Coming from a district court, I think this ruling could be appealed, but it’s welcome news nevertheless.
It’s still an excellent idea to power off your phone whenever you are in the vicinity of a border guard and never voluntarily unlock it anywhere close to the border. You can’t (generally) be compelled to unlock your phone but you absolutely can have an unlocked phone grabbed out of your hands by a border guard with no legal right to lock it.
This is important - power OFF your phone. Your phone is more secure before you unlock it for the first time after booting. Use a strong password as well.
You can also force your device into Lockdown mode, which does the same thing, without needing to shut it down or restart it. It’s easy to do quickly once you know how.
On Android it’s enabled by default, you just hold the power button and press Lockdown.
https://www.lifewire.com/use-android-lockdown-mode-6287933
Iphones have a way to disable biometrics as well with a button combo, but its more a side effect of activating Emergency SOS, not a dedicated feature and how you activate it varies depending on your device model.
https://thenextweb.com/news/how-to-quickly-disable-biometrics-iphone
Lockdown mode is NOT the same. This disables biometrics, notifications, etc. But what FULLY rebooting does is protect against more sophisticated attacks like those of Cellebrite which is a company that sells devices to law enforcement that break into phones. I know border crossings often have access to a device of this type.
Your device is encrypted pretty strongly, and before you put in your password for the first time after boot your data is essentially useless. But after that first time your device keeps the decryption key in memory so that it can be useful even while locked, serving you app notifications and processing in the background. This leaves your device open to many more exploits that could get around your lockscreen and into your unencrypted data. Leaked documents show that Cellebrite can very often get into devices after first unlock, but in the “before first unlock” state they can often only use brute force which you can protect against by having a cryptographically secure password.
Looking at lockdown mode it’s pretty clear that it isn’t resetting to the more secure “before first unlock” state because it unlocks instantly with your password whereas after first boot there’s a small pause.
I don’t think the lockdown mode is the same. It looks like it just disables biometric unlocking. I just tried, and it was far too quick to unlock, so it must keep the encrypted partition unlocked.
They tried to search my laptop when they went through my car at the border, and were greeted with an encrypted boot screen. They tried to interrogate me twice. Glad to know nobody else will have to deal with that now.
“So, you’re a tech guy, huh? I bet you’re smart.” 😐 …
“Are you into politics? Who’d you vote for?” 🫤 …
“I’m just trying to have a friendly conversation with you.” 🤐 …
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Smart enough to not be working border patrol.
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Noneya
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This is obviously just you flexing what little power you have in your life.
While I agree with you, if you do this they will use violence and intimidation against you.
Of course. But it’d be nice to put these losers in their place.
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I mean every work laptop is (/should be) encrypted. It’s about as suspicious as having 2 factor authentication.
Note that this really only affects citizens and lawful permanent residents.
If you’re not one of those, they “can’t force you” to unlock it, but they CAN deny you entry.
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Can I tour your bunker?
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“No bunker”
Oh, I understand. <wink wink>
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I prefer to send electronics to e-waste recycling (or reuse for some task where security doesn’t matter) rather than a landfill, but I’m with you in principle: If the authorities get it out of your possession, the hardware is compromised.
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trying to explain to my wife why we should buy a new phone every time we visit her family
If you really don’t need much room a persistent operating system on a USB stick can be very clutch.
A 512Gb USB is plenty big enough for me to have a travel OS on, with space for extras. Hell, I used to run Puppy Linux on a 64gb USB.
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Shouldn’t you also reinstall the boot loader for the same reason as you’d bin the phone?
Speak of the devil. This article is from two days ago.
Who cares I’m not going to that shit hole anyway…
Hey, parts of the US are decent
Yea, Vermont is basically an honorary part of Quebec!
But you could just go to Quebec and not worry about dealing with the US federal government searching your phone because you’re within 100 miles from a border.
Not so fun fact: Canadas border is not better (maybe even worse?): https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/travel-voyage/edd-ean-eng.html
just like your luggage, our officers can examine your cell phones, tablets, laptops and any other digital device you are carrying
if the device is password-protected, which will be written down on a piece of paper. You are obligated to provide your password when asked.
Failure to grant access to your personal digital device may result in the detention of that device under section 101 of the Customs Act, or seizure of the device under subsection 140
We miss the decent people, but we fear the 1% confluence of poor armed belligerent gqp, as those people are a huge risk.
The news only likes to talk about the shittiest parts.
Well, if our government can stop Americans from going to other countries to discuss peace talks.
They can also force you and anyone else to hand over your electronics. With multiple men that are armed in the airport, there is nothing you can do until they allow you to get a lawyer, and then that will also not help to keep your rights after the fact.
Like the peace Ukraine can make with Russia if they just bend over?
