don't bring a laptop to the US; you might have it detained

[Smeghead]

Another reason why I'll never visit the US. I don't wanna have all my electronic things detianed at the border.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... eheadlines

[Melendwyr]

Don't visit Canada, either. They've had a policy of searching visitor's laptops for quite a while.

[Beta-guy]

Another reason why I'll never visit the US. I don't wanna have all my electronic things detianed at the border.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... eheadlines

they don't 'detain' your laptop, they 'liberate' your laptop :p big difference

[Lyinginbedmon]

Let them take my laptop, they'll never find the external harddrive!






Oh who am I kidding, I'd shoot at them just for attempting to take my laptop...

[Chris_Gonzalez]

Meh. It seems I'll just have to keep my porn/pirated stuff on my Desktop or secondary external hard drive.

And everything else that's incriminating in a USB drive that they'll only find during a cavity search. <_<

[TheRocket]

Welll... they'll find nothing on mine but photos of sexy ladies and drunken shows.

[Alja-Markir]

Ironically, you can ship an entire desktop computer between the US and Canada and it just gets the normal postal scans. If I were a data courier with sensitive data? I'd load it into a hard drive and have UPS ship it because taking it across the border in person would be far riskier.

You know, with that in mind, I wonder how hard it would be for someone to disguise something truly dangerous as just a PC and just pass it off as a routine shipment?

~Alja~

[Lyinginbedmon]

You know, with that in mind, I wonder how hard it would be for someone to disguise something truly dangerous as just a PC and just pass it off as a routine shipment?

~Alja~

I've seen casemods that make a computer look like a significantly-sized explosive device. I kept thinking there's no way they'd get it anywhere out of the country.

Anyways, if you tried that, consider the consequences of postage messing up.

Clearly what we need to learn from this is: When trying to get into the USA, does as the Mexicans do: Walk through the incomplete border fence late on a Friday night.

[Alja-Markir]

Well I mean, if say a"terrorist" wanted to deploy a dirty bomb, would they mind so much if the specific address was wrong so long as it was shipped to the approximate region?

And besides, everyone knows Canada Post is just gosh-dang reliable.

~Alja~

Addendum:

Clearly what we need to learn from this is: When trying to get into the USA, does as the Mexicans do: Walk through the incomplete border fence late on a Friday night.

I always wondered if people cross illegally into Canada by sailing across the Great Lakes and just mooring up somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

[wilson_x1999]

I'll just say the same thing I say whenever I read some news like this:

Fuck Bush's USA

[Tetsubo]

And of course this action is going to stop zero data from getting across the borders. Zero. It's just more security theater. Make it look like the borders are secure rather than actually making them secure.

[Melendwyr]

Fuck Bush's USA

Don't be a fool. The current state of American society wasn't produced by one man, isn't maintained by one man, and won't be perpetuated by one man.

Making Bush a scapegoat for all of the very real problems will solve absolutely nothing, and will accomplish nothing beyond ensuring that the problems continue.

[CyberTractor]

I also hate it when people blame Bush for everything.

We also have a congress, a senate, and local legislature that we can blame for things, but no. The president is supposed to miraculously make everything in the world better.

I'm not a fan of Bush, but that's for things he himself has done. You can't blame him for things other elected officials did. The people of the US elected the responsible people to office. The people of the US also share blame if something goes wrong.


Learn 2 politiks.

[Frozengale]

Fuck Bush's USA

Approval Ratings as of July 2008

Bush's Approval Rating: 28%

Congress's Approval Rating: 13%



I'm pretty sure Congress is the one people should hate, not to mention Bush can't do much if at least part of Congress doesn't let him.

[Smeghead]

there is a differance.Do you feel more thretened and paranoid if a canadian is looking in my laptop? or an american?

[Chris_Gonzalez]

there is a differance.Do you feel more thretened and paranoid if a canadian is looking in my laptop? or an american?

The latter. Us Americans are a suspicious lot, and a rather corrupt one at that. I wouldn't trust US cops with shit.

[wilson_x1999]

Don't be a fool. The current state of American society wasn't produced by one man, isn't maintained by one man, and won't be perpetuated by one man.

Making Bush a scapegoat for all of the very real problems will solve absolutely nothing, and will accomplish nothing beyond ensuring that the problems continue.

By saying Bush's USA, I mean, what the USA has become since Bush came into the White House.

...
Approval Ratings as of July 2008

Bush's Approval Rating: 28%

Congress's Approval Rating: 13%

I'm pretty sure Congress is the one people should hate, not to mention Bush can't do much if at least part of Congress doesn't let him.

Bush can also veto any bill the Congress tries to pass, and has done so in the past.

I hate pretty much all the US goverment, not to mention my own XD

[Wraith]

On one hand, when I see things like this:

"The policies . . . are truly alarming,"

In a news article, red flags immediately go up in my mind. Those strategically placed "..."'s are rarely good.

However, I read the original document this article refers to, and the implications of it are indeed somewhat disturbing.

Still I can see the reasoning behind its creation. I have a few friends who are missionaries, and they have talked about their border-crossing experiences, both in first world and third world countries (to briefly go off on a tangent, what is a "second world" nation?), and from what I've heard, it has always been fairly standard procedure in many countries to examine documents people are carrying. It's considered a crucial security issue. Keeping this in mind, it seems like simply scanning such documents and carrying them on digital media would be a rather easy way to circumvent such measures; and thus they no doubt decided there needed to be a way to deal with that, as well.

Now don't get me wrong here, the idea of my laptop being taken for a month makes me absolutely CRINGE. Not that they'd find anything. Whatever I delete is done so using seven write-over passes, and my entire drive is encrypted using the same encryption technology the NSA uses. It's never been cracked by anyone, so I'm not too worried. It's the inconvenience of not having it for so long.

I think perhaps a more reasonable approach would be to have digital copy stations at border points, where digital media could be copied, tied to your passport, and then examined later, and, failing a significant find, destroyed. I know that a lot of you would still find this an unacceptable breach of privacy, but, like I said, it's really nothing new. Document searches in many countries go back to at least the cold war if not further. This isn't really all that much different.

[Chris_Gonzalez]

(to briefly go off on a tangent, what is a "second world" nation?)

They don't really exist. It's like second-person. It is possible, but it's very infrequent, if not practically non-existent.

[Master Gunner]

According to Wikipedia, it originally was used during the Cold War to indicate the USSR and it's allies, with First World indicating the so-called "Western Countries" (including Australia and other allied countries), and then the Third World were those who were generally too poor to be involved themselves, and weren't directly and publicly controlled by one of the other blocs. Since the end of the Cold War, First World has come to indicate "Developed Nations" while Third World means "Developing Nations". Second world doesn't really exist anymore.

[Tetsubo]

While I despise Bush he isn't to blame for most of our nation's problems. In many ways getting mad at Bush is like getting mad at Ronald McDonald. He's just a figurehead.

[Red Charlie]

According to Wikipedia, it originally was used during the Cold War to indicate the USSR and it's allies, with First World indicating the so-called "Western Countries" (including Australia and other allied countries), and then the Third World were those who were generally too poor to be involved themselves, and weren't directly and publicly controlled by one of the other blocs. Since the end of the Cold War, First World has come to indicate "Developed Nations" while Third World means "Developing Nations". Second world doesn't really exist anymore.

Although, yes thats true, there is a difference between Developed, Developing and Third World countries.

However for a lack of good term (any term to refere to the third world will always seem demeaning).

Developed, Developing and Underdeveloped was what my Geographical friends in human studies were touting last I heard.

Developed being: UK, USA

Developing being: India, Mexico (believe it or not)

Underdeveloped being: Sudan, Republic of Congo

On the topic, surely if you want to get data in to the US there is a gazillion ways it can be done? And I'm thinking SD cards are really good for doing this. I think a 32 Gb HCSD card is gonna be released in 2010 and considering that was a harddrive about 10 years ago I think its gonna be harder for any authority, even with these ridiculus control laws in place, to actually do anything about it. Maybe I could use my Nintendo DS.

[wilson_x1999]

While I despise Bush he isn't to blame for most of our nation's problems. In many ways getting mad at Bush is like getting mad at Ronald McDonald. He's just a figurehead.

Fuck Ronal McDonald! He's creepy as hell... also his burgers are awful!

[Tetsubo]

While I despise Bush he isn't to blame for most of our nation's problems. In many ways getting mad at Bush is like getting mad at Ronald McDonald. He's just a figurehead.

Fuck Ronal McDonald! He's creepy as hell... also his burgers are awful!

Both of those statements are a given. But then Bush is just as creepy. Plus Ronald McDonald has murdered far fewer people.

[Zed Alpha]

Gods, I'm ashamed for my country.


Sorry, everybody! We're actually very nice people, as long as you don't go far away from the cities in the Deep South!