Judge Places Limits on Airport Laptop Searches

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drutort

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i wonder how they plan to deal with cloud computing and other such of site data storage :p what will they say... hand over your password to your gmail account too? and other bank or other private things as well?

were does it end?
 

jerreece

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And here I thought the whole point was to prevent terrorist attacks. Now we're going to search people's electronic devices for... porn and what, top secret materials?
 

figgus

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DHS could also share your data with other federal agencies or private entities for language translation, data decryption or "other reasons."
TrueCrypt is good, but my money says the NSA has a "master key" (ie they cracked the algorithms).

Even if not, the argument they would use is that you must be a terrorist because you are hiding something. The mass media and the population at large would buy into that in a heartbeat, even the CEO of Google expressed that sentiment not long ago.
 

zambutu

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I don't agree with airport security being able to search data on any electronic device unless there is a relevant safety concern, such as terrorism. They should be limited to looking for physical items being brought in unclaimed. Peoples personal files should be none on anyones elses business, unless of course the individual gave a reason for a search. Once I had a seemingly random search at an airport customs inbound. They sifted through my files, checked what videos I had, and checked the keyboard for drugs. It felt like a complete personal violation. It's like airport security had turn into the child porn defend department.
 

killerclick

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[citation][nom]figgus[/nom]"TrueCrypt is good, but my money says the NSA has a "master key" (ie they cracked the algorithms).[/citation]

Algorithms for what? TrueCrypt is open source so someone would notice if there was a back door or at least it would become known the first time the authorities used that "master key" to get evidence.


[citation][nom]figgus[/nom]Even if not, the argument they would use is that you must be a terrorist because you are hiding something.[/citation]

This argument would not stand in court. Plenty of non terrorist non criminal people use encryption to keep important data safe in case their computer or data gets stolen.

Besides, it's impossible to prove that a file is encrypted. TrueCrypt can even make hidden volumes within encrypted files so that you could give the wrong password to the authorities and they would get the wrong set of data instead of the real thing.


On the other hand maybe the NSA has a quantum computer hidden away somewhere which would make any encryption we have available now practically useless. :)

[citation][nom]figgus[/nom]even the CEO of Google expressed that sentiment not long ago.[/citation]

Link, please!
 

Spanky Deluxe

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Maybe searches of a laptop should not be allowed, however, it should be noted that in this case a paedophile was caught because of the search.
 

tayb

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[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]Come on get the title right "Judge Places Limits on Airport Laptop Searches for Inbound International flights". None of this applies to domestic flights.[/citation]

The law that allows officials to search laptops is only for international travelers arriving in the US anyways.
 

littlec

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[citation][nom]figgus[/nom]DHS could also share your data with other federal agencies or private entities for language translation, data decryption or "other reasons."TrueCrypt is good, but my money says the NSA has a "master key" (ie they cracked the algorithms).Even if not, the argument they would use is that you must be a terrorist because you are hiding something. The mass media and the population at large would buy into that in a heartbeat, even the CEO of Google expressed that sentiment not long ago.[/citation]
Actually that's bs, because we are protected from such narrow minded assumptions by the Security and Freedom Through Encryption Act of 1999. However I wouldn't doubt that the NSA could or have cracked the level of encryption that truecrypt uses since they have already cracked the RSA algorithm :-/ .
 

nightwraith35711

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vaguely reminds me of that guy a few years ago who took his computer into a computer repair place, where they "happened" to find CP on it during the course of their snooping -- i mean repair work. his name got out etc. and he got fired, wife left him, etc. turns out, the file came from the repair place (meaning he was innocent the whole time). Big difference is that this guy actually did it.
 

killerclick

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[citation][nom]littlec[/nom]NSA could or have cracked the level of encryption that truecrypt uses since they have already cracked the RSA algorithm :-/ .[/citation]

Source, please!
 

knownalien

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please note that the pic was of a nude adolescent girl on a beach. a naked minor does not in and of itself = Child porn. The US law is quite clear: minor must be engaged in sexual activity or there must be "closeups" of the genitalia. That simple.
 

littlec

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[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Source, please![/citation]

There is no source nor will there ever be, those in the know and in the INFOSEC business claim it as fact. Hell if kids of the University of Michigan(http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/09/1024-bit-rsa-encryption-cracked-by-carefully-starving-cpu-of-ele/) can bypass it I think it is safe to assume the NSA which has been openly opposed to RSA for over 2 decades have cracked it.
 
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