Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/01/travelers-to-new-zealand-who-r.html
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Sad to see that the part of this guide dealing with data privacy at the border will be useful in NZ, too:
Remember, what happens at the border is a preview of what the powers that be want to impose domestically.
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Heels aren’t on.the ground. Definitely western infiltrators. Never skip leg day.
Whelp. There goes the New Zealand tourism industry.
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I always wonder if they demand them, and you don’t have electronic devices, how do you prove it? Do they confiscate you instead until you provide all you’re account information?
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Good thing I’m too poor to afford the trip, but even if I could this would definitely push me to vacation somewhere else or travel with a burner phone
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Utterly technologically illiterate position. You just solve the issue by hosting a server online, connect to it with a TLS encrypted remote session such as VNC, RDP, or even SSH and port x11 across it.
Or, have a VPN tunnel to your server and then connect to the private addresses across that.
Data is never stored on the device, which means you’re just abusing the privacy rights of innocents without ever catching anyone.
Trivial to subvert.
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Fishing expeditions are on the rise, but arrests of terrorists and human traffickers has stayed flat.
Governments often enact programs to solve problems they consider a serious threat, but have zero introspection on the effectiveness of their new processes.
Basically if competent, intelligent people people were in charge, they’d quit their government job and work for the private sector. We put in charge the kind of people who make poor professional decisions or people who prioritize power over others.
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What the fuck are people going to do who have an employer-issued device on them ? I can’t simply give that data to someone, including NZ customs, as - e.g.- per EU directive
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Of course we have morons working in the government. Good people would cost way more money. The fuktards in power (currently) have only one goal, take money out of the government coffers and put it in the pockets of their rich overlords, therefore cheap workers is their only option.
“Give us all your remote session passwords.”
Well I would be in a pickle since the agreements I have signed with the NZ government require me to encrypt their information on that laptop and not give up the keys - no matter who asks. I certainly could not share departmental information with a different department within the NZ Gov.
But who am I kidding? - I’m a middle aged white guy, so I won’t be targeted
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And if I say I don’t have any remote session passwords?
How do they prove that statement is not truthful? Unless the fool writes down the log in details on a post-it note attached to the keyboard. In that case the person deserves “the works”, including that special on bodily spelunking.
Hm. You could mail it to your hotel, and then enter the country with a burner or wiped phone. I dunno
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Point is: people don’t. They travel with what is in their pocket. They are probably not even aware of the problem. But it is a problem for them nevertheless.
I would love a phone I can easily wipe completely before traveling and then restore upon returning home. Or restore it remotely over the internet.
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It’s definitely unreasonable and beyond stupid. As others have pointed out, an actual criminal would have zero problems getting around these searches (with exception of really really dumb ones perhaps). But it seems that the majority of these searches will turn up nothing, be a huge inconvenience for someone, and there’s no telling what will happen to all that syphoned data.
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You know what will happen.
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Naturally, it’ll end up being a shitshow. So far the times i’ve traveled i haven’t been asked for my social media info or my electronic devices but i think it is looking more and more like an inevitability
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Trivial to subvert, but you’d be amazed at how many criminals are that stupid. Certainly enough to keep the customs agents busy.
They won’t catch any sophisticated criminals, of course. But they can point to a chart showing the number of arrests is climbing and proclaim they have made NZ safer.
Also remember the real motivation is that the Five Eyes are most interested in grabbing contact lists, so they can grow their networks of connected people.
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