posted in Technology
No Warrant Needed: Border Agents in NY, CT, and VT Can Now Search Your Phone
www.gadgetreview.com/no-warrant-needed-border-agents-in-ny-ct-and-vt-can-now-search-your-phone
Replying to @Mustachius_Grumpius@thelemmy.club
Remember to turn off all biometrics for unlocking your phone, if not now, then at least when traveling internationally. They can scan your face or your fingerprint without a warrant. But they can’t compel you to provide potentially incriminating information including passwords, codes and patterns. Self-destruct codes will likely get you arrested for obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence though, so use those at your own risk. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Best to never keep anything you wouldn’t want a cop or fed seeing anywhere on your device. If you have any materials that you wish to keep private, store them elsewhere as much as possible. Either never store them on your device or regularly back them up somewhere secure and wipe your device clean. Make sure all remote access to those materials are behind secure encrypted password protected connections.
Remember, know the law so that you may follow it to its letter and no further. If you must comply, comply. If you can, don’t comply. Know your rights and practice them. Never volunteer information to law enforcement even if you’re innocent. You don’t know what they know, what they are wanting to hear, what can be misunderstood, confused or contorted to put you into trouble. Every day is shut the fuck up Friday. Nobody will protect you but you.
Replying to @kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
I don’t know how a self-destruct code will work, but if you have password A get into profile A, while password B gets you into a plausibly looking and normal profile B while profile A and password A get deleted, then you can claim your phone was always and ever the way profile B shows it. It doesn’t look or feel “destroyed.” It’s just a normal profile with mundane messages, browsing history, contact list that makes sense, etc.
Good luck proving that anything fishy happened when the whole operation looks and feels like unlocking a normal phone.
You can even setup biometric login to be password B. So if someone gets into your phone with a fingerprint, which feels very normal, they see a normal boring and completely plausible profile.
There is absolutely a way to make phones secure if there is enough will.
That said, it’s a political problem that’s begging for a political rather than a tech solution.