Comment by noduerme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by noduerme | Hacker News Reader

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Just a small personal anecdote from another country with tight restrictions:

When I rented a furnished apartment in Saigon back in 2008, there was an ethernet cable on the table and a piece of paper in English that said "Do not visit websites of anti-government propaganda, or pornography, or news such as the New York Times."

Naturally, as the police held my passport for the entire year I was in Vietnam, I was cautious. But after a few days, I just went ahead and openly browsed the NYT for a few minutes. My internet was shut off for about 3 hours. The next time I did it, it was shut off for 24 hours, and then I knew it wasn't a glitch. It wasn't exactly immediate, either; it took a few minutes. I was pretty sure there was a semi-dedicated person assigned to watch my traffic.

That wasn't over a VPN. I wanted them to see my traffic. But I knew running over a VPN would just raise suspicion. When I opened up VPNs to check email after that, I did it from cafes, and I did it in short spurts.

    In fact, the US Department of State recommends that all US citizens have a photocopy of their passport with them, when traveling abroad.

Supposedly you get in shorter lines at the consulate if you have at least a photocopy of your passport available. You should be able to petition the consulate of your home country to issue you a new passport.

I think it may be illegal, but I've heard from people who travel to places where it's sketchy for Americans to travel, that they report their passport as destroyed, get a second copy issued, then keep the first one.

The reasoning is that certain immigration departments see red flags if they see visa stamps from certain other countries, and you may get grief for having visited them. Cuba and the US used to be one, but cross-border rivalries are another. Knowing who hates who and presenting the right passport to receive the stamp would save you grief. Also if you encounter corruption/extortion you can schedule the next flight out and run.

With the electronic ones now I don't know how many places that still works.

Some countries will issue second passports legally exactly for the reasons you list, but you typically need to apply for permission. Replacing your passport early without needing to pretend it's lost because it has stamps from a "problematic" country tends to be easier most places, but of course a hassle if you travel to these countries more than once.

USA will issue “anyone” 2-3 valid passports at the same time. This is designed for two reasons:

1) you travel a lot and sometimes may need to mail your passport off to get a pre-travel visa from some consulate, while you are still outside the USA. This way you can send off one passport to get the visa for your next country, while keeping a valid passport with you while you’re abroad.

2) You need to travel between Israel and countries which have laws against visiting Israel (Historically, GCC countries). This way you can always present whichever passport doesn’t have Israel’s entry and exit stamps on it.

I’ve had two valid US passports at the same time, and I’m just a random nobody American.

Israel no longer gives you any visa stamps in passport.

https://www.touristisrael.com/the-israeli-passport-stamp/974...

I visited Israel circa 2012 and this was true even then.

> I visited Israel circa 2012 and this was true even then.

It used to depend on where you were coming from. When travelling to Israel for work a few years back, my passport (irish citizen) was not stamped, but my colleague's (at the time, a Turkish citizen) was.

That’s… were they fucking with him?

No idea, Israeli border security are weird. Like, for the first few times I went there, they treated my like a terrorist (i am concerned that someone may have placed bombs in your bag etc). The last two times, OTOH, it's just been like a normal airport.

No idea why.

sad to hear this, but not suprised as much. according to wikipedia, turkey is one of the few countries/regions where israel requires a visa from; along with india, pakistan and arab countries.

But your passport is still tainted if you use any Israeli land crossing--they see the stamp from the other country and infer you were in Israel. Unlike what we saw in the 80s in Africa--so long as "South Africa" didn't appear you were ok. The border stamps into/out of South Africa didn't cause problems. The possession of a fair quantity of supplies with packaging in English/Afrikaans didn't matter--but the first day across the border the organizer had us stop and very carefully go over everything with a sharpie looking for labels that said "product of South Africa"--those had to be totally blotted out.

And to show how stupid things were--he also had a stamp he had made up to make forged entries on our yellow books. At that time your average joe certainly did not have an up-to-date smallpox shot--but at multiple border crossings they would hit you up for a bribe if you didn't have an up-to-date smallpox shot. Hence fake them. (Even around 2000 which was the last time I had occasion to have anything added to my yellow book there still was no anti-counterfeit protection.)

"Tainted" is an odd word. Any country that would reject a Jew from entering for having an Israeli stamp in their passport is a country I would never want to step foot in, whatever my views on Israeli politics.

Anyone that says you should keep your passport on you when you're in a foreign country has never traveled. I never keep my passport on my person when I'm walking around outside the US. I lock it away as securely as I can wherever I'm staying, and carry a color copy of it in my pocket.

Part of this is simply because American passports are extremely valuable. Another part is that anyone who wants to fuck with you in some semi-official capacity now has to choose whether to go back to your hotel or arrest you on the spot, which puts them in a better mind to give up or take a bribe.

Another part is that anyone who wants to fuck with you in some semi-official capacity now has to choose whether to go back to your hotel or arrest you on the spot, which puts them in a better mind to give up or take a bribe.

Happened to me at an airport in Thailand. Some airside police officer demanded to inspect my passport, then wouldn't give it back to me until I walked him to an ATM so I could pay him a "tax" in cash.

I never went back to Thailand.

Had this in Hungary about 2004. Had no money at all at the time. They handed me a notice in 15 languages which said I was now permanently excluded from ever entering Hungary again ^_^

Yep, laminated color copy is the way to go.

But please don't keep it in a room safe at a hotel. If I had a dollar for the people I know who put valuables in the room safe and lost them...

The most secure place to keep it is on your person *under* your clothing. Waterproof protection would be a good idea if you're in a warm climate.

It most certainly can be done--I wore mine basically 24/7 for a year. The only time it wasn't under my clothing was for border crossing or bathing--and in the latter case it almost always was under a traveling companion's clothing. No close calls--but someone else in the group wasn't so cautious and hers was snatched. Fortunately, the thief wasn't sophisticated, kept the cash and dumped everything else quickly.

Reporting the passport lost or stolen is generally not a good idea. Legality issues aside, when a passport is reported lost or stolen then it is marked in the system as invalid. Depending on the country it will be reported to Interpol's STLD database [1] which can be checked by immigration authorities in other countries.

In the end you'll have two passports but one of them is now useless and it will be flagged the moment you actually use it for traveling. It may not be pleasant when you're abroad and the authorities catch you using an invalid travel document.

I guess it makes more sense if you never intend to use the old passport again for crossing borders?

[1] https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Databases/SLTD-datab...

Wait, the police held your passport? Why?

If you're an American and you rent an apartment, the local police keep your passport until you leave. You keep a xerox. That's how it was at the time. I don't know if that's still the case.

I didn't feel good about it when I found out (actually, the moment I signed the lease), but there was nothing I could do about it.

My exit from Vietnam was almost humorous. I had about 50 DVDs in my suitcase, mostly encrypted backups and burned movies, and every single one was inspected by sight, holding it up to the light (to see how far the burn went?), then left on the floor of the airport for me to pick up. Upon re-entering the US, the customs officers did almost the same thing, and then just confiscated all my discs.

Weirdly, no one on either side checked my laptop.

So how do you travel outside the country then, if the police are holding your passport?

You need to request it from the police for travel. In my experience, I did it via my landlord, and it took about a day.

They took your DVDs? On what pretext? Did you get them back?

The pretext was piracy, since some of them were labeled with the names of movies. I protested they should just keep those ones, but they took them all and said I was lucky they weren't going to prosecute me. I didn't even try to get them back.

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