I think people are really confusing TSA with border control. TSA cares about people bringing knives and bombs on planes. US CBP/ICE or similar is a very different thing from TSA. I've never heard of TSA asking for any more detailed inspection of a laptop than swabbing it for chemical residue, and asking that it be powered on to confirm it's a real working laptop. CBP/ICE on the other hand are a totally different story (as documented extensively by the EFF, etc).

people definitely conflate the two, especially since the TSA has in the past taken great interest in peoples laptops. I don't think they currently have the authority to do any sort of accessing of the data on peoples computing devices.

I would be disinclined to try to tell TSA what their authority is, just as I am disinclined to tell them in person that it's flipping stupid to require me to remove my belt.

Telling the hands of the government that they don't have the authority seems like a very fast ticket to a very inconvenient travel delay. There's almost certainly some rule or administrative thing where they Can Get Away With pretty much what they say you can, and then you're stuck finding a lawyer.

Really depends on their comfort/paranoia level. If the device is taken out of their sight for more than a few minutes, they'd be highly suspicious. More so if you are crossing borders of countries known to be hostile.

> Really depends on their comfort/paranoia level. If the device is taken out of their sight for more than a few minutes, they'd be highly suspicious.

If your expected adversary is a nation-state intelligence agency, what do you expect to do? Take your laptop with you everywhere you go, all the time? Leave in your apartment for a theoretical attacker to execute an evil maid attack on it?

FDE is highly useful against ordinary adversaries. People with the financial/staffing/training resources to run surveillance on you 24x7 and access your equipment while it's unattended, that's an entirely other ball game.

You are considering only the extremes. There's also a ground between ordinary adversaries and nation-state agencies.

Take for example China. There are plenty of rumours about business executives taking throw-away electronics while crossing the border or how China installs some random software on people's devices when crossing a border neighbouring a certain province[1]

FDE can also lead to increased suspicion when crossing a border and refusal to unlock the system can pretty much lead to a denial of entry or, worse, detention. FDE also doesn't help in cases when a random border crossing can require installing a malicious boot-loader or a persistent malware somewhere in the system.

In the China story, they might not be installing a persistent bootloader but there's nothing really stopping them from doing that.

Honestly, in certain cases (and I'd rather say, a lot of cases) it's just easier to have no device than deal with what they did to your device after the fact or just sell the device after entering if you are suspicious of it.

[1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne94dg/jingwang-a...

A nation-state also has a gap between the most advanced capabilities and what can be used on a routine basis.

For instance a TSA screener is not going to have access to the latest and greatest because information about it gets leaked people will take counter measures.

>Take your laptop with you everywhere you go, all the time?

With a small laptop, this is a very small problem.

>Leave in your apartment for a theoretical attacker to execute an evil maid attack on it?

Security cameras?

With very basic training anyone can maintain good physical opsec, the much harder part is keeping your software secure.

>Leave in your apartment for a theoretical attacker to execute an evil maid attack on it?

TPM + FDE?

This isn't about fancy "infosec" threats, this is about TSA breaking or stealing your laptop, or alternatively ordering you to unlock it or they won't let you (a non-American) into the country.

yeah if you're going through the trouble of selling and buying a new mac it really seems a drive wipe is more than sufficient but I may be missing something. in general traveling without a computer is easier than travelling with one.

I can see how selling a used MacBook(purchased in the USA from a state without state taxes) could just be sold off as a used item in say Europe, before returning back to the US. The difference in cost could actually be a net positive.

Now, if all your files live in the cloud, and you have your setup automated completely, why not?

The keyboard layout is an issue.

For dev work an US keyboard is actually preferable.

While we’re here, let me just add another little form of “geographic advantage” (?) to the mix: you all know cmd-‘ pages through windows of the same application. On a US layout ‘ is right up next to tab, which makes it extremely convenient to remember the mnemonics of cmd-‘ and cmd-tab. In US intl ‘ is shoved down next to lshift, and the premium key top of tab is the useless §.

Why? Apple, why?!

US English keyboards are available in most places alongside the local variants (though I guess you can’t guarantee they’ll always be in stock)

Or a benefit, depending on who you ask. (I prefer ANSI keyboards)

It is ridiculous how hard it is to get ANSI keyboards here (Germany). Laptops are ok (Macs, Lenovo and Dell) but external keyboards (especially mechanical ) and any other laptop brand are a huge hassle.