Travelers take warning

[mdlbear]

At U.S. Borders, Laptops Have No Right to Privacy - New York Times

A LOT of business travelers are walking around with laptops that contain private corporate information that their employers really do not want outsiders to see.

Until recently, their biggest concern was that someone might steal the laptop. But now there’s a new worry — that the laptop will be seized or its contents scrutinized at United States customs and immigration checkpoints upon entering the United States from abroad.

Although much of the evidence for the confiscations remains anecdotal, it’s a hot topic this week among more than 1,000 corporate travel managers and travel industry officials meeting in Barcelona at a conference of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives.

[...]

“We need to be able to better inform our business travelers what the processes are if their laptops and data are seized — what happens to it, how do you get it back,” Ms. Gurley said.

She added: “The issue is what happens to the proprietary business information that might be on a laptop. Is information copied? Is it returned? We understand that the U.S. government needs to protect its borders. But we want to have transparent information so business travelers know what to do. Should they leave business proprietary information at home?”

Besides the possibility for misuse of proprietary information, travel executives are also concerned that a seized computer, and the information it holds, is unavailable to its owner for a time. One remedy some companies are considering is telling travelers coming back into the country with sensitive information to encrypt it and e-mail it to themselves, which at least protects access to the data, if not its privacy.

(from finagler)

Of course there are other hazards when travelling with a laptop -- it might get stolen, or you might be forced to check it (due, for example, to a terrorist incident) and it gets smashed by baggage-handling gorillas.

The problem is presumably much worse if your laptop is your primary machine. Mine isn't -- I load it up with a mirror of my working directories before I leave for a trip, and merge after I get back. Version-control software like CVS, Subversion, or git makes this painless. If you do put a substantial fraction of your working set on your laptop, encrypt your home directory and back it up before every trip.

Comments

[mithriltabby]

I would worry about a Linux laptop getting confiscated just because they don’t understand how to use it when searching the machine. I wonder if I could automate VMware well enough to make it look like I was running Windows?

[mdlbear]

There's always dual-boot.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Better yet, keep your critical data encrypted on a USB drive in a false pocket somewhere... 2GB SanCruzers are $40. Hey, what, there's no hard drive in the 'puter atall? Of course not. Don't need one if you're running Damn Small Linux or Knoppix off the USB drive... deal with that, you prying little bastards.

I am getting REALLY sick and tired of all the snoopery. I'm going filking this weekend, but next weekend I'm taking my backup laptop over to the shop and getting it's PSU/power jack fixed, and I'm going to install a bare minimum of stuff on it, and take that with me on my travels... my email is on an encrypted IMAP server, and my other critical stuff is either on LJ or accessible via other secure encrypted channels. In short, there'll be jack for content on the drive itself. That's the other way to do it...

*sigh* Can we just shoot the bastards now?

[tagryn]

But USB drives have a bad tendency to die unexpectedly after about a year's use (at least, that has happened to me twice with different models). I would be wary about relying on one as anything but as a backup data-transfer vehicle.

Traveling with unencrypted proprietary data is just asking for trouble, in any case.

[mdlbear]

I'd use an SD card or something like that instead -- there might be enough metal on a USB drive to be noticed. 4G is enough for keys, config files, and source code; it's probably not enough if your working set includes sound or video.

In any case it doesn't address slothman's concern that an unfamiliar OS is more likely to get your computer confiscated because they don't understand it. I'm not sure that's the case -- I think they make the decision before they even look at the computer -- but of course they won't say what their criteria are because that would give us the terrorists "too much information."

We agree completely on what should go on a laptop.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

It sort of addresses slothman's concern, in that I'd be taking my *backup* computer, not the primary.... it doesn't address the concern that the bastards are going to want to take it in the first place, which I think should be addressed by the Four Boxes of Justice: Soap, Ballot, Jury, and, if all else fails, Cartridge.

(We will see in about two weeks whether that last box is really going to be necessary. I hope to hell it's not, but if it becomes painfully obvious that His Mediocrity has bought the ballot boxes lock stock and barrel, I see two choices. Lock and load, or pack and learn French. I know what happens when a lame duck figures out he's free of obligations; google for Ray Blanton and/or Fred Thompson's early career. Bin There, Dun That.)