Yep. When I visit the US, I bring a freshly-wiped laptop with no personal data on it with me. If I lose it, it doesn't matter.

Then, when you have arrived, you ask your colleague to send you the password. That way you have security of the laptop data and you can confidently tell any government agency that you do not know the password should they request it.

I hear some companies do it this way. Should the man request the password of the work laptop you brought along? You can just tell em "Take it up with my superior back home"

You are asked when you check in if anyone has given you anything to carry for them. You presumably answered "no" to that question, yet now you're saying "Yes, they asked me to carry this unknown data".

They don't care if you know the password or not. They care if the data can be made available in plaintext or not. While you do not know the password you do know the method of making the plaintext available - you get whoever does know the passphrase to enter it. Thus, you're going to be detained until the passphrase turns up, or the machine is going to be confiscated and all data cloned and you're going to be denied entry.

Being denied entry is expensive. It also has consequences for future travel. Visas might be different. Customs clearance will be different. Possibility of getting in is lower.

> You can just tell em "Take it up with my superior back home"

They do this all the time. Watch a couple of hours of any of the various border-crossing / customs control "reality" tv shows. You'll see someone held in a room for hours, questioned for hours, with all their documents being searched for phone numbers and people being called to corroborate the story. They have no problem making phone calls back home and to the destination country.

This method is going out of your way to give them something to detain you for; it is making extra effort to look guilty.

Not necessarily. You could have encrypted the data to your friend's asymmetric keypair. Then you aren't technically carrying any data other than your own.

"Has anyone given you anything to carry for them?"

No.

Is that "unkown data" as the guy above you seems to believe? Hardly. If I pack my suitcase and then just have a friend come in with a padlock to which only he holds the key and he locks it, are the contents on my suitcase unknown to me? No, they aren't. They are my belongings and I just chose, for security reasons to not only stop carrying the key on me but to not even knowing what that key is.

We live in a very sad state of affairs that will continue to deteriorate.

Um, you realize that you can't carry locked boxes through customs and then refuse to open them, right? That comparison actually hurts the case for taking encrypted data through customs.

But sadly we live in a world where carrying encrypted data is a flag, and will get you more scrutiny, and get your name put on lists.

It also doesn't help if you carry the passphrase on you with your encrypted data.

All this requires is a TrueCrypt file volume uploaded to your favourite cloud storage service. When you've cleared customs go find a Starbucks or something and download it.

Border officials won't have a clue. If they confiscate your laptop, buy a new one.

Is that really your mentality? That's fucked up. If they take away my $3000 work mac I'd be absolutely livid.

Actually I'm travelling soon. What precautions should I take? What can I even do if they take my electronics?

"Write to your representatives!!" .. nah, I'm kidding. You can't do shit about it. We live in an increasingly totalitarian world, as the article shows. It's fucking insane.

I really hate to see the US going down that path, it would have had so much potential to exert positive pressure, to make the World a better place.

In any case, if you are worried about protecting your data, you put yourself in a pretty bad situation if you rely on encrypting that data and hide the password. Bringing a relatively clean laptop will just avoid the issue altogether and will allow you to be cooperative with them.

Remember that they don't _need_ any cause to deny you entry or detain you, as long as you're not a US citizen.

Because messing with you is equally rewarding as "protecting the country."

That's not true if you work on something like the Tor Project.

Back when TSA screening entered into force I pretty much knew it's over, but actually my somewhat (over?) enthusiastic contribution to the Tor project turned out to be, and I'm not afraid to use that word, the mistake that most probably hit the final nail in the coffin.

If even random companies mention my Tor project involvement in their recruitment emails than what is the chance the neurotic and overly paranoid American security agencies will let it slide?

At worst the TSA has been annoying, but I've never had to say, dump the contents of all of my carry on onto the floor and talk the person through what each item was and why I needed it (France), or get questioned why I had brought a snack in my carry on (Germany), or detained while my instruments were looked through with mirrors for drugs (Russia).

Obviously if you're American it's easier because they can't deny you entry. I basically had two options - do everything he said, or go home, miss my meetings, and have to tick the "I've been declined entry to the US" box every single time I go to the US for the rest of my life, which would make every border crossing a multiple hour ordeal.

Maybe you've just been targeted because you're American, just like Brazil is fingerprinting US Americans[1] to pay back the amount of trouble foreigners often find themselves in when visiting USA?

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-VISIT#Similar_systems_in_oth...

It is not exactly 'payback'. This is one of the few policies which I agree with: it's just reciprocating. If the US requires fingerprinting of Brazilian citizens, then Brazil requires fingerprinting of US citizens. If European countries require that you have with you X amount of cash for every day you are going to spend there, then Brazil will require the same.

When spain decided to turn back lots of Brazilians a few years ago, for silly reasons, Brazil started doing exactly the same thing. Apparently, it didn't last long.

By the way, me and my brother (plus our mom) were visiting the US together. Since we have very similar names, the lady switched our fingerprints. She did notice the mistake and corrected... my brother's. So my visa application had the wrong fingerprints.

Of course, there was a mismatch when I was scanned at US immigration. Other than losing a couple of hours waiting my turn in a room (thankfully, full of other people) and losing a connection, I didn't run into many issues. The officer (after staring at me for like 5 minutes, which was weird), turned the monitor around and asked who that individual was. It was displaying a photo of my brother, and I told him so. Then he asked where he was, and I pointed to my brother, standing a few meters from where we were. So the officer welcomed me to the US and let me go (and told me I'd 'always' have the same problem).

That went surprisingly well, and everyone was very, very polite. That was at Atlanta. But even if that particular experience was fine, I am still wary of visiting the US again without my brother. I have no idea what's going to happen then and how much explanation/proof will be required then, due to no mistake on my part.

Thanks for a good laugh.

I'm not really mad about it at all, just pointing out that the U.S. doesn't have a monopoly on harassing travelers and there's really nothing much special about it even if it is unbelievably annoying for the majority of people who get harassed and inconvenienced by it. You literally have to accept that when you go to another country, you are a visitor and not really subject to the kinds of protections that country's citizens (may) have or your own country offers you.

If it's coiled up neatly, such a thing can even set off anti-theft sensor gates in stores, because .. it's a coil of conducting wire :)

Times I have been questioned by customs while entering the Schengen space: zero

This may be more likely depending on the origin of your trip though.

I found it annoying and invasive, but it sounds like even the mildest TSA procedures are a lot worse than that.

No, actually the worst I've experienced was having to bribe some guard in Mali because I couldn't find the receipt for my luggage.

While I don't agree with a lot of the racial profiling and other acts the TSA commits, I don't think the average case is near as bad as you think.

I've flown internationally(to relatively unstable regions also) quite a few times since the TSA was put in place. Normally I step through a body scanner and grab my things and go. My worst case was accidentally having toothpaste in my carry on and having to go through that to throw it out.

Then again, it's probably easier for me as a young, Caucasian, American. YMMV

It was puzzling that they were completely gobsmacked and lost searching my backpack. It's a Deuter. Made in Germany. It was like I was doing a late-night infomercial for them.

I've had road trips across Europe and not had my passport requested even once; let having it stamped and having myself and property searched.

On the other hand, that is the only time of quite a few crossing where this have happened.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27th_G8_summit

I should note that i travel with weird electronic gear that they've generally never seen (a lot of it is hand made..) yet, never had any issue. They do scan and ask to see what it is, I always comply with zero question of course.

It's using a false name of facebook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh1h5Mvc3MM

TSA response: http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/12/tsa-response-to-tsa-breast-milk....

She got an apology letter, at least.

I don't think searches are effective, and if I was searched regularly or particularly intrusively, I would start getting upset, but as being searched doesn't sound that traumatic to me (though I've not had more than a pat down and a bag check), for now I'd much rather comply, make my flight, and not be on their database as a troublemaker.

If you have a problem with the way border control operates, I think it's a much better idea to try to deal with it while you're not standing in the middle of it.

These are two very different scenarios. It is much easier to control your own actions than the actions of others.

In the latter scenario, your allegedly democratically elected representatives have (indirectly) asked customs to search you. You are mugging yourself and paying the person who is doing it.

When I was living in South America I met hundreds of backpackers from all over the world that were forced to go through the US on their way South. Many of them had hilarious, stupid and scary stories of how customs treated them when they only had a ~2 hour layover and had no interest in the US what-so-ever. They all vowed to never fly through the US again, even though it will result in higher flight costs.

Both times they didn't have enough staff to man the separate customs desk, and ran us through a general customs hall.

I prefer via Dubai, Hong Kong, or Shanghai. Border control officers there, while still clearly doing their job meticulously, manage to be polite as well.

The idea is that you "enter the country" when going out from the main part of the airport, but you can go from any arriving flight to any departing flight without doing so, and most of the facilities - shops, waiting rooms, etc - are 'inside the zone' as well.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6566274

At the time they didn't appear to be siphoning off folks for hand-luggage special treatment, though it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

Customs is a different story, and I'm not sure how that works in this case.

The US is not one of those countries. When connecting between two other countries via the US, a passenger must clear US Customs, then US TSA security procedures before being permitted to board the second flight.

Same goes for traffic violations or pretty much anything that deals with the police or customs in any way.

I'm guessing that this wouldn't be the case for someone whose name is on a list somewhere or someone actually caught smuggling something(might work but would definitely set you back more). But at least in my(and friends') experience, it's never been a problem specifically because of the corruption. Police and customs people are not robots following orders from on high, they're robots who'll bother you to no end until you pay them and will leave you alone and might invite you over to a cup of coffee once you do.