Comment by spaceboy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spaceboy | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I thought the U.S had better key disclosure law[1] than other countries? Personally I would rather not self-incriminate myself by revealing a key, no matter how draconian and lengthy the sentencing was. Why, you ask? Well I consider all my own personal data likened to an extension of my own mind, and revealing a key is like slicing a thin part of my brain and attempting to pick its contents. Never a gentlemanly thing to do in any circumstance.

In terms of being stopped and searched when traveling, I just carry a TailsOS bootable live USB. My laptop doesn't have a hard-drive and boots entirely from my TailsOS USB stick. I did not enable any persistent storage and any bookmarks I need to remember, I simply remember them by rote, like in that movie The Book of Eli[2]. My threat model is such that I don't want anybody knowing my business when traveling. The intrusiveness should only go so far as one question, like "Business or Pleasure?" and that's all.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Stat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Eli

If you need to cross a border, you will find that the border agents think they have the right to compel you to boot your laptop, including entering any secret or attaching any device required to do so. I doubt that they could ultimately stop you returning to your own country if you held out, but they could stop you leaving, and they could certainly make your life pretty miserable.

In my opinion you'd be much better with a laptop that booted to windows and looked like it had some simple things installed under a password you don't mind giving them. Then they'll probably never get around to asking you about the usb stick your tailsOS is installed on.

You can now get extremely large usb sticks in very small form factors. I have been toying with the idea of creating something that looks exactly (and nonsuspiciously) like a usb 'charging cable' but with built in memory. Ideally if it's plugged into power or a laptop, it just appears as a normal usb cable, but if the microusb end is not plugged in, it shows as a large memory stick you could also boot from.

There's nothing about TailsOS that could arouse suspicion if there's nothing persistent on it that could arouse suspicion, or draw more attention to you. TailsOS is strictly a utility like a wrench or a screwdriver. Providing you exit TailsOS properly and watch the screen as it's wiping the memory to ensure it has infact wiped. TailsOS can prove to be an innocuous O.S after you unload it from memory. They might ask questions, but they have nothing on you.

Bringing a Windows OS is stupid as Windows doesn't clean up properly after shutting down and leaves a forensic footprint which is difficult to cleanup unless you use something like Bleachbit[1] or CCleaner after using Windows. You typically want to offload cleaning up to the O.S level and avoid using such tools such as CCLeaner in the first place (Keep in mind, since this is Windows, there are issues with free space on the drive that leave deleted files remaining on the hard-disk, even after explicitly stating they should be deleted).

With TailsOS, In other words, you can browse freely and with peace of mind that you won't leave a forensic footprint behind, giving you an upper-hand over other passengers who have to self-censor their browsing for fear of scrutiny at a later date from border officers.

[1] https://www.bleachbit.org

[2] https://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER

That isn't an issue with Windows but with all file systems. When you delete a file it does not remove the data it marks the area it resides as "free" allowing anything to be saved there.

Even tails if not immune to this unless you use some secure wipe tool. Even they flash drives have wear level management that loves data around to make the wear on each chip equal so you can't be sure its even gone.

Windows doesn't wipe the memory properly though, and the default browser (MS Edge for Win10, and plain old IE for older versions), are awful default browsers, forensically speaking.

I'll leave this link here for those who use Tails and need to wipe files and other data, either there and then, or after the fact of deletion (clearing files from free space):

https://tails.boum.org/doc/encryption_and_privacy/secure_del...

Wow this is an innocent perspective. TailsOS would definitely raise suspicion even if you otherwise seemed as pure as the driven snow. Suspicion will prompt a deeper investigation, which is what you don't want.

> Bringing a Windows OS is stupid as Windows doesn't clean up properly after shutting down

I think you misunderstand my suggestion. You have a windows install that you don't actually use for anything. This is because a windows install is a normal thing for someone to have. You can keep your usb booted, forensic OS but make sure you're running it on something that they've seen a million times before, not some sort of l33t uber laptop without a harddrive.

The point is to look normal.

Or just make GRUB invisibly boot to a default Windows install unless a key is pressed. They'll never see the other OS. A Tails install on a USB stick might raise questions if they bother to look at it.

Very interesting. You don't have any need for persistent storage that exceeds the amount of information that can be remembered? (E.g. work artifacts, photos, passwords)

I don't want to assume on spaceboy's behalf, but I think all you need is to remember a master password to some sort of (online) password manager. From there you could use cloud services (eg. Dropbox) to access such documents.

Securing cloud hosted documents is obviously another discussion.

I have tried deterministic password managers, but as with most solutions they have flaws and tradeoffs[1] to consider.

[1] https://tonyarcieri.com/4-fatal-flaws-in-deterministic-passw...

[2] Also related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13016132

Remote storage is an option.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com