Still, if you are paranoid enough you can mitigate the danger of your data falling into unsecured hands (at the border or by mail intercept) by using an encrypted shadow volume:
Isn't "mailing a laptop" now counted as sending dangerous goods, due to the battery?[0]
If so, the chances of it being subject to interception and/or search might well be far higher than someone just carrying a laptop in hand luggage across an international border.
[0] https://www.dhl.com/en/express/shipping/shipping_advice/lith...
> RESTRICTED ITEMS The following items are deemed unsuitable for shipment by our services, and are therefore restricted. Any of these items being sent may result in surcharges, delays or confiscation by authorities where appropriate. No damage cover is available with these items:
> [a long list of stuff, including laptops]
So, who here would be happy to ship their laptop internationally without damage cover?
You're confusing "not perfect" with "not good". There's an old saying: when outrunning a bear, you don't have to be the fastest guy, you just have to be faster than the slowest guy.
is that really true? I would expect that they can just perform hardware tampering when you're not present when searching in mailed items, but given that customs might use racial profiling to target you at airport, you may be better off mailing the computer securely, such as using tamper-proof or tamper-evident stickers/bags.
I've only seen two articles claiming evidence of physical tampering - like a hoax about Dell from 2005 [1] and Bloomberg's dodgy story about spy chips from last year [2] - neither of which seems truthy, and neither of which involved mail interdiction.
(Of course, it's widely suspected mailed hardware can be tampered with, but most of the claims/speculation I've read has been about targeted tampering, not dragnet)
[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/keyboard-loggers/ [2] https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/04/bloomberg-spy-chip-murky-w...
On what legal authority?
The border search exemption is about searching, not tampering.
The issue is more that border agents are taking advantage of a law written before the age of computers to use powers the founders probably never intended.
I seriously doubt that there's any legal basis to bug a computer just because it was shipped internationally.
So if the threat model is being asked for your password, not being present when the device crosses is a good mitigation.
(If you've done enough bad things they government is targeting you specifically, YMMV)
Inbound international mail is also subject to search by customs, that doesn't just happen to stuff the owner carries across the border.
I think the reality we have to grapple with, regardless of rights violated, is that if you want to cross a nation border, it's best to assume that all nations involved will end up with a copy of all the data (hopefully encrypted) you move across that border. In the face of that scenario, how do we proceed?