for encrypting it.
|4.23.08 @ 1:28PM|#
leaving your laptop behind until it's decrypted, or
destroyed.
Or put up for sale on Ebay, to help fund the Global War on Scary
Badguys. Or beer money.
|4.23.08 @ 1:40PM|#
No, they'll let you go on, leaving your laptop behind until
it's decrypted, or destroyed. Or, you can give them the password,
it's your choice.
In looking at TrueCrypt (which looks sweet), there is a way
around
this.
TSA bimbos are unlikely, imho, to figure this all out.
Edit: in preview, Bingo beat me to it. :p
|4.23.08 @ 1:46PM|#
Awesome looking program, but I suspect that the NSA's code breaking mainframes in the basement would make mincemeat of the virtual encryption
Yeah, lets see how well the NSA's code breaking mainframes work on
a one time pad, shall we?!?!
Actually, I wouldn't put it past the government to adopt the default attitude "if it's encrypted, it's probably illegal and proof that you need to be detained."
How will they even know that there is encrypted data on a machine?
How is encrypted data different than say unencrypted data? It is
all just ones and zeros.
|4.23.08 @ 2:01PM|#
IIRC there is a precedent for the use of encryption in a child porn case being part of the *evidence* of a trial. I guess much like the "if you've got nothing to hide, then what does it matter" argument, if you're using encryption, then you must have something to hide.
|4.23.08 @ 2:05PM|#
Yeah, lets see how well the NSA's code breaking mainframes work on a one time pad, shall we?!?!
They'll just subpoena your pads
How will they even know that there is encrypted data on a machine? How is encrypted data different than say unencrypted data? It is all just ones and zeros.
TSA wouldn't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but is
possible to tell if something is encrypted. Most files even
programs will have some type of plaintext in it. header files,
constants, etc. Encrypted files are pure 'gibberish' for lack of a
better term.
Jerry|4.23.08 @ 2:06PM|#
"...has failed to distinguish how the search of his laptop
and its electronic contents is logically any different from the
suspicionless border searches of travelers' luggage that the
Supreme Court and we have allowed..."
So if I put my laptop in my suitcase, can they still search the
laptop? Or can they only look at it and determine it's value from a
catalogue?
bill|4.23.08 @ 2:18PM|#
The big question is can they force you to reveal or enter your password to open an encrypted volume? What about if you have your Windows password on? Can they make you enter it just to even be able to get into OS?
Kolohe|4.23.08 @ 2:25PM|#
As part of this side disgression, didn't "they" try in the 90's to make it illegal to possess anything other than authorized encryption technology? The 'clipper chip' or something like that? (TLTG - thanks for the acronym J sub D!)
|4.23.08 @ 2:31PM|#
They'll just subpoena your pads
How will they know that a one time pad is even being used?.
TSA wouldn't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but is possible to tell if something is encrypted. Most files even programs will have some type of plaintext in it. header files, constants, etc. Encrypted files are pure 'gibberish' for lack of a better term.
Here is an example of what someone can do:
Take a family photo (or more likely multiple photographs) with a
digital camera, and take their encrypted data... then take each bit
of that encrypted data, and add 1 or zero to the red channel of
that pixel, corresponding to the bit from the encrypted file.
The photographs with the encrypted data will be indistinguishable
from a normal photograph, as that one bit is below the noise level
of digital cameras.
You copy these photographs to your laptop and travel to the U.S..
Meanwhile, your contact in the U.S. has a version of these
photographs without the encrypted file superimposed. Diff the
files, and you have that encrypted file again.
You can do it with any sort of file (sound, images, etc.). Do it
with a music file in your iPod, which is unlikely ever to be
searched, and even if it is, they have only discovered a perfectly
normal audio file.
And what I am giving as an example is a gross simplification. There
are much more sophisticated ways to hide the data. But basically,
very smart people work very hard to hide data from national
intelligence services, let alone from the idiots at the TSA. It is
possible to hide and encrypt data such that virtually no-one will
know that you have encrypted data, let alone be able to unencrypted
it.
|4.23.08 @ 3:09PM|#
It is possible to hide and encrypt data such that virtually
no-one will know that you have encrypted data, let alone be able to
unencrypted it.
Homeland Security must be issued massive electro-magnets to
scramble the memory of every electronic data storage device which
crosses the border in either direction. That way, it will be
impossible for Islamoterrorverts to transfer information from one
part of the world to another.
|4.23.08 @ 3:16PM|#
Just set your laptop to boot from a drive that does not exist
before you come and go "freely." When nothing happens but Hard Disk
not found you can just say the laptop just crapped out and look
depressed.
From the looks of those the government employs for these jobs
getting past them should not be difficult at all.
Boot passwords, OS passwords, Encryption passwords not to mention
whole partitions of data not visible if you run a dual boot
setup.
Face it if those folks had 1/2 the computer skills to get around
all that they would not be working where they are now.
It is true that collecting data seems great on the face of it but
there comes a point where you have more data than you can manage
and make sense from. Someone has to sift through the data at
sometime and even cursory searches of really large volumes of data
will yield really large quantities of information. They can't keep
track of anything hardly now as it stands yet they seem to think
collecting more is the answer. To what I have no idea other than
someones desire for a total police state.
|4.23.08 @ 3:28PM|#
Mac users, go to System Preferences, Security, FileVault. Turn
it on. Problem solved.
-jcr
T|4.23.08 @ 3:49PM|#
I actually wondered what they would do if you simply look at them and say you don't have the password. Company policy prohibits me giving out my password. What do I care if TSA confiscates the laptop? It ain't my laptop. I'll hand IT a receipt and say "Gimme new laptop."
|4.23.08 @ 4:30PM|#
The fact is TSA are probably not the sharpest tools in their
shed, so resorting to something like Steganography or even
encryption is ridiculous. You could easily set up a innocuous
looking partition to be your default boot drive and then when you
wanted to get to your kiddie pr0n, nuclear device plans, or source
code to Diebold's voting machines, just boot from that
partition.
Just looked, Dee beat me to this idea, so yeah, what (s)he
said...
|4.23.08 @ 5:12PM|#
# Your Good Buddy Johnny Clarke | April 23, 2008, 11:57am |
#
# Y'know, I don't have a huge issue with people
# being cavity searched when they cross the
# border. That's just the way it works.
But where in the Constitution does this permission to forgo
warrants reside? In the word "unreasonable"? I thought a
"reasonable" search was a warranted one, or one that, because of
serious and exceptional "exigent circumstances" could not wait for
a warrant.
How do routine Customs searches qualify? I think this is another
power that the courts simply made up, pretty much as they made up
the "immigration" power out of whole cloth as "an inherent power of
nations," without recourse to any specific language in the
Constitution (which takes pains to make explicit other "inherent
powers," such as taxation, for example, and then to say that
anything not explicitly permitted for the Federal government to do
was forbidden to it).
Just because we may have become used to "routine" Customs searches
doesn't mean they are right, even if the Justices have (mistakenly)
said so in years past. I hope this guy appeals.
gr|4.23.08 @ 6:07PM|#
"Probably good for the external drive and web hosting
industries, though."
Using the same logic as this ruling they can probably search your
hard drives and media that you bring with you too.
TallDave|4.23.08 @ 9:37PM|#
Sheesh, this is awful.
They might as well put up a sign:
"You Are Now Entering America. Please Check Your Rights At The
Border."
TallDave|4.23.08 @ 9:37PM|#
Using the same logic as this ruling they can probably search
your hard drives and media that you bring with you too.
I have faith the average border guard can't be bothered to figure
out a USB connection.
LarryA|4.24.08 @ 3:47PM|#
One laptop - $800
100 Firefly flash drives - $900
Look on TSAguy's face - Priceless
Clackalackin|4.27.08 @ 3:39PM|#
You go through US Customs and Border Patrol at the border Ports
of entry. They are Federal Officers and can arrest you at the
border. Totally, different than TSA.
Presenting yourself at the border is all it takes to satisfy any
4th amendment issues. Like it or not that's the facts.
Go ahead and believe they don't know about USB ports, encryption
software, phone chips, sim cards or your box of 25 Cubans.
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