Decius wrote:
Is this really necessary to protect children, or is it a political system running amuck with an emotionally charged issue?

You really need to ask? I'm as anti-child-porn as anyone, but the "War On _____" mentality is absurd. As you say, the specter of a mandatory (and long) jail term because i got some kind of malware or accidentally clicked something is bullshit. I'm not even saying it's happening, or will happen, but the fear of that is gonna make me not want to travel. I call that a chilling effect, and I think it's dangerous.

Practically speaking, if i refuse the search, do i just get kicked off a flight, or do i go directly to jail (at which point they do the search anyway)?

Also, I notice the cnet article has a quick little sentence that says "Here are some tips on using encryption to protect your privacy." and links out to a politech discussion. I didn't find a lot of that helpful. If you've got a bunch of encrypted areas, are they gonna just pass it or force you to unlock that shit? I have FileVault enabled at present on my mac, which i suppose is pretty secure... does that give me a pass too? Doubt it very much.

Real solutions? Maybe a Red Pill (discussed previously) to a hidden, encrypted iteration of the OS? Also, I recall reading about a software package, forgot now what it's called, for linux, that hid mutiple layers of encrypted file systems under your current one. From each level, only the one "below" it could be opened. The theory was that the po-po could tell that you had this, and therefore probably some encrypted shit, but there was no way to tell how many levels deep it goes. So you could have perfectly innocent data (credit card numbers, passwords) at level one and indisputably claim that's all you got even if there are 6 more levels below it.

I'm not an expert so I don't know how well it worked or even if it's theoretically sound, but I suspect the market for plausibly deniable encryption is about to go up. Not to mention ultra-paranoid system configurations.

I've had a large archive drive subjected to forensics (thanks to abaddon, heh :) ) and even though I'm 100% clean, i was paranoid. it sucks and if this is the what i can look forward to, my laptop's staying home next time i travel, which is just a huge imposition.

fuck the police state.

I'm also completely against mandatory minimum sentences, but that's another topic for another time.

RE: Police blotter: Laptop border searches OK'd | CNET News.com