While I don't disagree on the possibility of a high value target getting preferential treatment, I'm still not sure why they'd waste the time besides having a slightly more competent agent plugging the stuff in to make sure it's copied. Or just confiscating the drives straight up as they did in the article and sending the target along. There really isn't a need for an on the spot forensic analysis, as the type of equipment you'd need would just be space prohibitive in an airport.
My objection to the commenter's idea was pretty much that they're going out of their way to create a scenario in which it looks like the drive doesn't contain data, but unless you are a high value target, all that work would likely go unnoticed since you're just getting a standard agent. Even if you didn't, and you had a recently graduated CS savant as the agent, it seems more likely that there would be no investigation to wonder "should I copy this drive or not" - they'd just do it. Or just confiscate the drive, etc. You can make the effort to try to make the drives look blank, but that feels a lot like theatre. It'll maybe fool someone looking to pull data, but if they just do some raw disk dump like with dd or most forensic tools, I don't think it makes much of a difference. It's just planning for a situation that really wouldn't happen.
>It's not difficult for a flash drive to be concealed inside a USB cable though, and if you're being targeted for a search, it makes sense for them to take everything.
On the other hand, a MicroSD card can be hidden just about anywhere, so if they're not going through all your stuff with a fine-toothed comb, the whole thing is theater.
I'm not really sure on what the argument is here. Again, I think if a high priority target is really going through, they're not taking the microsd with them. There are far better ways of moving such data, such as a trusted 3rd party who receives the parcel through a series of proxies or a secure transmission, etc. If you are a high value target or in a dangerous profession or project that you feel warrants protection, there are a myriad of better ways of moving your sensitive data across checkpoints. If we wanted to get really fancy, you could have carrier pigeon or a falcon fly it across the border, or feed it to a dog and wait for the micro sd card to be pooped out.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't be wary and consider protections, but it just feels like this line of thinking in tech crowds tends to lead to incredibly specific scenarios that their solution resolves when many much more practical solutions exist. Under the auspices of fun mental exercise, I think it's fine, but when we're considering these as actual solutions to the very real threat of government searches at check points, then it's just adding bad suggestions.