How to protect your phone and data privacy at the US border
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
https://apnews.com/article/border-tourists-german-canadian-d...
Here’s a better tip: Don’t travel to the US. They are making it very clear they don’t want anyone else there.
https://www.politico.eu/article/police-can-access-mobile-pho...
It's mentioned in the article:
> At the border, however, there are currently policies in place that prohibit CBP from searching online cloud services.
Then again with phones being basically mirrored to the cloud my working assumption is that US gov is helping itself to my data anyway
I'd rather bring a fresh wiped device through security.
But US gov has access to any business records, including these conversations.
It's trivial to delete social apps off your phone, and claim you don't have accounts on (at least) the less common ones.
My question is, do they have backdoors to the major ones? Say you go on a wild rant a few times, delete it afterwards -- can "they" root through the DBs and examine the deleted posts? Is that something meta/twitter/etc even keep long-term?
I have to wonder how long before we see someone get flack for not having social media presence at all. Maybe in 2030 I'll finally be forced to create a LinkedIn just as a safety measure for social media presence checks.
>My question is, do they have backdoors to the major ones? Say you go on a wild rant a few times, delete it afterwards -- can "they" root through the DBs and examine the deleted posts? Is that something meta/twitter/etc even keep long-term?
Given we had stories back in 2013 about how they tracked how often you typed and deleted without posting. (but not what was typed) It might be best to assume the worst as always.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2525227/Face...
It's obviously a bad idea at the moment.
Now they don't need a physical access to your device and may access your data at any time.
She's specifically suggesting that instead of taking a small chance on having your phone searched, to upload it to 1 of 3 American companies, all revealed by Edward Snowdon to collaborate with American government snooping. Crazy.
My phone has:
* Photos going back 10+ years
* Emails going back 10+ years
* Messages going back 10+ years
* All passwords (restricted, but if you're at the border and the person tells you to open it, you'll have to)
* Access to all files on my home NAS
If you got access to my phone and wanted to snoop around, you'd get... everything, all at once, all right there for you to see. There's SO much personal data. Even in airplane mode. It's all local.
Some of it is stored in companies' clouds, but surely you see the difference between my having my emails with fastmail, files on iCloud Drive, passwords with 1Password, and... "you have direct physical access to a fully unlocked phone and can force me to unlock any part of it, and you have no restrictions, and you don't have to 'collaborate' with Apple or any other company to get that data part by part".
Then arrive without a phone (or with an empty burner just containing the map to your hotel).
Just flatly admit I intended to comply with the request, just didn't want to be afraid if I deleted all the saucy photos of myself with my wife.
But in all seriousness I have a phone like this already and use it as a navigation device only: just gmaps, Waze, citymapper and separate Google account (in my name).
Just devoid from anything personal while visibly being in use for a lot of time.
I'm in the US and I'm not in a big hurry to get a new Chinese or Russian visa.
Of course, I’ve known someone turned back from the UK too and I’m sure it’s happened in every country for various reasons.
They even clarify it’s not a paywall. But even if it were, those are still acceptable on HN, as per the FAQ¹:
> Are paywalls ok?
> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.
> In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic². More here³.
Usually you’ll have an alternative link on the comments. Here’s one for you:
https://archive.ph/20250326114736/https://www.theguardian.co...
¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
² https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
³ https://hn.algolia.com/?query=paywalls%20by:dang&dateRange=a...
Only secondarily was my post about how paywalled links (which again, this one isn’t) are explicitly on topic on HN with the reasoning why (since the OP was asking why they are permitted in the first place). Furthermore, the linked and quoted FAQ continues to explain that complaining about such links is explicitly off topic, with further links that I went through the trouble of including.
I don’t understand how you find that to be “not contributing much”. I can hardly imagine a more comprehensive response to this particular query.
Causing inconvenience to ordinary Americans is the only way that will get through the thick brains of US Congress, I am afraid. And this should have been done in retaliation ever since these measures were introduced.
You can tell because now Newsom is singing a different tune. He even denies ever using the word “latinx” and Bernie now claims secure borders are a must…
Don’t put people is a position where they will make a choice you (the other guys and gals) will regret. Don’t “dare” them.
He's just big on being a decent person. So don't do things like store people on concrete floors under 24h lights. It doesn't mean that he wants unfettered immigration.
> (2015) [2] So I was disappointed, if not surprised, at the visceral horror with which Bernie Sanders reacted to the idea when interviewed by my colleague Ezra Klein. “Open borders?” he interjected. “No, that’s a Koch brothers proposal.” The idea, he argued, is a right-wing scheme meant to flood the US with cheap labor and depress wages for native-born workers. “I think from a moral responsibility, we’ve got to work with the rest of the industrialized world to address the problems of international poverty,” he conceded, “but you don’t do that by making people in this country even poorer.”
[1]: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/25/21143931/b...
[2]:
People who are hurt by the policies of this administration aren't going to say "gee, one third of the United States really sucks." Nor should they. Right now, the United States sucks. The onus is on us, all of us, to fix it.
Non voters implicitly endorse the status quo, even if they don’t understand the consequences of their choices.
To the point here, Americans who didn’t vote bear responsibility for our current political situation.
Sounds like they were happy to roll the dice. Play stupid games.
You deal with the government as-in.
It's not like we say "Oh, Nalvany was a great guy so we shouldn't sanction Russia".
That’s 165 million people—about 60%—of Americans who didn’t vote for the current president.
That’s definitely not how it works.
I didn’t vote in 2016 but was definitely NOT okay with Trump winning.
I also live in a state where Hillary Clinton won every county that year, so my non-vote made no difference in the outcome.
On the other hand, if I lived in a swing state or if we elected the president by popular vote, I would have voted for Clinton regardless of my personal feelings.
Also many people choose not to vote to express their dislike for both candidates.
For that case, try international sanctions - of which, yes, increasing visa requirements or banning entry bar special cases (say a Salvadorian having family in the EU) certainly is an option that should be discussed.
The EU has strength through the size of its population and economy, and it's time we finally start playing our cards instead of just bending over.
Yes, the UK put ETA in place but that's trivial and mostly symbolic. Took me about 2 minutes to complete which was mostly about grabbing my passport to get the number.
That comparison doesn't really make sense.
What mschuster91 proposed is that in response to the US mistreating EU visitors the EU should mistreat US visitors. It's a straightforward symmetrical tit for tat. One party starts harming another, that other reciprocates with a similar harm directed to the first party.
In your comparison it would be others responding to El Salvador mistreating its own citizens by also mistreating El Salvador's citizens. It is missing the crucial symmetry of a tit for tat.
And then the cycle of hate and harm becomes infinite. Or, in other words:
> An eye for an eye will leave everyone blind.¹
Random US citizens are not at fault for random US border agents harming random EU citizens. By all means, have the EU refuse entry to US citizens, but treating them like the US does—imprisoning them for weeks—is unacceptable even in retaliation.
¹ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/27/eye-for-eye-blind/
Genuine curiosity, are you a Trump fan?
In any case tourism is bad for the environment. Stay local, vacation locally be socially responsible.
Travel by Canadians (to USA) is down to covid-era lows.
But it ain't the best idea anyway, those americans that do travel abroad are mostly the saner ones and not avid trump voters. No point trying to target some rednecks that are trivial to manipulate via emotions whose farthest life trip was maybe to Tijuana.
Causing inconvenience to average Americans won’t have any impact in the actions of their ruling class. In fact, they would likely spin that into propaganda against foreign countries.
The status quo aka doing nothing hasn't worked either so far - to the contrary, with each administration, the bullshit increases. So, it's time to escalate - if the US doesn't learn the easy way, it takes more pressure.
As someone who grew up in an area leaning hard conservative, the trope of “American who doesn’t travel outside of their state” exists for a reason and describes a lot of people. Extend that to international travel.
https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/...
China allows phone searches _anywhere_ without warrant.
I don’t know the rules in the EU or India currently but worked for a company 20 years ago that would not let us travel across any border with IP on a laptop because the assumption is that border agents could demand access both electronically and physically.
No, you need to cause inconvenience specifically to the ruling class, not ordinary people. Otherwise, Congress will just hand-wave away concerns of their constituents if it doesn't affect themselves personally.