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Comment by done_lurking | Hacker News Reader

If authorities already have the means to access your browser history then deleting it won't accomplish anything. They can just install malware and see what you're browsing anyway.

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In a remote hack or an evil maid attack, sure. If you get targeted for something, and your computer is confiscated and searched, the less ammunition stored there the better. With a large enough dataset (emails, web history, etc.) it’s pretty easy to cherry pick data points to build a narrative.

I don’t bother with this level of defensiveness but I can follow the reasoning.

I would've thought it paranoia that such things would happen in the west, but given the insanity in the UK in recent years (1) maybe it's not. Seems pretty common to get arrested in the UK for posting memes.

1: https://www.fire.org/news/blogs/free-speech-dispatch/uk-teen...

In that case, full disk encryption is the only effective mitigation. As far as I know, there isn't a legal way to make you decrypt a personal device.

At border crossings they can deny you entry into the country if you refuse to allow your devices to be searched. Even if you're a US citizen re-entering the US, you will be denied entry if you don't comply. So while that can't force you they have pretty strong power of coercion, to the point where you're forced for all practical purposes.

Unfortunately this is true, border crossings are a special case and I'm still not sure what the best approach is for that. I imagine you would have to mail your device to the destination before you cross or just leave it at home. Alternatively, store the encrypted data in the cloud, download it at the destination, then wipe it from the device when you're done.

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