Re: airport searches
On Fri, Jul 21, 2000 at 07:21:49PM -0400, SteveC wrote: > At the risk of going against the tide, I would rather be in a country > where they did search some percentage of the incoming passport holders > belongings than one where they didn't. The problem here is not criminals. It's you getting convicted of something you did not even realize was illegal. Suppose you go to Europe and snag a copy of the video from prime-time TV which is the Coppertone suntan lotion commercial. You just want to show your friends the difference from American TV. You'd better encrypt it and hide it if you bring it back on your computer because it can get you arrested at Customs for possesion of child pornography. You can become another political prisoner. > A combination of intelligence and criminalality does not happen that > often, so criminals encrypting all their secret stuff is not of import to > me. What I do worry about is paying my taxes so people can walk in the > country and claim benefit. Why is it Ok for tax money to be spent on various entrapment schemes by law enforcement? Why is Ok for tax money to be spent for Customs to enforce the American right-wing religious nut standard of pornography on world travelers? > Not that I am in favour of the RiP bill, it is terrible but in order to > have some kind of democracy you have to protect it from other forms of > government, terrorism and criminals. The best thing for us to do is > promote tools like pgp or hushmail, so those who really do need free > speech can get it. People should have a right of free speech whether they need it or not. Even simple cryptography should be sufficient in the Western World to indicate your expectation of privacy and require law enforcement to have probable cause before searching it. -- - | 73,E-mail | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Lyn Kennedywebpage | http://webusers.anet-dfw.com/~lrkn/ | | K5QWB pony express = P.O. Box 5133, Ovilla, TX, USA 75154| ---Livin' on an information dirt road a few miles off the superhighway---
Re: airport searches
On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Eugene Leitl wrote: > Great, then why screening the file systems at entry, then? Moreover, > what precludes me from putting the encrypted stuff online on > http://www.netdrive.com/ & Co., crossing the boundary empty-handed, > and then accessing the warez by ssh or SSL session, Echelon being none > the wiser? So why this hard drive searching farce, then? Well nothing. But look at the number of ways of profiting by gouing to all these extremes. You have to know lots about computers to smuggle this top secret stuff in. The average joe makes mistakes. The average joe will not encrypt stuff and so on. That is who they are trying to catch. Trying to catch libertarians with extensive crypto experience is a bit lower down. > > me. What I do worry about is paying my taxes so people can walk in the > > country and claim benefit. > > I was unaware that U.S. (judging from the traceroute on your domain) Theres net power right there, I live in the UK =) [not that it would be hard to find that out] > > Not that I am in favour of the RiP bill, it is terrible but in order to > > have some kind of democracy you have to protect it from other forms of > > government, terrorism and criminals. The best thing for us to do is > > I have yet to see terrorists and criminals in an industrialized > country threatening to overthrow its democratic structure. If So its ok that they just kill people then? > anything, the resident goverments are the ones chipping away at it > (see U.K., Echelon and Carnivore for a few recent examples). > > > promote tools like pgp or hushmail, so those who really do need free > > speech can get it. > > PGP and hushmail do not grant free speech if you can track and filter > all Internet traffic at IP level. So we should give up because of that? At least its a start, you have a better idea than tcp/ip? I just happen to not store any mail or keys in the country anymore. Better stil, these are mounted on encrypted partitions and can be written over 7 times with noise with the flick of a script. Related question: If I am ion the uk and my keys are elsewhere (friendly or non govt. property) can the RiP bill still get my keys/throw me in prison if i forget? > (Moreover, as a good German, you should have nothing to hide, > anyway. The thought police has been notified). As a good brit I beleive whole heartedly in her majestys government, and everything it does. SteveC [EMAIL PROTECTED] icq #14047829 www.fractalus.com/fracsaver
Re: airport searches
> >I would rather be in a country > >where they did search some percentage of the incoming passport holders > >belongings than one where they didn't. > > Can you explain why? Sure. 1) I am NOT saying a really smart person cannot download amazing naughty bits from china via 1024 bit cyphers or something. 2) I am NOT saying that every criminal is dumb and puts papers in his briefcase with "Bomb plans - secret" on them (though one of the trade center bombers was caught with such at the airport claiming asylum in the US IIRC) What I am saying is that the majority of people who are up to naughty things entering a country will have some tell-tale information on their person, and holding random searches is better than not. As for the question of searching laptops. Most people again do not enter with unix systems and small chunks of random bits hidden about. They enter with some windows machine that has information strewn about it everywhere. Searching the harddrive for some stuff might then yield something. whether a pharma companies annual report would ring the same alarms assecret plans I don't know. A simple pink pixel count on images would probably bring lots of hits. My point of view is that searching a harddrive everynow and then would do more good than harm. SteveC [EMAIL PROTECTED] icq #14047829 www.fractalus.com/fracsaver
