Hacker News Reader

Comment by thematt | Hacker News Reader

Does anybody know what they're looking for? Border Patrol/TSA/Homeland Security agents aren't the sharpest tools in the shed and I can't imagine they're very computer literate. Are they just poking around the filesystem? Do they have automated tools that search for stuff?

View on HN

I actually had my laptop searched once.

First of all, if you won't enter your password, they confiscate your computer.

Since I wanted to keep my computer, they opened windows explorer and searched for all JPGs and GIFs. Then they asked me, "What kind of photos am I going to find on here?" It was a female agent, and the conclusion I came to is that they're looking for kiddie porn.

I had no exciting photos on my computer, but I did have a shit-ton of boring photos so it wasted 30 minutes of my time and made me think that they think I look like a perv.

I reckon a way of getting through this, if you are up to no good (well, I say no good, I mean no good in their terms, so like Snowden), is to look a bit like a perv, and have a few iffy pics and vids on the laptop. Maybe a bit of perv browsing history and what not. That way, you look shify, they pull you in, search, find the pics, reaslise why you look shifty, also realise the pics are actually legal, and send you on your way. Humans being human are likely to stop searching as soon as they find the smut, and miss what you might be really hiding.

Using a hidden volume seems like a better idea than hoping they get distracted by "perv" sites.

Not to mention, the legality of porn varies drastically over jurisdictions.

All you need is a bad connecting flight through Dubai and you're in the poop.

For this kind of scenario, I have a 2011ish MB Air that is too small to do anything (4gb RAM) and gets re-puppeted fairly frequently to test the system. When I worked in China, I took my iPad, Bluetooth keyboard, and strongvpn account.

What would happen if you have a non-standard setup? For example, on my computer, I could show them `locate *.jpg`, but I doubt they would take my word for what that does. I think I have Gnome and Unity installed, which probably have GUI searches. Of course, I could always arrow down to my Windows installation at the grub boot screen, but than they would never know about all of the pictures I don't have on my main installation. Thats not even counting the encrypted loopback file I have, or the "/ram" directory I have which is hidden by the tmpfs filesystem mounted on top of it.

Of course, these are all without me trying to hide anything (the encrypted loopback is mostly a matter of principle, I don't actually have anything stored in it).

That would be a quite interesting scenario. I have a certain amount of home-made kinky porn on my hard drive. I would love to see the border agents try to not get uncomfortable as they look on pictures of me and my sex partners in very compromising positions. It's obviously very disturbing that I would have to put up with that when entering the USA, but I'm quite sure that the "female agent" would be more freaked out than I would.

Still, this is a bad policy which you guys should try to get repealed. If they do this regularly, they must obviously stumble across home-made porn all the time. None of my sex partners have ever consented to have their naked bodies examined by some high-school dropout border guard somewhere.

Border guards are federal agents, not TSA agents, right? I'm thinking the education requirements are greater.

wow you know what would be fun? A filesystem that synthesizes infinite numbers of large jpgs and gifs on the fly :)

Totally off the top of my head....

Like you say, there is little a spot check could easily and quickly find. Therefor, IMHO there must be another reason. So, what if they are not looking for anything? What if its just to put people under pressure in the hope of having the "suspect" give away signs of guilt? That would be my rational.

Oh, another thing, checking to see that it is actually a laptop and not a banned fruit.

They're looking for a file on your desktop named "location_of_smuggled_drugs.txt".

In all seriousness, I don't think there's anything in particular they're looking for. They're just looking for anything that gives them suspicion, which gives them an excuse to question and investigate you further.

Does anybody know how they tend to react when they are greeted by nothing but a getty on a tty? Should I install GNOME to make border guards feel comfortable?

I haven't crossed the border in the past decade, but may need to semi-frequently in the near future.

Put a linux live CD in your drive and set that as the priority in the boot sequence.

One of the nice things about my Lenovo T430 is that it has both an SSD and a hard drive. You can pop into the BIOS and set the boot order so if you want the 'windows xx' thing to boot for the security theatre you can set it that way when you travel.

Still it is outrageous that a court feels this is not a violation of your 4th, 5th, and 14th amendment rights.

You don't need multiple hard drives to do this. If you have a configurable boot loader (such as grub), you can specify what you want to boot into and skip the menu entirely.

Apropos of nothing, since I don't travel with my machine booted the boot sequence of grub would give it away I suspect.

Is it that the court is basically applying the same border search exceptions that apply to boxes, paper notebooks, and film cameras to laptops and phones that you find outrageous? Or is it the border search exceptions themselves you find outrageous?

I think the parent is objecting to where US courts have decided that their jurisdiction ends.

Which always makes me think of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXfWfJz59pk&t=1m33s

The notion of data-as-contraband is outrageous. It amounts to making certain numbers illegal.

Encryption used to be classified as a munition, funnily enough.

Sure, they will say "hm, this is different, we'll send it in to the central office where our tech experts can evaluate it."

Bye-bye laptop for a few weeks.

Pictures of your girlfriend.

Do people here have girlfriends?

I'll get me coat....... ;)

That's actually an idea. Put pornographic images of your "girlfriend" in some thinly-veiled location ("BUSINESS REPORTS" under your Pictures folder). Border patrol will never make it past that folder in their search.

Your concept of the typical Border Patrol agent as a barely-functioning imbecile shows no understanding at all of what the job entails, nor what the recruitment and screening and training process is. Hint: high-school dropouts need not apply.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com