Crossing Borders with Laptops and PDAs

Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop,
or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They
can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for
several days. Customs and Border Patrol has not published any rules
regarding this practice, and I and others have written a letter to
Congress urging it to investigate and regulate this practice.

But the US is not alone. British customs agents search laptops for
pornography. And there are reports on the internet of this sort of thing
happening at other borders, too. You might not like it, but it's a fact.
So how do you protect yourself?

Encrypting your entire hard drive, something you should certainly do for
security in case your computer is lost or stolen, won't work here. The
border agent is likely to start this whole process with a "please type
in your password." Of course you can refuse, but the agent can search
you further, detain you longer, refuse you entry into the country and
otherwise ruin your day.

[...]

Lastly, don't forget your phone and PDA. Customs agents can search those
too: emails, your phone book, your calendar. Unfortunately, there's
nothing you can do here except delete things.

I know this all sounds like work, and that it's easier to just ignore
everything here and hope you don't get searched. Today, the odds are in
your favour. But new forensic tools are making automatic searches easier
and easier, and the recent US court ruling is likely to embolden other
countries. It's better to be safe than sorry.

My advice on choosing secure passwords:
http://www.schneier.com/essay-148.html

This essay originally appeared in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/15/computing.security


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