If it works, customs officers cannot find actual illegal contents, and criminals walk free through customs.
If customs officers somehow detects you are doing this, you risk obstructing security measures.
This forum largely believes that the balance struck by New Zealand - that you don't have the right to data privacy when traveling - is completely unacceptable, and as technologists we try to find technical countermeasures.
What if we have a "physical encryption" technology that allows encrypting physical objects so that X-ray scanners, drug detecting methods or metal detectors cannot see through them?
Would customs be allowed to ask for the decryption key? Or should the customs just ignore whatever encrypted inside?
The justice system and separation of powers acts as checks and balances from anyone (good or bad) being harassed unless there's a strong reason why. Get a warrant with a limited scope and then do the search.
No need to imagine. There are innumerable cases over the years where cops have turned into stalkers backed by the power of the government when their girlfriends dump them. It happened to one of my ex-es, but I've seen it in newspapers dozens of times over the years.
The problem is that cops are still people. And people are often messy, emotional, irregular, obsessive, mean, or just have a bad day and need someone to take it out on.
Wetware will be wetware. All we can do is advocate for better training and smarter policies.
Given some hypothetical new technology with vast societal implications, I would be forced to carefully reconsider that position, but in this case I believe privacy is a basic human right that does not simply disappear at the borders.
And I am more than happy to learn that you would re-consider your position given such hypothetical situation.
Would customs be allowed to ask for the decryption key? Or should the customs just ignore whatever is encrypted inside?
I would say the benefit is too good, weighing against privacy.
Of course, you would then request for brain scanning technology to be more widely employed and that brain scanners be installed in the subway, on buses, gas stations and any other place drug dealers and terrorists could happen to go by. I think we all know what is the end for this line of reasoning.
Anyway, it is quite apparent that we have fundamentally different views on these issues, so let's agree to disagree and call it a day.
Does that mean I am going to self-sensor my views to avoid losing karma? No. You have your rights to disagree, I have my rights to express my views.
Only if you don't mind the downvotes. For some odd reason, these 'imaginary points' end up causing me to self-censor anyways.
On further-thought, it makes me think it's just something built into us. We seek social/group approval, and it makes us regress to the mean when it comes to thought/opinion. However, I don't think it's the right way for our brains to be wired, especially with social media exposing us to the entire world.
And now with this border-search thing. If it means that the state end up having access to all your social media accounts, that now span decade+ timeframes, not even time and personal growth/regret can protect us.
No, it wouldn't. One key weakness of totalitarian systems (and that is what you are advocating for) is always that the massive power of the system attracts criminals and corruption into the system and has a major risk of the criminals ending up using the totalitarian power for themselves. If you think there is some sort of absolute solution to a social problem, you are ignoring that implementing the solution does itself build on society. If society isn't free of crime, your solution won't be free of crime either, and if society if free of crime, you don't need the solution. And if your solution isn't free of crime (so, you have corrupt police officers or judges or whatever), then you have thus given criminals the option to use a massively powerful weapon for themselves in some ways.
Tacitus
Furthermore, if you want to stop drug trafficking, legalize them.
If that is your argument, then I don't think anyone can convince you.
> What it would do is erode the rights and freedoms of law abiding citizens (something that terrorists seem to want).
That's not how Wikipedia (and I myself) define terrorism:
> Terrorism is, in the broadest sense, the use of intentionally indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror among masses of people; or fear to achieve a financial, political, religious or ideological aim.
Physical objects usually don't reveal this much at once and require a warrant. With a border phone search, there's no due process at all. If you're so afraid of bad actors that you're willing to subject yourself to this, you're free, but the bad actors have won.
What happens if you use the postal service to deliver your phone across a border? Are the same authorities who claim the right to search your phone if it is on your person at the border also claiming the authority to confiscate and duplicate your phone if it shipped/mailed? Do you have to put your password on a sticky note on the the front of the phone? And if you ship the physical device but transfer the data separately does that change the expectations?
It is interesting that condensing information into a digital format that can be easily duplicated and searched (before or after duplication) seems to change the expectations for the authorities and I think for individuals.
I think this is another example of the modern digital world/economy has left the legal system in the dust.
The boundary between what should be allowed and what should not be allowed has nothing whatsoever to do with the state of technology.
Freedom is not possible without privacy. As soon as you are in danger of privacy violation, you change your behavior. This is also known as self-censoring. You can already see it here in the forum: people report that they have nothing to hide, but they still reset their phones and use fake accounts when crossing the border.
What is particularly insidious about border control is that there is no legal checks-and-balances system behind it. Police cannot search your home without a warrant issued by a judge. Border control can search everything without any warrant.
In the past, you could yourself 'balance' this by not taking very personal things (e.g., a diary) with you when traveling abroad. But with our digital lifes, this is not possible anymore. You cannot leave your photo album at home anymore.
What makes it so much worse is that criminals can so easily circumvent this issue. They anyway use throw-away phones. They don't need to carry notebooks with them, they can just buy a new one on arrival - if needed at all - and download encrypted files from the Cloud.
So we now have established that border control has an unprecedented and uncontrolled access to our privacy. Shouldn't they be forced to prove that this pays off for our society? Please show me the cases of successful prosecution after digital search of a phone. To me, there seem extremely few of them. So it seems a high price for a marginal benefit.
http://time.com/5344265/3d-printed-guns-legal/
I would be surprised if that's not possible for drugs or explosives in 5-10 years.
Edit: Looks like they are already possible or at least on the way:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/you-could-soon-be-man...
https://all3dp.com/custom-shaped-explosives-us-navy-3d-print...
I would very much be surprised if it becomes possible for drugs or explosives any time within my lifetime. Chemistry and physics just don't work that way.
I think google doesn't censor results based on location? So you should see the same results.
Edit: To save your time and avoid polluting your search history:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/you-could-soon-be-man...
https://all3dp.com/custom-shaped-explosives-us-navy-3d-print...
Still, you do need very specific input materials for both processes.
In the case of the latter, you basically need a spool of explosive string. You're not so much printing an explosive as you are shaping an explosive into a desired form. I'm sure it's still very useful, but I don't think it's a particularly big game changer in the "smuggling things into a country" field.
"Illegal contents", as in what? Unflattering cartoons of the president? A spreadsheet marked "cocaine delivery schedule"? Why is this on the alleged criminal's phone while she's crossing the border? Has she never heard of the internet? No real criminal could be caught by any of this buffoonery. Lots of normal people whom the state would like to harass will be harassed, while wasting a great deal of money, which is the point.
In Thailand, both tourists and locals can be severely punished for making fun of the King.
(I'd Google some links, but I'm on a dialup-speed cellular connection right now. It shouldn't be hard to find, though.)
Just another example of the different way in which speech/information is treated in different countries.
one big strong and noisy facepalm...
:)
But a lot of the agents will have MAGA hats in their car, so I probably wouldn't have unflattering Trump cartoons on my phone. Though I would love it if EVERYONE had 'fuck trump' as their phone background.
It's a shame that people now have to guard their privacy like drugs.
No sane criminal would bring illegal electronic data with him on a physical device... He'll just download it when he gets there.