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Comment by skullone | Hacker News Reader

Maybe digital forensics shouldn't be handled by barely highschool graduates at a busy border crossing

Should we take the same approach for physical searches? If the cops are executing a search warrant on a house, and there's a safe, should they send in a safe cracker on the off chance the safe is wired with a "duress pin" (eg. thermite that burns the contents)?

I mean, if it's possible to configure and there is at all a reason for someone to configure it as such, then it makes the most sense to treat it as a very valid possibility, right?

Hindsight is 20/20 right? Sure, the duress pin feature was around for years, but so was the technology to set up a thermite boobytrap in a safe. Maybe now CBP officers should be more careful about entering random pins people gave them, but snarky remarks like "Maybe digital forensics shouldn't be handled by barely highschool graduates at a busy border crossing" are entirely unjustified.

It is not snarky, it's the truth. Suspending the constitution within 100 miles of every port of entry? Nah son, the government can conduct their petty investigations with a warrant and proper digital forensics if they want to search your property.

>Nah son, the government can conduct their petty investigations with a warrant

Your original post:

>Maybe digital forensics shouldn't be handled by barely highschool graduates at a busy border crossing

Sounds like you're moving the goalposts from "haha CBP agents are dumb" to "they should get warrants".

Both can be true!

Isn't this already done? Don't they send narcotics back to a lab? And do sobriety tests back at the station if you refuse a field test?

>Don't they send narcotics back to a lab?

1. They do field tests before sending to a lab

2. They're sending it to a lab to ensure the results are accurate, not to guard against an off chance something is boobytrapped.

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