Comments on: Border Agents Green Lighted To Search Laptops http://www.liquidmatrix.org/blog/2008/04/23/border-agents-green-lighted-to-search-laptops/ Bringing Fire To The Village: Your Source For Computer, Network & Information Security News from Dave Lewis, Security Blogger Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:58:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Dave Lewis http://www.liquidmatrix.org/blog/2008/04/23/border-agents-green-lighted-to-search-laptops/#comment-69129 Dave Lewis Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:09:28 +0000 http://www.liquidmatrix.org/blog/?p=2949#comment-69129 @Roger You know, you're right. I didn't really give that a thorough "think". That would be a world of hurt if you answered the question incorrectly and were found to be in possession of an electronic device. Fair point. I keep nothing of value on my laptop when I travel simply for the reason that it might get stolen. I have a similar set up to you when I cross borders into another country. VPN makes things easier. That, and I don't have to worry about the critical information, such as grocery lists emailed to me from my wife, being read by border agents. Thanks for the comment. @Roger

You know, you’re right.

I didn’t really give that a thorough “think”. That would be a world of hurt if you answered the question incorrectly and were found to be in possession of an electronic device.

Fair point.

I keep nothing of value on my laptop when I travel simply for the reason that it might get stolen. I have a similar set up to you when I cross borders into another country. VPN makes things easier. That, and I don’t have to worry about the critical information, such as grocery lists emailed to me from my wife, being read by border agents.

Thanks for the comment.

]]> By: Roger Halbheer http://www.liquidmatrix.org/blog/2008/04/23/border-agents-green-lighted-to-search-laptops/#comment-69128 Roger Halbheer Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:43:29 +0000 http://www.liquidmatrix.org/blog/?p=2949#comment-69128 I agree with you that it is not really a poof of a mature country if searches are allwoed just if the border agent did not sleep to well the day before. However your suggestion of using such decives is very risky (to say the least). What do you do if the Officer asks you to present all the electronic devices you have? Do you show the pen or not? If not, you probably might be in deep problems, if yes, well this did not help. We discussed this on and on and the only viable option is to store the data on a server, whipe the disk and download it after crossing the boarder and even this is not really a solution as the most critical data for me is in e-mail. Last but not least: this is not US only. There are other countries (like Australia) which have the same rules Roger I agree with you that it is not really a poof of a mature country if searches are allwoed just if the border agent did not sleep to well the day before.
However your suggestion of using such decives is very risky (to say the least). What do you do if the Officer asks you to present all the electronic devices you have? Do you show the pen or not? If not, you probably might be in deep problems, if yes, well this did not help.
We discussed this on and on and the only viable option is to store the data on a server, whipe the disk and download it after crossing the boarder and even this is not really a solution as the most critical data for me is in e-mail.
Last but not least: this is not US only. There are other countries (like Australia) which have the same rules
Roger

]]>