EU gives staff 'burner phones, laptops' for US visits | Hacker News Reader

EU gives staff 'burner phones, laptops' for US visits

theregister.com

35 pointsTomte11 comments

>> "The transatlantic alliance is over," an EU official told the newspaper, which reported the commission "is issuing burner phones and basic laptops to some US-bound staff to avoid the risk of espionage — a measure traditionally reserved for trips to China.”

The US has been spying on government officials from the EU - sometimes with the help of other EU member states - for years. [0] What is surprising is that despite knowing this to be the case, the EC is only now supplying burner phones and devices. States may have allies, but their own national interests will always come before those allies.

[0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spie...

I think that all countries spy on one another, allies or not. That is pretty much a given.

The difference as I see it is that the EU does not see the US as a regular ally doing its intelligence gathering thing. It now sees the US as a hostile foreign state, and some more measures to protect itself have to be taken.

At this point I would refuse to travel to the USA at all, not only for vacation, but also for work. Imagine being locked up for weeks or months because you need to visit the us-based office.

> Imagine being locked up for weeks

Or being shipped to some concentration camp in El Salvador, in hopes it is not upgraded to death camp.

The initial report was denied though: https://x.com/lorenzofb/status/1911829523659653137

In macOS, when you do an encrypted backup (includes passwords for accounts) of your iPhone, where is that backup stored? Could I save that backup to somewhere, wipe my phone, travel to the USA, download the backup, and then restore the phone with the backup?

You can back up iOS or iPadOS to a directory using PC or Mac (edit: 3rd-party apps like iMazing work especially well for this). For some reason the backup stores as hundreds of files strewn through hundreds of directories, but it does work. But since a wiped phone could be deemed suspicious, I'd suggest that you get the clean install personalized and usable.

If this is a concern you have, you should use software that works for you.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43680556

Source: https://archive.is/nxjxG

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