SirJman

Flying from DTW-YOW on a connection from TPE, I got pulled into secondary. It was about 11pm and the agent was on my computer for about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Looking for "child porn". I was 18 at the time, travelling alone.

Error 601

I know somebody who got this treatment at BOS - and upon inspecting his computer he found some brand new playlists in iTunes. It appeared that the customs girl had taken it upon her self to burn a couple of CD's and was a Bob Segar fan...

ScottC

Not a big difference IMHO. TSA has quite often overstepped its boundaries, searching for drugs, illegal immigrants etc...

If I have something on my notebook I don't want to share with anyone "guarding" our airports or borders, I'll encrypt it.

nytango

Scott, I agree with you completely , But there are at least two other threads about laptops being searched by TSA running right now on travel security..this one is about customs, and I think one on Newstand. All discuss the same topic. if you don't see a difference maybe you should combine them.

http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=787096
http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=787856

mgmsteven

You should be. I once had immigration go through my passport comparing visas to my customs declaration. I have a feeling that any omission spotted might lead to longer delays.

graraps

They often look at them.
Comments like "wow swanky machine you've got there", "this must have cost loads", "your battery doesn't seem too secure" (no sh!t, Sherlock!) are far from uncommon.

Dubai Stu

There is a case making its way up from Maine Vermontto the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on whether a suspect can be ordered to turn over passwords to his laptop or whether that would violate his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

The odd thing in that case is that the agents actually knew (based on the unique facts of the case) that there was kiddy porn on the suspect's laptop when he crossed into the US from Canada. The individual is a Canadian national and argued that if he refused the search the most that US Customs should be allowed to do was deny him admission to the US.

civicmon

Did you read the article? I guess not.

They've been TAKING people's laptops and not returning them.

LIH Prem

Those of you suggesting Truecrypt .. while I'm sure the hidden partition thing might stand up to a cursory inspection, I suspect they will be able to figure it out if the laptop is confiscated and handed over to experts. All encryption can be broken. It's just a matter of how much time and effort they put into it.

Anyway, I find this all very unsettling.

-David

blahter

True but if you do use the hidden volume within an a standard truecrypt volume, you could theoretically give them the password to unencrypt the truecrypt volume and they'd still have to break the hidden volume's password. I believe truecrypt uses AES,Twofish and/or Serpent and although in theory it can be broken, it would take a very powerful computer a very very very long time.

LIH Prem

Yes, that's exactly what malap's link suggested, and they even suggested putting a few sensitive-looking files in the primary volume to mask the fact that there might be a hidden volume. But don't you think that the experts know this? I'm not an expert and I know it.

Yes, it would take a powerful computer and some time to break the encryption. You should assume that any sensitive data can be read, regardless if it's encrypted or not.

The only thing we rely on is that nobody has the computer power or time to decrypt everything.

Don't get me wrong. Encryption is great and it will prevent average Joes from getting at your sensitive data, but don't think for a minute that it will stop the government from getting at your data.

-David

TheMadBrewer

My comment applied to either -- they have great power to make our lives difficult and there is nothing we can do about it, other than not travel. I am sure that the vast majority of agents for both organizations are good people trying to do a difficult job, but there exist those who are petty tyrants who love the power they exercise.

ninerfan

What do you guys have on your computer that warrants hiding it so well?

Trade secrets?
Personal info?

I don't have any info on mine that I would worry about anyone seeing especially the CBP , its pretty boring stuff.

LIH Prem

A related and interesting article:

Encrypted laptop poses legal dilemma

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080207/...hu2hV264Rk24cA

goaliemn

The one thing truecrypt does is it makes it hard to find any sort of hidden volume. You create an encrypted volume, then store things in the "main" area, then add stuff to the hidden volume. If the encrypted volume is 5GB, when you log into the main area, it shows 5GB of space. If you write something into the main area, it can/will overwrite the data on the hidden volume, because it doesn't know the hidden volume is there, nor where the data is stored in the volume. It would be difficult for anyone to know something else was in there.

Its stenography inside the encrypted volume, basically, and it doesn't know where the data is hidden without the hidden volume password.