On the Border

On the Border
Mark Rasch, 2008-03-20

Recently, I was going through an airport with my shoes, coat, jacket, and belt off as well as with my carry-on bag, briefcase, and laptop all separated for easy inspection. I was heading through security at the Washington D.C., Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, or "National" as we locals call it. As I passed through the new magnetometer which gently puffed air all over my body -- which to me seems to be a cross between a glaucoma test and Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes -- a TSA employee absent-mindedly asked if he could "inspect" my laptop computer. While the inspection was cursory, the situation immediately gave me pause: What was in my laptop anyway?

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On the Border 2008-03-20
Anonymous (1 replies)

Solution is:

Disposable laptop that accesses a remote file system over the internet once you have crossed using a primary key and a duress key. The latter would enable the user to disable his primary key and reset it if he suspected it was compromised when his drive was imaged at the border cros...

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Re: On the Border 2008-03-24
Anonymous

Overcomplicated. A nice server under your desk at home with SSH (or remote desktop, or whatever) access, and a laptop with nothing but the OS on it. Everybody's talking about thin clients these days; this is the only situation I can think of in which they would actually improve privacy. (",)...

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On the Border 2008-03-21
Anonymous

You are right. US gov thinks that it can do anything. They are just a bunch of scared fags who cant stop the deline into what they got into..i just lost the logic but you got me....

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On the Border 2008-03-21
Dr. Neal Krawetz

Hi Mark,

I'm curious when you had this experience, since the head of TSA said last February that (1) he was not aware that it was going on and (2) he claims to have put a stop to this practice. I'm not sure which bothers me more -- that it was going on, that the head of TSA didn't know about it, ...

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On the Border 2008-03-31
Anonymous

solution:
folder named "attorney client communications from my priest"
...

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Mirroring is theft. Use the DMCA on them. 2008-04-01
Jim

Unless I'm mistaken, the U.S. Government is no more entitled to pirate software, make illegal copies of music or unauthorized copies of other people's material than anybody else is. As such, mirroring the average laptop would pirate copies of dozens of pieces of commercial software, dozens of lega...

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On the Border 2008-04-02
A Canadian

This reminded me of a somewhat similar situation involving a local student entering the United States at a land border crossing. He wasn't told whether his laptop contents were copied, but I would bet they were. He never was allowed to get to the airport, but was finally allowed to return to Canad...

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On the Border 2008-04-04
Anonymous

I don't recall the 911 attackers using software to crash planes....

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On the Border 2008-04-10
Ichinin

I think i will be happy never visiting Usa.
Or North Korea.
Or Indonesia.
Or the middle east.
...

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On the Border 2008-04-10
Anonymous (1 replies)

You mean "The Seven Year Itch"... (correct Marilyn Monroe flick)......

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Re: On the Border 2008-04-24
Anonymous

Agree. All such searches should be prohibited. Copying the contents is plain theft. Consider that there are many trojans that can copy porno and pornolinks to your computer without your knowledge. How about being a member of botnet? It may be that you even do not know what is in your computer. Secur...

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