Fifth Amendment Cover Your Encrypted Data

[whitetop]

people has to decrypt their hard drive when asked by the government. Usually this kind of request will only happen in the event of a subpoena, but it will also happen at the Boarder when coming in from another country. TSA and Border Patrol can quite legally ask you to decrypt your laptop now; meaning business travelers need to start taking precautions for business data.

 

The average tourist is not going to have their laptops confiscated by the Border Patrol Agents that are at every checkpoint into and out of the country. But the reality is that if you now have to decrypt your hard drive, there are some steps you need to take to protect your business data.

 

First don’t have business data on your laptop. That is the best rule that you can have right now to deal with the possibility of having your computer seized at the border. With cloud computing, a well-balanced Citrix system on cloud front, and other ways of remoting a worker so that they only work from home office systems there is no reason to have anything else on the laptop but software that ramps directly into the cloud. Any cheap netbook can do this, and it is much better to lose a 400 dollar netbook at the border than it is to lose contracts, company confidential data, and other data that the company considers confidential.

 

Two – while it is ok to understand your rights, the reality is that encryption is no longer a security measure for travelers. You can protest all you want, but the reality is that you are coming in off a long international flight, you are tired, you might be cranky, and someone wants to copy the data off your laptop, or take your laptop for further examination. The reality is that the border agents have that right, they also have the right to the computer, and they have the right to make an image of that computer. It is easier to comply and leave it for the company lawyers to deal with the border agents than it is for you to do so. The best you can do is get the border agents name, a contact number, and other information about the event and turn all that over to the company lawyer to deal with.

 

Three - realistically this covers all your electronic devices, so rent a phone and get insurance for it. Rent an Ipad or other devices that you need and get insurance to make sure that if they are confiscated at the border that the problem becomes the rental companies’ problem and not yours. Many companies rent devices you can take with you that will work in other countries, and this is a low cost low risk way of staying in touch with the home office back home. Don’t use rental devise for company confidential work, just use them to stay in touch with the folks back home.

 

This is a fairly straight forwardsolution to the problem, use cheap gear, leverage cloud computing, and pass the risk on to a rental company in case the gear gets confiscated. The good part is that these also work for people who are travelling everywhere, not just internationally. It is a good idea to simply ramp people into a virtualized environment and make it impossible for them to save data locally to the laptop or netbook computer.

[1TONpete]

What about flash memory devices like camera photos and stuff? What if I dont want anyone seeing the video I took of me and the wife while on Vacation? people might forget about damaging information that might be on things, they dont even realize can be taken/copied.

Now look at this from a broader perspective for a sec. What if I have a bunch of copy righted material on my device (illegally). They now can arrest me for such findings?

[PsychoticWolf]

Ha this is simply why I carry two 16gig and one 32gig microSD cards in my watch. Sure take a look at my computer there is nothing on it. Now if they want to nitpick my watch they will find 3 microSD cards whats on them? Only I know. They will find out but not with my help. They can do what ever they want. my data is mine. its not like I have secret plans or anything.

[Rodent]

It 's none of there F@#$% business

[1TONpete]

Wolf we know you wouldn't carry your secret plans around digitally...

[Tracey]

its not like I have secret plans or anything.

LMAO.. if no secret plans then why go to that extent with the SD's and watch?  Now we all know where you keep those "secret plans" though   ..whatever they may be.

[Anonamous]

Ha this is simply why I carry two 16gig and one 32gig microSD cards in my watch. Sure take a look at my computer there is nothing on it. Now if they want to nitpick my watch they will find 3 microSD cards whats on them? Only I know. They will find out but not with my help. They can do what ever they want. my data is mine. its not like I have secret plans or anything.

Lol, I want some pics

[PsychoticWolf]

Really I didn't mean it as I do have plans. I'm just saying I carry around a set of Tools that are needed for what I do. and well I don't want to leave them with my little Netbook all my netbook has installed is Backbox.

[Kool1zero]

Idk wolf, if they see something to penetrate networks they could label you a terrorist and convict you of treason for trying to hack wifi at a secure facility....

i mean, its clearly a small leap since all hackers are bad and want to steal information and ruin peoples lives obviously

[zack247]

i never heard of this, but in the future whenever it is that i go to the states, i'll be sure to leave my laptop and more expensive cell phone at home.
not that i have anything of interest on my laptop :P all i use it for is games and talking to people :P

[PsychoticWolf]

Idk wolf, if they see something to penetrate networks they could label you a terrorist and convict you of treason for trying to hack wifi at a secure facility....

i mean, its clearly a small leap since all hackers are bad and want to steal information and ruin peoples lives obviously

I'm in the IT Field. and my net book is meant for Pentesting sites and local networks. I have all my certs and Paper work to own things you guys can get in trouble for owning. I work for a Corporation that sells software to the Government Agencies. So what I have can be Justified all I'm saying is I have things that are meant for my eyes and a few selected only. But really I make sure a Network is secured before we set up the software. But being labeled a Terrorist happens every time I Travel with a name like Jihad and being very open of my Arabic heritage. They Refuse me to fly till my credentials are sent from my Employer. They ask me the same damn questions every time I travel.

[Kool1zero]

that sucks that they stereotype you bro, i was intending to mean stereotyping in a sarchastic way too. just in reference to hacking  and ccomputer stuff not race



on a side note .....what sort of things are you allowed to have that i cant? ... i want them now

[PsychoticWolf]

that sucks that they stereotype you bro, i was intending to mean stereotyping in a sarchastic way too. just in reference to hacking  and ccomputer stuff not race



on a side note .....what sort of things are you allowed to have that i cant? ... i want them now

Really powerful Pen testing software. I'm able to use the power of a remote cluster. lol I have a Laptop that cost my company over 15K super powerful and totally upgradeable. it has GPU Parallel Processing I would give specs but I am not really suppose to talk about it.  It Looks like a KVM Console but its made by some security company it doesn't have labels but one that mentions Nvidia Tesla Parallel Processing. I would Post pics but my NDA with Homeland Justice Systems Says otherwise. lol

[Bonz]

what would they do if you were incapable of decrypting the data?  we use an external hdd at work that encrypts the data on the drive and is only accessible after you tap it with an RFID tag that is paired with it.  we have 4 tags at each office and the courier doesn't get one so it can't be unlocked on-route

i assume they would take the drive and that is no problem but would they do anything to the courier?  or my work place?  like can they force us to unlock the drive?

[Kool1zero]

doesn't seem like they can,although the lady mentioned says she forgot the password, and they could theoretically just use the tag if they found them...you cant really forget a tag and it's gone forever if that tag is used in another system somewhere or stored on a chip in that harddrive that they could manage to pull from that chip...then they could get access.

long story short, they could try several things like finding a tag or trying tags that they generate with special hardware, just like they could try and bruteforce the lady's harddrive, and with either one it's likely to have failsafe's built in to erase any and everything on the drive.

but yes they could certainly try and other than saying you lost it or forgot then you could be considered impeding an investigation

[FOOKz™]

You know I've always wondered if some genius can modify a hard drive that uses a trinary number system to store data on a hard drive... when the gov't tries to read the hard drive they will just get corrupted data.