Hacker News Reader

Comment by musha68k | Hacker News Reader

Quick reminder: Non US citizens only go to conferences outside the US. There is no excuse we should put up with this. Canada and EU are much better locations for this reason alone.

View on HN

Not much better in Canada: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/guilty-plea-ends-case-t...

Yup! Not sure why Canada gets to slip under the radar on things like this. They are demanding access to devices as well.

And also Australia and the UK:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-08/if-a-border-agent-dem...

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/traveler-who-refused-to-gi...

It seems to be mostly a Five Eyes thing.

It scares me the number of people who think that the US is in some uniquely bad place for some issue, not because of "whataboutism" but because of the blindness it can entail and skewed perceptions of all sides. No, it's not a dystopia in the US, but a wonderland paradise everywhere else. There's plenty of places that treat various people badly.

Agreed. I'm European and it astonishes me how a wall at the border is so divisive, with some even calling it un-American, and in the EU there are essentially no legal ways for refugees to enter at all (we've made it practically impossible to fly) and children die by the boat loads in the Mediterranean, yet we Europeans think we are in a position to judge the US.

Astonishing is the word.

Countries often have reciprocal arrangements regarding how they treat each other's citizens. If your country treats country X's citizens like crap, odds are country X will start treating your country's citizens like crap too.

Because of this, it's likely that the world will likely spiral to worse and worse treatment of everyone. As the saying goes, an eye for an eye and soon the whole world is blind.

This is why Brazil now fingerprints travellers from the USA and not from anywhere else.

“On the other hand, we’ve got very recent case law from the Supreme Court of Canada, starting in about 2010, that says you’ve got an intense amount of privacy in your electronic devices."

If he went all the way up to the supreme court instead of taking the plea deal, the story might have gone the other way.

Well if CBSA continues with this practice I hope it ends up with a lawsuit and gets shut down by the supreme court.

Or New Zealand: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/10/0...

Given their reported membership in the Five Eyes, I don't see NZ as a place to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

In the past several years, I’ve entered 6 countries as a US citizen. Only Canada has demanded access to my phone.

Another anecdotal point, in the past few years I've entered the US a dozen times, China, SA, Australia, Canada and some European countries outside my native France, and I've never been asked to unlock my phone once. I always get the fingerprint treatment at LAX though.

Getting fingerprint is supposed to be a standard procedure.

Are these kinda searches that common?

I was asked to unlock my phone trying to get to Canada as a US citizen too.

What are they even trying to find on your phone?

Evidence that you're coming to Canada to stay and perhaps work, rather than visit temporarily.

Interesting. When they ask my occupation I say that I’m a small business owner in the software industry. Is that a high risk occupation for unauthorized work in Canada?

Also, don't fly through the US to get to that conference in Canada.

Is it a risk if you stay in the airport, in the secure zone? (Whatever it's called...I've flown rarely over the past couple of decades.)

The US forces you to clear customs regardless of your final destination (transfers included).

All flights that stop in the USA require all passengers to clear customs before continuing their journey.

I had no idea, thank you.

This is often called "sterile transit" (the ability to depart the airport without passing through immigration), and the U.S. and Mexico (and apparently Canada) don't allow this, while generally European and Asian countries do.

https://wikitravel.org/en/Avoiding_a_transit_of_the_United_S...

No EU airport allows this for flights from outside the EU/Schengen zone. Every international airport has dedicated "EU internal" and "all other" terminal pathways for this reason.

Yes, they do. Unless I misinterpreted your comment, connection flights from outside EU to US/Canada don’t require the Schengen visa as passengers don’t leave the “clean” zone.

I've had to go through security and immigration when flying through Dublin and Seoul. So I don't think you can exempt Europe and Asia from the list.

Were you flying to or from somewhere else in Europe in the Dublin case? A subtlety about this which has just come up elsewhere in this thread is that the whole Schengen Area is treated as a single "country" for immigration purposes, so if you have an intra-European flight, you have to enter or exit "Europe" in the course of a transfer to or from an external flight.

But I think if you fly, for example, from New York to Paris and then on to Tunis, you don't have to go through immigration controls in Paris.

I was flying from Seattle to Rome with a connecting flight in Dublin. In both Rome and Dublin I had to go through immigration (that is, present my passport) and in Dublin I had my carry on X-rayed again. Upon arrival in Rome, after clearing immigration I had to go through customs, which is to say I walked out the "Nothing to Declare" portal.

Oh, I just remembered that Ireland isn't in the Schengen Area (due to the Common Travel Area with the UK). So you wouldn't have a domestic-style flight from Ireland to Italy. But your experience then does seem to confirm that Dublin doesn't offer sterile transit at all, which is a bit of a surprise to me.

Yes, on a flight to and from New Zealand with a refuel/crew change in LA I was fingerprinted, retina scanned and asked about my personal business despite being held in the "secure" zone.

This was 2005 so they didn't have such a hard-on for electronic devices back then. Seeing as the US has upped its game quite a bit since then, the likelihood of me ever visiting the US is now zero. Sorry my fellow US HN'rs.

And you know it's such a shame because I had a trip to Boston in November 2002, and even with it being only just over a year since 9/11, my passage through customs was friction-less and the staff were delighted that we'd come to visit the US. No fingerprints, no eyeball scanning, no interrogation, just a friendly "business or pleasure, and enjoy your stay".

If you're not being hassled in EU airports, it's because they already have your information. Not whataboutism, but most EU states and all the powerful ones have active, conservative intelligence and police that work closely with the United States and give them any information they want. Stay safe.

It's not just 5 countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

Yes the secure zone is even more risky in my opinion.

There is no transit visa to the US. Everyone landing goes through customs and immigration regardless of whether you are connecting to another flight.

Canada is not exactly welcoming to visitor. Particularly visitors that may have a mark on their background check from any number of years ago. Good luck getting in at all -- its becoming a common mention in hip hop lyrics even.

Pretty much any country does this. Unless you're a citizen of that country, you have no right to enter it and should be on your best behavior at all times, and they can decline you for any reason they feel like, justified or not.

I've been all across the world. I've been turned away from Canada twice (every occasion) over some weed 15 years ago. No other country cares unless you are applying for a long term visa or something. I even tried applying for the right to visit and was turned down (again, over weed).

Americans who have concealed carry permits on their person when entering Canada will have their vehicle searched with a fine toothed comb.

That’s actually pretty reasonable. I don’t think anyone reasonable thinks Canada doesn’t have the right to enforce their firearm laws at their border.

I agree that no one who is reasonable thinks that Americans who travel to Canada get to exercise the rights they hold as Americans in America. But is having a concealed carry permit in your wallet a reasonable indication that you have a gun on your person or in your vehicle? Statistically, in the US, CC permit holders are the most law abiding group in the country.

Let’s imagine, hypothetically, that a visitor came to the US and had a permit from their country of origin allowing them to own and travel with slaves. Would border patrol be justified in giving them extra scrutiny to see if they might have one with them?

Well, no?

Assuming by default that somebody would break the law, just because you politically disagree with them, is not justified. As said above, CC holders are among the most law-abiding citizens (this is true in my country too). They're aware of the laws governing their permit and assuming by default that they'd break other countries' laws is preposterous. You don't just forget that you're carrying when you travel abroad or by airplane. And you sure as hell don't do something as idiotic as that, with the accompanying consequences, intentionally.

It’s not about political disagreement. It’s about having a permit for something that’s not allowed to transit the border. Assuming nefarious intent by default is, for better or worse, how border controls operate almost everywhere for almost everyone. You have to demonstrate that you’re OK to enter, they don’t have to demonstrate that you’re not.

As far as forgetting that you’re carrying, numerous examples say otherwise. Random data point: the TSA confiscated over 4,000 guns last year, of which I imagine approximately 100% were inadvertently packed by innocent people. Whether it’s intentional is immaterial; Canada doesn’t want guns crossing the border, and they couldn’t care less if you’re doing it by accident.

But having a CC permit is an announcement that you own firearms, and you’re in the habit of carrying them on your person. It makes sense to check this person for firearms, even if to make sure they didn’t accidentally bring one out of habit.

> Americans who have concealed carry permits on their person when entering Canada will have their vehicle searched with a fine toothed comb.

If the Canadian border authorities are searching your person, such that they are likely to notice something like a concealed carry permit, your border crossing has already gone south.

>Canada is not exactly welcoming to visitor. Particularly visitors that may have a mark on their background check from any number of years ago.

Not a bug, working as intended. Entering a country that you aren't a citizen of isn't some inalienable human right, especially if you're a convicted criminal.

By that same token there is no reason to complain about how difficult it can be to enter the U.S. for certain individuals -- or working as intended as you call it. I also find it a bit disturbing how easily you apply law & order in the name of a country that was not involved in deciding the validity of that decision or the circumstances behind it.

>By that same token there is no reason to complain about how difficult it can be to enter the U.S. for certain individuals

Well, yeah, entering the US as a non-citizen is a privilege granted at the discretion of the US federal government. Border control is an essential function of a sovereign state.

>I also find it a bit disturbing how easily you apply law & order in the name of a country that was not involved in deciding the validity of that decision or the circumstances behind it.

It's disturbing to not want criminal elements freely entering your country? If they're a not refugee and they can't follow the law in their country of origin, why should any other country be obligated to let them in?

Let me put things into perspective for you. Cops raided the wrong house (battering ram and everything) which happened to be where I lived. They ripped up floor boards and broken holes in the wall -- they found $300 worth of personal weed. So they confiscated everything I own because it could possibly be related to drug money. I'm also incarcerated without the ability to post bail (because cops just took everything). I wasn't granted personal recognizance bond, it was $50,000 -- my family takes this as a sign that I must be guilty of whatever they say so I have no access to money for bail or for a lawyer. So I did my own case work while I sat in jail for 3 months, got a different judge to finally give me a personal recognizance bond, pick apart the prosecutor and detective at later hearings/motions, and finally leading up to the day before a jury trial (for two felony charges). I was offered a better plea and took it -- everything leading up to this point was so fucking asinine that despite all the headway I made I could not trust I would not spend years in prison. Its quite clear they did not want to look like idiots after getting a warrant and executing it in force based entirely on some 17 year old kid told them while being interrogated himself.

I'm only a criminal to someone like you.

You can't plead guilty to (what sounds like) a trafficking charge and then claim to be innocent and expect to be freely admitted to other countries. Canada has no way of knowing you're innocent so your logic is that they should just let you in anyways? I think countries have very good reasons to keep people with drug convictions from entering regardless of whether or not you believe drugs should be decriminalized or legal.

> I think countries have very good reasons to keep people with drug convictions from entering regardless of whether or not you believe drugs should be decriminalized or legal.

What you are really saying is that you think countries have very good reasons to keep people that are not well off from entering. People that are well off would/do not have the same legal outcomes, and thus your measurement of law-abiding is not reasonable.

>What you are really saying is that you think countries have very good reasons to keep people that are not well off from entering.

Well, yes. As far as immigration goes, the policy of most non-US western countries is primarily merit-based or if you have money to invest in the country. If you aren't educated and productive and you're not a legitimate refugee, why should a country let you in? How does the country benefit?

Canada has a generous welfare system and social safety net that that would likely be unsustainable if it let in sufficient number of people unable to support their own benefits. Even if you hold the view that drug use ought to be a public health matter and not a criminal matter, there's a limited amount of immigration that can be sustained without overburdening these services and why let in a drug user when you can let in a doctor or engineer?

In the case of tourism, it's just about limiting risk of someone overstaying their visa.

> Well, yes. As far as immigration goes, the policy of most non-US western countries is primarily merit-based or if you have money to invest in the country. If you aren't educated and productive and you're not a legitimate refugee, why should a country let you in? How does the country benefit?

I make well into six figures as an engineer and cannot make legitimate business trips to Canada even when the company lawyer has appealed for my entry, complete with compiling a report with ample evidence of merit. It is a naive view to think that entry is merit based when I'm being denied entry based solely on the fact that I was once a teenager that was discovered to be around weed once.

> In the case of tourism, it's just about limiting risk of someone overstaying their visa.

Then why do so many performance artists have to cancel Canadian stops when they are not allowed entry? Are they really scared a platinum artist is going to become a drain on their society? That quite obviously has nothing to do with it.

It's expensive and risky to go to trial, even if you're innocent.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocen... https://abovethelaw.com/2018/11/plea-bargaining-a-necessary-...

Alternatively, prefer to avoid bringing your own devices with you when you fly. Leave your laptop and smartphone at home, and rent temporary ones after you cross.

How do you find a rented laptop trustworthy?

Why wouldn't a rented laptop be trustworthy?

Because it's someone else's hardware, someone else's software, and someone else's firmware.

To be pedantic, unless you flashed coreboot it's not your own firmware and if you aren't using an open hardware laptop then it's not really your hardware either.

But you can have a bit more trust in the supply chain to get to you than that it hasn't been tampered with afterwards.

Although it may not be morally ok, one could just buy a laptop for a conference etc, and then return it after a week if the store has a return policy. I've seen stores take back laptops no questions asked for up to 60 days.

If you are in a pinch.

If not you can just sell it (there or at home) and take the loss as a rental fee.

Better, have a secure server at home and ansible playbooks to set up laptops (including getting any minor secrets that you need onto that laptop. Restrict more important stuff to just ssh).

If your threat model doesn't include physical tampering/rootkits, just wipe your devices pre-travel and set it up when you get where you're going. If it does and you can afford to mitigate that risk, arrange to have cheap new devices at your destination and travel with nothing.

If you're going that route, why not just create a disk image and scp it from your server? Certainly a lot easier than trying to rebuild everything from scratch.

An ansible playbook gives you much more flexibility to get to the same place. The one I run takes a mere 3-5 minutes to run (typically) regardless of where I am in the world.

actually I'd find running my ansible playbook much, much easier than transferring GB of disk image about. I maintain the playbook so that I can keep work laptop and personal laptop in sync. Although I am looking at Nixos as a possible replacement.

Would work if you trusted that the devices weren't tampered during inspection. Why would I put my keys on something which might've been wiretapped? If you really need to compute whilst traveling or through the states, just buy something cheap whilst you're there.

I literally suggested that if you read my comment.

Nah , just backup and then wipe all your devices and then restore them after customs. (Kevin mitnick does this).

Or, perhaps he says that but has two passwords, one that decrypts and runs an OS and one that presents as if no OS is installed?

They can seize your stuff so your workaround won’t work when they pass it to their tech team for forensics. Also, if they find something now they have you lying to customs.

It seems (ha!) possible to design the logic for such a system with deniability, like the system has to use the second/third/fourth password to attempt decryption before you know if the padding is encrypted or random noise [if the specific encryption has a signature then each install could encrypt the empty space with a few keys taken from urandom].

First password accesses clean files, second one accesses dummy [legal!] fetish porn collection ... do border guards hold you to get a third password?

An analogue analogue might be: I have a book full of "random alphanum text", I have two (or more) one-time pads for decryption of portions of the book, I also know the page/line the actual cyphertext starts at. The rest of the text in the book is random quotations encrypted using a selection of further random one-time pads. Can forensics find that there is a "hidden" n+1 plaintext when I give them the n pads and starting points? Seems impossible??

You still are now attempting to deceive a government official. Also, you are assuming that the technician assigned to you wouldn't be able to figure this out.

Also, sweating you out in holding is probably more effective than you realize.

Could you give us a set of countries whose customs agencies cannot refuse entry to non-residents, for any reason whatsoever, including no reason?

I have a feeling that is an empty set.

Under the terms of the UN Treaty there are actually certain non-residents that the US cannot refuse visas and entrance to.

I don’t think this so great for non us citizens working in the USA because they have to go in and out and can just as well be denied entry. For someone like that who made his life in the USA and has family here, going to conferences outside the USA is potentially much worse and riskier than say a German resident and citizen getting denied travel into the USA for a number of years.

This is not remotely unique to the U.S.

No it's not but this kind of issue tends to happen more frequently in the US.

Honest question: do you know where I can find the data to support that?

There's not going to be any data, border agencies are as non-transparent as you can get.

Anecdotally?

Yes, or as we used to call it back in the day "empirically".

Plus, it doesn't matter if it happens as much or more in some backwater third world country.

It's already enough of a problem that among first world countries the US is quite a pain in the ass airport control.

Heck, it's enough of a problem that it feels like a pain in the ass. It wont be less of a problem if per capita e.g. Belgium or Albania are worse...

There isn't data on this. This incident likely wasn't logged in any way. CBP is a rogue agency and the least transparent. They don't respond to FOIA anymore either.

Quick reminder: Without a true Bill of Rights, your rights, as much you might think they are secure, are virtual at best.

The same is true with a Bill of Rights.

The government does what the government wants. If you're lucky, later a different part of the government will apologize.

A bill of rights may reduce the odds that those enumerated rights are denied to you, but it cannot prevent it.

Maybe they're just trying to make flying so annoying people don't do it, to help with global warming. Just video conference, easier, faster, better for not drowning.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com