This relative may not have been so IRL interesting, I dont know. Another distant relative however did apparently get up to various clandestine shenanigans with the original -gate incident and some other stuff as a contractor for a three letter agency. I never met him in person though.
My phone isn’t running Android, it’s running Sailfish OS. I don’t think random US border guards will have heard of Sailfish OS. Very few people I know have, and I’m working with computer nerds.
Even the people at Cellebrite may have decided that it’s not worth their while to support – in any case, so far it seems conspicuously absent from their products’ release notes even though they list all sorts of other outlandish stuff.
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How long until travelling without a phone is seen as suspicious in itself?
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I keep thinking up stuff and then finding out shortly afterward that it actually exists.
Anyways, let me propose a new virus - call it IAMSPartacus. Let’s make it install a bunch of “questionable” cookies on the host device - nothing damning, but just enough to set off the appropriate triggers.
How about making it modify twitter/facebook/instagram/email/whatever signatures to include similar stuff.
Then let it spread itself around all over the web.
I’m sure we could have IAMSpartacus messenger/sms/whatsapp versions, etc.
“Please tell me I didn’t say all of that out loud…
Shit, I did”.
- Elliot Alderson
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It probably is now. We aren’t necessarily trying to be seen as “non-suspicious” as much as not having our entire contacts list, browsing history, password store, email, and twitter or facebook account credentials copied into a government database.
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I do a whole lot of international travel, but none of it into or transiting through the USA. I always take my phone. And often a lap top or at least tablet. And I don’t really worry about it. Should I?
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Did you read the article? 
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But once you’re ‘suspicious’, how far can you be leant on? (Surrender of social media passwords had already been mooted in related contexts for other ‘suspicious’ people attempting to enter the country.)
Are you a citizen?
If you aren’t, I have no idea though they’ll probably just send you back if you refuse to comply.
If you are a citizen coming into the US, the general understanding is that without special reasons to keep you, they eventually have to let you into the country. If they demand you unlock devices and you refuse, they can confiscate the devices though.
Also, are you a Muslim? Are you of a darker skin tone than a Western European pink person? Do you look weird?
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Ummm… the company would have to buy me a new phone? Pretty sure that’s it.
Starting about 1973, whenever someone says something incriminating on a phone, I hang up. Phones aren’t secure in any sense of the word.
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“Crank call, crank call!”
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In fact, no. ((looking for the "sheepish grin emoji)) 
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That’s about it for me. I have a work phone that I have nothing on but work email. I’ll carry that overseas.
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Knew him back in college- when he was just starting that. I have nothing else to say in this matter.
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and when they ask for your passwords for your mail, facebook, etc?
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Okay. To answer your questions: I’m not a US citizen, and I’m very aware that that gives me even less rights in that ‘space between countries’ that’s nevertheless on your ground.
And do I look weird? Well, I’m very capable of looking and acting weird under the wrong kind of stress, along with somewhere between one-in-a-hundred, and one-in-sixty-eight (and trending upwards) in the general population. I currently carry a card in my wallet saying so, in case of interaction with law enforcement, (or medical emergencies), but then, if I were really up to no good, I would, wouldn’t I?
I hope I’ve answered your question about me specifically (I don’t normally respond to such queries on the ‘none of their damned business’ test, but everything I’ve seen of you on here so far indicates good faith [ETA: This _is_true, and isn’t meant as snark. Also, I think it’s a reasonable point to make to support highlighting even more issues with profiling.] [and I may obfuscate the details later as I’m still not entirely comfortable.]
In that same good faith, I had already decided that the US wasn’t somewhere to visit, because of the above and the TSA (but not most of you people, because large numbers of you are lovely).
To be completely fair, I’d be cautious about my own country’s security too.
But do I think this whole thing misses my point a little:
I was specifically wondering how long it would take for ‘not carrying a phone or laptop’ to be added to that list above on its own? (Or, just add it to your ‘weird’ category. It fits.)?
Because then you’re subject to whatever rules are in force for processing the ‘security risks’ at that time.
(And in my case, yes, I do indeed assume they’ll eventually release me at whatever time as they decide I’m not a potential terrorist or otherwise up-to-no-good. It’s how long, and the interim that sincerely worries me.)
[To phrase from different perspective: If a number of people start taking the defensive action that's recommended in the article, and it hits the radar as 'odd behaviour that's on the rise that could be people hiding things' (and let's be honest here, that's exactly what it _would_ be), then I can see how it would be something any security service, loyally protecting their country, would feel they **should** take seriously.]
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To be completely fair and balanced, even though I said
above, (which is true) - as I understand it, that isn’t at this time being implemented.
But with the current regime, that’s only where it stands this week.
I’m not on facebook and I’ll give them the password to my work email, which I will then immediately change.
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Thank you for sharing. Seriously though.
Well, for any of us, they might hold people from hours to a day or so. For American citizens, I haven’t heard of people being held more than 12 hours very often. For non-citizens, I’ve heard of a day or more before sending people back unless it is a weekend and people get into “until Monday” hell but I really don’t know how often that happens.
I present as a middle aged white guy (with tattoos but I look conventional otherwise) so I’ve rarely been asked more than cursory questions even though I’m actually pretty certain one form of my legal name is on a watch list somewhere because of security associations (for my security work) that I’ve had with people that were definitely getting detained constantly and had devices seized (I was in their contacts list for phone contacts as well as social media). I fully expect to get pulled aside coming in sometime but, so far, nothing.
If I wasn’t a US citizen and was an engineer or security type who paid attention to all of these things, I’d probably just avoid the US until at such point as we get our shit together. I worry about this as two people that work for me directly are German and two are Canadian and they come to visit our US offices every so often. Luckily, we have legal support of the company, very explicitly, if anyone gets detained on a work trip.
If you are going to come to the US, I’d just leave the phone at home unless you absolutely need it and, as folks have suggested, travel with a pretty clean, $200 chromebook or a tablet if you can afford such things.
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Fortunately, old files (pre-Windows 3.1) aren’t translated and updated to modern storage systems and formats on a consistent basis. As new databases and storage systems are developed and implemented, they become so focused on debugging and inputting the current data streams and the old information sits in increasingly unreliable storage for years, or forever.
