I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Re:I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Pr... by morganvachon on Sunday January 22, 2017 @10:27AM (#13455515)

> I don't know about Windows Phone, but don't think it's safer than Android.

Windows Phone user here. I know for a fact the SD card you put in your phone is encrypted and can only be decrypted in the phone itself[1]. I don't know for sure about the internal storage; it's supposed to be encrypted if you use a screen lock on your device but I have no easy way to test that. Regardless, if they can force you to reveal your pin/password you're hosed anyway.

[1] "Can't be decrypted" assumes, of course, that the government wanting to decrypt it doesn't have an agreement with Microsoft to hand over the private key or otherwise provide access. My understanding is that Microsoft's position lately has been "no warrant, no access" but that could just be lip service. In either case, Windows Phone is a dying platform and anyone security conscious enough to worry about border crossings would hopefully have something more inherently secure anyway.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Pr... by my123 on Sunday January 22, 2017 @12:39PM (#13456132)

Windows Phones use the Secure part of the Secure Digital(SD) standard. Very few other platforms use it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Pr... by morganvachon on Sunday January 22, 2017 @12:45PM (#13456164)

That's my understanding, yes. And I've had to deal with it first hand when I forgot I had used a certain SD card in a Windows phone and then tried to access its data in another device. I had to pull that old phone out of storage to access, then wipe and unlock the card. It's a great feature that I wish other phone manufacturers would adopt.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Pr... by Schlaefer on Monday January 23, 2017 @05:05AM (#13461097)

Windows Phone/Mobile user here. SD card content is not encrypted. Encryption for SD cards is coming in the Windows 10 Creators Update and just dropped in the dev builds[1].

[1] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/01/12/annou...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Pr... by morganvachon on Monday January 23, 2017 @08:46AM (#13462101)

It's been a feature since the WP7 days, and as I stated in another comment, it's obviously still in practice because I've had to decrypt a card using the Windows Phone 8.1 (upgraded to 10) device that originally encrypted it.

http://www.ghacks.net/2010/11/13/windows-phone-locks-in-micr...

http://www.card-data-recovery.com/unlock-windows-phone-7-car...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Pr... by Schlaefer on Monday January 23, 2017 @11:13AM (#13463161)

Maybe this was an WP7 feature which still had backwards compatibility.

My personal knowledge starts with 8.1. At least since 8.1 - so practically any relevant phone sold or in use today - the SD card has a hidden encrypted partition which holds apps moved to the card and a public partition for user data (photos, downloads, audio, video etc). This public partition with userdata is not encrypted and can be read at any device.

In the coming W10M update it's possible to encrypt the whole card again, so e.g. photos are protected.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:I Had My Electronics Seized by U.S. Customs and Border Pr... by morganvachon on Monday January 23, 2017 @10:40PM (#13468636)

You know what...the same card has migrated with me from WP7 to 8.0 to that 8.0 device being upgraded to 8.1 then 10. Still, I had to put it back in that last device to get it unlocked for use on my current phone (Lumia 650). Otherwise the phone refused to recognize it, wanting to immediately format it, and ditto my Windows 10 and Linux desktops. On Linux at least, it did show two separate encrypted partitions, so given what you said that makes sense.

[ Parent | on HN ]