Comments on: Surviving Homeland Security

By: Garrett Johnson

Garrett Johnson — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 16:44:14 +0000

Yay for encrypted disk images! No customs punk is seeing my plans for world domination anytime soon. They might get suspicious when they see a file named Evil-Global-Empire.dmg though…

By: Dean Johnson

Dean Johnson — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 16:39:23 +0000

You don’t back up your laptop for traveling because you fear the DHS. You backup your laptop because it may get lost, stolen or seriously broken in any number of inventive ways. You back it up because the jarring of travel and temperature fluctuations can put a marginal hard drive into time-to-eat-myself mode. Losing your laptop to the DHS is sooo far down the list of potential problems that you need not even worry about it. Fear mocha latte’s, not DHS thugs.

By: LivNLet

LivNLet — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 14:24:19 +0000

I might be wrong, but you guys sound as though you accept this @#$%. This is simply not right nor acceptable. Why would you even consider cooperating or not encrypting private data in such circumstances? There are alternatives. Don’t fly or ship your computer instead.

In any case, this is SERIOUSLY messed up. Is freedom and privacy a thing of the past?

By: urbanmike

urbanmike — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:11:59 +0000

I’ve travelled through the US from Australia on my way to Canada many times in the past couple of years, always with a laptop. I’ve never been asked to turn them on, only to open them or remove the battery. Laptops must be removed from any case for x-raying too. Generally the laptop also gets checked for explosives residue as well. I’d be suprised that this data checking would happen to anyone who passes every other check in the immigration/customs system, and they’re pretty thorough with it.

Deleting data using the recycle bin will not remove data fully, it can usually still be recovered, better to use a “file shredder” program if this is your intent.

I think I disagree with having encrypted data, maybe that makes you more suspicious? Wouldn’t want to have to explain what’s in that unreadable, (and therefore possibly encrypted) 100MB of hard drive now would you? You’d want to have the encryption software off your hard drive too, otherwise they know that you are hiding something.