from Hacker News

AU Border Seizes Phones

by hazza_n_dazza on 1/17/22, 10:17 PM with 28 comments

• by steelstraw on 1/17/22, 11:12 PM

  It's like they are trying to destroy their tourism industry:

  Warren advised people flying into Australia not to have anything on their device that they don’t want authorities accessing, and to ensure their device is encrypted with a strong passcode.

  “Once they take your device out of your sight, you should assume it’s completely compromised and they have a copy of everything that was on it, and act accordingly,” he said.

  James said the incident made him rethink what he would do next time he travels out of Australia.

  “I think what I’ll just do next time is as we fly into Sydney, I’ll just press the factory reset button on the phone and when they pull me up again, I’ll be handing them a fresh clean factory reset.”

• by ejb999 on 1/17/22, 10:56 PM

  Phones need to have two passwords; one that when you unlock it just has the built-in apps and a small selection of your emails/images that you don't mind other people seeing.

  Second password would actually unlock the entire phone and all files.

  Truecrypt used to have this feature (when it was around). Only the second password would actually open the full encrypted storage - first password - which you could give under duress would only 'see' fake stuff that you put there; always thought that was a clever feature - never had a need to use it myself.

• by version_five on 1/17/22, 11:19 PM

  This made me wonder about cloud services or servers: would a border guard be smart enough (or care enough) to understand the difference between a device password and the password for an online account. If you just brought something that was a thin client, do you risk punishment for not providing additional login info? What worries me most about this kind of thing is being in a situation where some thug is asking you to do something that's either not possible, or clearly outside of the intent of the law, but you're at their mercy.

  Re Australia, this is just the latest in a long list of many reasons I'll never go there. As someone else said, it will be interesting to see if tourism resumes or if most people will not risk trying to go their anymore given their recent behavior

• by wait_a_minute on 1/17/22, 11:54 PM

  Wtf is going on in Australia over the last two years? They’re devolving into a tyranny.

• by medo-bear on 1/18/22, 9:24 PM

  More and more we see Australia trying to out China in authoritarianism. However, at least China (and Russia for that matter) doesn't hide that it is authoritarian. People from Eastern states are very much aware of this and act accordingly. On the other hand, I wonder how Australians perceive this situation, and how much Goethe's old adage, “the best slave is the one who thinks he is free,” applies.

• by josephcsible on 1/17/22, 10:28 PM

  > ensure their device is encrypted with a strong passcode

  Why does this matter, if Australia will just force you to tell them what it is?

• by 908B64B197 on 1/17/22, 11:41 PM

  Of course, it's in Australia.