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TL;DR: Don't enter the US, it's a fascist oligarchy with zero respect for human rights or privacy.
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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Privacy
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Here's what travelers should know: "This site isn't available in your region | usatoday.com"
Yeah very cool. Also I presume that translates to "We can't be fucked to care about user privacy enough to comply with GDPR". And also "We can't be fucked to know what the EU is". Because they are blocking access to me here in Switzerland, outside the EU, where GDPR doesn't apply.
Buy a burner phone. Use a newly created email. Don’t install any of your socials (not even lemmy).
Use only Signal (with messages auto deleted after being read) to be in touch with the really close friends and family.
Don’t bring your personal laptop.
If it’s a longish stay you may install socials a few days after completing immigration. But don’t use fingerprint or Face ID in that case.
Sounds like not coming here at all would be much simpler.
The neat part of this is then getting detained for even longer for "suspicious activity"
Hopefully the respective country’s embassy and place of work (outside of work, study I don’t see why anyone would want to go to that hellscape) can step in. Like check in with your significant other post landing when you’re waiting at immigration checkpoint. And if you’re not heard from after that, alarm bells should go off and embassies should be informed.
Wow. Here is a free guide from the EFF, though it’s from 2017 so I don’t know how useful it still is.
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Just uninstall your social media apps from your phone before going through security. Download them and log in again when you get past the Nazis. Better yet just avoid the USA. Mexico is nice
No, use a burner phone. Don't install any apps, and only have the most important numbers in there, if at all. Use a new mail account with it.
Then you'll be detained because obviously you got something to hide, let's find out what!
That's the reason not to enter the US.
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The photos app can also be an issue imo
the last time this idiocy was going around, companies were switching employees to netbooks, chromebooks, thin clients, burners, etc. when traveling – default install, don’t log in until in the other country, log out or wipe before leaving the other country – this time, the corporations seem perfectly happy to capitulate and throw their corporate secrets (and the employees) under the bus …
Probably because most backup solutions, especially mobile, are inadequate. Telling employees to wipe their phone and having 5% lose their 2FA, important docs, or whatever is worse than the 0.01% probability of their phone being searched.
I've been wiping all devices when crossing borders for a decade, but I don't use big tech (non E2EE) cloud, and the whole process is the most stressful part of international travel for me.
Easiest solution is to do everything on a remote host and just use the laptop or rdp or ssh or whatever works best for you system.
Yeah, Tailscale makes this a breeze too. Just RDP into your home desktop, and the only thing a third-party will see is your (encrypted) connection to your home network.
I need an android phone that logs me into one fake version of the operating system when I unlock it with one pattern, and another OS when I use my real pattern.
Like a virtual machine kind of deal where the attacker cannot know that there are other logins, or how many. Preferably with some kind of automated system that simulates normal usage so it looks real but boring.
OnePlus phones have the system cloner. You can use a different finger print and/or pin to enter a different system with it's own apps and users.
The novel Little Brother by Cory Doctorow comes to mind.
One PIN would log you into your real account, another PIN into a decoy account, and no indication of the other one existing.
That does not exist in the real world.
This is called plausibly deniable encryption, though you cannot hide the presence of the system itself.
GrapheneOS has a Duress PIN feature, which wipes your phone if entered.
My LG G2 from 2014 had that, I’m sure there are current ROMs that support this
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I know Androids can have user profiles which is what you’re talking about. I wish iOS would do the same thing.
You can do this on pc with veracrypt hidden partition.
On desktop/laptop I think it only is truly deniable with a HDD. Not sure about phone storage forensics but a Linux phone possibly could work for this. Might try for fun at some point
Opsec level 3:Deniability
http://blog.nowherejezfoltodf4jiyl6r56jnzintap5vyjlia7fkirfsnfizflqd.onion/opsec/index.html
(Note: .onion links should be viewed with tor browser)
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When you travel, bring as few devices as possible with you. Obviously, you'll bring your phone with you, but leave your laptop at home if you can.
Last time I travelled overseas I took a burner phone without a calling plan, and just used it as a wifi device at the hotel. I used google maps and "offline maps", GPS still worked. Used the phone as a camera, and I would have uploaded anything private and wiped locally but that wasn't necessary.
If anyone at the border had asked, I'd have said it was so I didn't risk losing my phone, and so work couldn't call me up and bug me during vacation.
Other way around. Leave your phone, which can track you, at home. Bring your laptop so you can do real work and have full entertainment when you travel.
Taking photos and using a GPS to get around in a foreign country can improve entertainment :)
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What does this mean:
If you're a green card holder, do your research. "You have to have a good understanding of what the visa category that you're coming in allows you to do and does not allow you to do," Heubel said.
Once you have a green card what visa categories could you fall into? I thought once you were a permanent resident and could do whatever you want except vote.
Yup, they seem to be conflating permanent residency with visas.
The article doesn't mention what happens if non-citizens decline, but The Guardian says:
For visa holders and travelers from visa waiver countries, they are at risk of being denied entry if they refuse to unlock devices
Which is really dumb IMO, because if a cop tries that just after being allowed in, then it's a violation of the 4th amendment. I really hate that.
The law here actually extends to areas near international borders(up to 100 miles) and in principle includes any airport that receives international flights. So, basically everywhere. This occasionally comes up in real cases.
Sort of. The federal government has extra control in those 100 miles, but they can't just violate your rights.
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If you really need to, go without a phone and buy a cheap one there. Memorize a few numbers and use a single application to handle your communications.
I would probably be detained. I have no mainstream social media, keep no images on my phone and don't use gmail.
So if you accidentally tripped the device reset by being panicked and entering your pin incorrectly a few times, what would happen?
Could be seen as obstruction, they will likely detain you and send you back where you came from ater a few days or weeks...all comes down to the mood the officer is currently in.
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Can't this be avoided, at least on Android, by simply shutting down your phone? Thought I read somewhere that they lock down everything, even system processes, after turning on again until you unlock it again. Or are you also forced to type the password and let them in?
You have no rights and the 'government' in america has to follow/abide by no laws anymore. Whatever you think/know about the us is 100% irrelevant now. It's a lawless dictatorship
You avoid it by never going to america, or by leaving and never returning.
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Border entry is different than self incrimination.
If you are charged with a crime you cannot be compelled to give a password as it resides in your head. However if you use finger prints or face recognition to unlock it you're SOL.
Best thing to do is get an android and setup a dummy account. use that account when you get off the plane so when you unlock it there is nothing to go through.
The best thing is to just not go to the US
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Seeing a lot of responses that are wrong because they are talking about what police in the US can do. This article is about border crossing where border patrol can ask you to unlock the phone without any warrant/etc. If you refuse then you can be denied entry to the country (although I believe that is just non-citizens). Not sure if things can escalate from there.
Edit: which means if your phone was off, they'd just ask you to turn it on and unlock it.
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