The article fails to mention Singapore, which years ago was arresting citizens with porno in their internet caches, as I remember.

Take care with "those photos" in your "My Pictures"!

I wonder what those "forensic tools" are.

guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/15/computing.security

Quote:

Taking your laptop into the US? Be sure to hide all your data first

The Guardian,
Thursday May 15 2008

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.

You're going to have to hide your data. Set a portion of your hard drive to be encrypted with a different key - even if you also encrypt your entire hard drive - and keep your sensitive data there. Lots of programs allow you to do this. I use PGP Disk (from pgp.com). TrueCrypt (truecrypt.org) is also good, and free.

While customs agents might poke around on your laptop, they're unlikely to find the encrypted partition. (You can make the icon invisible, for some added protection.) And if they download the contents of your hard drive to examine later, you won't care.

Be sure to choose a strong encryption password. Details are too complicated for a quick tip, but basically anything easy to remember is easy to guess. (My advice is at tinyurl.com/4f8z4n.) Unfortunately, this isn't a perfect solution. Your computer might have left a copy of the password on the disk somewhere, and (as I also describe at the above link) smart forensic software will find it.

So your best defence is to clean up your laptop. A customs agent can't read what you don't have. You don't need five years' worth of email and client data. You don't need your old love letters and those photos (you know the ones I'm talking about). Delete everything you don't absolutely need. And use a secure file erasure program to do it. While you're at it, delete your browser's cookies, cache and browsing history. It's nobody's business what websites you've visited. And turn your computer off - don't just put it to sleep - before you go through customs; that deletes other things. Think of all this as the last thing to do before you stow your electronic devices for landing. Some companies now give their employees forensically clean laptops for travel, and have them download any sensitive data over a virtual private network once they've entered the country. They send any work back the same way, and delete everything again before crossing the border to go home. This is a good idea if you can do it.

If you can't, consider putting your sensitive data on a USB drive or even a camera memory card: even 16GB cards are reasonably priced these days. Encrypt it, of course, because it's easy to lose something that small. Slip it in your pocket, and it's likely to remain unnoticed even if the customs agent pokes through your laptop. If someone does discover it, you can try saying: "I don't know what's on there. My boss told me to give it to the head of the New York office." If you've chosen a strong encryption password, you won't care if he confiscates it.

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.

Oh, bring back the good old days. I recall buying a reel to reel gay porn movie in Amsterdam and declaring it to customs on my arrival at Heathrow. They were quite taken aback when I produced it, but at that time the law said that a single item could be bought in for "personal" use only.

good advice ArNolD but it's getting more intrusive..

They are going much further especially with solo male travellers that seems to send up alarm bells. My advice would be to instantly adopt a middle class wife with 2 kids but baring that you can inspect a Gestapo style grilling.

My last visit to the UK 2 years ago including questions about my life's work history (I can't even remember it myself) and a demand to know who were the people in all my personal photos I carry in a small book. I gave them suitably anonymous names at which they nodded knowingly as though they already knew..presumably to somehow make me believe they knew all about me. They even asked who the 80 year old ( deceased ) gent was in one pic..I said he was my brother..didn't seem to faze them.

They also photocopied all my credit cards..(thus nullifying all those excuses I've been fobbing them off with for being over limit for years now) but the last act which forced me to keep a straight face lest I be kept even longer was their discovery of a fairly battered old pic of a certain Royal family I carry for good luck..(maybe it worked this time).

"And who are these people ?" they demanded..."oh they own my favourite hotel "I replied (sort of right..)

God help us with this lot looking after our safety...surely they'll recognise Gary Glitter when he arrives once he gets his wig back !
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JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT'S ALL OVER I READ THIS LATEST REPORT:

Hijacker working as cleaner for airlineFrom correspondents in London
May 16, 2008 08:48pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse

AN Afghan man involved in a hijacking eight years ago was arrested after being found working as a cleaner for British Airways near Heathrow Airport, officials and a press report said today.

Nazamuddin Mohammidy, 34, was among nine Afghans who threatened to blow up a Boeing 727 during a four-day stand-off with police at London's Stansted Airport in 2000.

This week he appeared in court after police pulled his car over, on suspicion of being a bogus taxi driver, only to discover his identity and that he had a security pass as a cleaner for British Airways, The Sun newspaper reported.

"He had a British Airways pass on him. It was discovered he was in breach of bail and he was arrested. Then it emerged he was one of the Stansted hijackers," a source told the daily.

"There's got to be something seriously wrong with a country that lets a hijacker work at an airport. It's shocking."

I have been detained, coming from two places... from Saudi Arabia where I once worked (duh, you think this Iris/German American is a terrorist?). The officials did a body search and looked through all of  my suitcases. Next, when I went through customs in LAX from Thailand. All they cared about were the pictures in my camera.  I did not have my computer with me, thank goodness. It was totally rude how the gal was asking who everyone was in  the picture. None of her damn business but there was nothing X about the pics, just  friends and boring scenery pictures.   The thing is, the customs officials seem to have the right to do whatever... reminds me when I would enter a country that would be  run by dictator or  a military regime. OH wait, America is a democracy, isn't it?  -Freedom to search anything on you.

thrillbill wrote:

The thing is, the customs officials seem to have the right to do whatever...

Indeed they do - in every country in the world.  Just remember that there's very little they can verify on the spot, and they do have to justify that their job has meaning, if only to themselves.  Treat as a form of occupational therapy for an idiot child

or this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14visa.html?ei=5070&en=46f6c549f90b4a34&ex=1211428800&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1210942869-TQcF0IG3Gpii/KdAMAhSvQ

Then there was the Icelandic woman detailed because she had overstayed her visa for a few days, 10 years ago.

That's right, blood blue-eyed Icelandic women are a known terrorist profile. Invade Iceland know before
they attack us.

We really have descended into a Fascist state.

Nice to see that at least a few people are waking up.  It's a pity that we have already lost almost all of our personal freedoms.  

“Whatever the state says is a lie; whatever it has is a theft: all is counterfeit in it, the gnawing, sanguinary, insatiate monster.” - 1883

The get more embarrassed than me when they sift through my sex toys/rubbers/lube etc.