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Comment by geocrasher | Hacker News Reader

Easy solution: Travel with a burner phone.

Any time I travel out of country, a week or two beforehand, I pull an old phone out of a drawer, factory reset it, and move my SIM card over. I don’t sign it in to any cloud services. I’ll install a few apps (browser, news reader, YouTube, maps, stuff like that) but nothing of any real substance.

For the couple weeks until I travel I carry both phones, collecting a bit of data, the odd text message from my mom, snap a few photos, receive an assortment of spam calls, get a few destinations in the maps history, etc. Anything important still happens on my main device (can always tether through the old phone).

By the time I hit the border there’s enough data to not be an immediate red flag, but nothing that really matters. If anyone compromises the phone while I’m away, it’s at least reasonably limited to only collecting data on me until I get back and throw the thing back in a drawer.

It’s not foolproof, but it’s a reasonable balance for me between risk/effort/expense travelling to places like China.

The stupid thing about this whole security charade is that this is exactly what any serious actor would do if they actually had sinister motives for entering the country, so the policy is only punishing ordinary people who were no threat in the first place or occasionally by accident catching a dumb criminal who probably would've been caught eventually anyway.

A serious actor would have a cover phone that was their main phone and had truly been used for everything they did, other than eee-ville, for months or years. Either that or they'd be a completely in-character business traveller with a blank corporate loaner phone in accordance with the actual policy of some company they actually worked for. Whatever best matched who they claimed to be.

Their eee-ville devices would stay at home. If they needed ee-ville data, they'd download from the cloud, probably into a new device, after passing the border.

I mean, yeah?

No non-idiot criminal or terrorist was going to ever get picked up at the border. It’s the equivalent of getting arrested with 60lbs of pot in your trunk when you got pulled over for speeding through a red light in a car with a burned out headlight.

It’s especially hilarious going though this shit as a Canadian crossing into the US.

Like, if I drove a mile east or west I’d literally have to “off road” my way through a dozen feet of grass and I’d be over the border. I mean, shit, look at places like Point Roberts. Literally crossing some roads moves you between countries. In others the only reason you’ll know you moved between countries is a vaguely angry sign saying if you walk past it it would be illegally entering the US.

The whole thing was only ever going to catch dumb criminals. And yet it’s done well enough that they keep doing it.

That's a very loose definition of "easy"

Use whatever word you like better. Straightforward, Simple, uncomplicated not difficult.

Seriously, set up a new phone, new number, new Gmail account, new IG/FB accounts, use them a week before you leave- tell your friends "Follow me here for my trip!" and have your phone number forwawrded. Put a few contacts in it. Done. Not a big deal at all for most technically competent people. That's us, right?

I have been trying to create a facebook account recently, for work, I didn't use my real name (I just needed a facebook account to follow some pages). I got flagged and now have to provide additional proof of identity. Same for IG. I don't think it's as easy as before to create a temp. facebook account. After setting it up you need to feed it right.

Luckily, temporary/fake FB accounts are less necessary nowadays than ever. Out of all of my extended social circle (techy university students), I don't know a single one who actively uses Facebook. I don't see why not having an account should be seen as bad or suspicious.

This is ridiculous. Put aside the idea of purchasing a new phone for a trip, you then suggest setting up all new accounts and then "telling your friends" - how exactly? contact everyone from your "real" accounts and say add my fake account? What about when you come back - tell them "ok delete my fake account and add my real one"? which is which now, oh and how do you access all your real contacts, credentials, payment, etc that you needed during your trip? And I do this everytime I travel?

You seem to focus on the technical aspects but really gloss over the entire "create a duplicate online life every time you travel"

Where did I say to do this every time you travel? I described the setup of such a phone. In fact if you had a second phone just for travel, who'd care? Not that big of a deal. Y'all are being pedantic.

Even easier: I keep my previous phone when I get a new phone, so it's just a matter of swapping a SIM card. Of course, my old phone was factory reset once I decided to keep the new phone, because I don't want it laying around with all my data even if it is just in my desk drawer.

And when I have to access a 2FA protected account, like my bank or email, I do what?

I'm technically competent and that's a huge, huge deal for me. What you describe is 15-20 hours of work.

I'm far too busy to do that.

That's how I feel as well. I have far too many cloud services I rely on. Not to mention the need to check in with my email for business/personal at least once a day.

Honestly, if you need your information to be secure to this of an extent, you should just use a dumbphone and skip all of these lengthy setup steps. And it's cheaper, too!

Just make sure you use it for a few days before hand so it doesn't appear to be a burner phone, lest you be considered suspicious and remanded for additional interrogation.

My company requires us to use a "burner" phone and laptop when we travel internationally. I can helpfully print out the policy from the employee handbook and show it to the border guard. I'm not sure that's considered as suspicious as you think absent any other suspicious behaviors.

I think saying something like "I bought a cheap phone for the trip because I don't want to lose my good one." should be good enough?

Simpler is better for these types of situations, so I agree!

>Just make sure you use it for a few days before hand so it doesn't appear to be a burner phone

Wouldn't they notice all your mail, call list, and other such accounts are from a few days?

> use it for a few days before hand so it doesn't appear to be a burner phone

No need to bother.

Most companies of any size, and us civil servants, have policies to travel with burner phones/laptops when crossing (even some benign) international boarders and/or entering certain countries.

Frankly, it is so commonplace, it is not remotely suspicious to travel with a burner.

Like a Galaxy Note?

Or have a burner iCloud/Google account setup with just the apps you need for the flight and reinstall your phone when you get there?

Samsung: Hold my beer, I have a nice phone to you.

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