DoD: Turn Off Your Fitbit, Garmin, Apple Watch GPS

The vast majority of companies had this policy up until about ~2005.

I still remember being extremely surprised the first time I saw an employee with a nose ring working at CVS (around ~2005).

The devices aren't given away however, they're just wiped and reused as burners. Not 100% secure as a nation state would have access to BIOS rootkits but it's better than nothing.

Growing up without something really makes you not know what you're missing; if you don't know what you're missing, it won't feel so awful when you don't have it.

So to my thinking it isn't even the dystopian aspect of big brother watching and prodding, it's the further disgust of big brother separating the haves and have nots. Some animals are more equal than others.

Yeah, it feels really different.

Why no one set off a bomb in a TSA cattle line I cannot understand. USA built a perfect target. I assume the TSA is some sort of jobs program but I cannot understand who benefits from it.

Buying something in the duty free shop, only to have them take it away at the next airport on connecting flights.

On some flights they don't even serve drinks anymore (unless you pay). Great recipe for dehydration.

Seats are so cramped that more and more people suffer from thrombosis after flying.

There's no space for your hand luggage because the airline charges extra for checked baggage and everyone takes the biggest suitcase they are allowed to take on the plane.

Ridiculous forms you need to fill out online (hoping you don't fall for a scam website), where you can pay only by credit card (not so common in many countries), just to fly through a country that is visa free? Flying via US or Canadian airports has become a major hassle...

Flying used to be different.

I remember that on one flight you could just walk to the front, and watch the pilots fly the plane through the open cockpit door.

If the government wants to do something legally beyond that, they probabbly would feel it is worth it to discourage such behavior.

I work on Redstone Arsenal. I don't work with anything especially secured, but I've met people who do. They work inside a SCIF; no network, no personal electronics in the SCIF, but there's no particular requirements outside.

People can just drive down a random stretch of desert road near Groom Lake and start catching signals from passing test craft. At some scale you’ve got to give up on the concept of an SCIF and just deal with the fact that people are going to be catching some of what you’re putting out, doing whatever you can to mitigate the damage from there. (Which—if you can at least know where such people are from a satellite view and get guards to them within 10mins of the perimeter breach when they’re still either making their way deeper in, or are driving back out through a bunch of nothing—translates to “you can catch up to them and wreck their equipment.”)

Like I said, I’m not sure how this strategy adapts to the existence of satellite phones. I don’t think it does. So far, instead, satellite phones have adapted themselves to it: you can’t get an Iridium phone without a security screening. I’m not sure what will happen if “private cubesat satphone networks” become a cheap commodity thing to insert into orbit—I think the US and other governments are simply trying to stall that process as long as possible. (Look at the history of satphone networks that competed with Iridium to see what I mean.)

Unless you have so few visitors that building additional security infrastructure isn't cost effective.

I'm sure the facility that makes nuclear warheads has an electronics inspection x-ray. If they need maintenance on that, you'd expect him/her to have a detailed background check, and to be shown as little of the facility as possible, and not to be allowed to leave with USB memory sticks or suchlike.

Of course, who knows how many facilities really need that level of security, and how often it's paranoia or theatre?

Humiliation would be if they mocked you for being blindfolded or once you were blindfold stripped you naked and paraded you through the canteen. It's just part of the process, everyone in your position goes through it and no one there would see any humiliation in that.

So essentially they had to interrupt a couple dozen people just to get you through a corridor. I can see why a blindfold may seem like a more pragmatic approach.

This was before smartphones were super prevalent so not taking your phone really wasn't a big deal. Had my car broken down near the facility I suspect that I would have had "help" pretty quickly ;)

For all I know it was unnecessary, guys at the gate didn't talk much, although I did see them "inspecting" cars.

I got instructions from my company and folks familiar with that customer, it's possible they were just extra cautious. This wasn't like visiting a frequently visited facility or anything where you can look up the rules or anything.

An attacker could change that.