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Warning to travelers

Spanz said:
the ONLY issue is you need texts and emails from places like your credit card companies, who will be checking to see if the foreign charges are legit. if you do not respond, they may put a hold or even cancel your credit card in mid-vacation.
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Tell them where you’re going before you go.

I said a kind of burner, because you can still use your same SIM, most people anyway. Now, if you’re worried about a foreign state or terrorist group tracking your SIM from the towers and you believe they may already know your SIM ID, then yeah you should use a new SIM. But that is an extreme edge case.

And you can forward emails to a burner account while you’re away, so you may accrue some emails on your burner while out, but they couldn’t look through historic emails.
 
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PappyM3 said:
Tell them where you’re going before you go.

I said a kind of burner, because you can still use your same SIM, most people anyway. Now, if you’re worried about a foreign state or terrorist group tracking your SIM and you believe they may already know your SIM ID, then yeah you should use a new SIM. But that is an extreme edge case.

And you can forward emails to a burner account while you’re away, so you may accrue some emails on your burner while out, but they couldn’t look through historic emails.
Click to expand...
If they're forwarding to a disposable account, you can even delete the emails as you receive them...
 
Gator9329 said:
I guess I should change my password from "F*ck the ABC guys" to "I will comply " or maybe "most votes evah".
I'm gonna make my home screen a GIF of me brushing my teeth without a shirt on . That view makes even me sick.
Click to expand...
Or just flush / travel only with clean fresh cheap old phones off amazon/ebay/swappa.
One And Shred.
 
PappyM3 said:
They’re not getting into your phone that’s sitting at home, from your burner, even if you’re using the same SIM and Apple ID. Just don’t save stuff to the apple cloud or whatever it’s called. We’re not talking about special agents seizing all your stuff in a raid. We’re talking about a DHS agent looking through the phone that’s in your possession.
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Not sure if you are fully aware of what In It Means, but for any phone, if its locked down to the max and also not sending all traffic through a 3rd party VPN, it's esentially telling the world everything.
All your emails, and IM's are Man In The Middled. Every DNS query you make to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 are wide open.
Switching to using DNS sec and using even a weak VPN like Nord will shield you a bit out the gate.

HTTPS only gets you encapsulated shielding, it does nothing for the destionations or queries.
Second tier, things like << an unnammed corp software >> Man in the Middle all of your SSL if the cert is loaded on your laptop or phone, which if you click "yes! manage it!" will be through the pipeline.

If going remote, forward email to a proton or one-shot email. Don't link any ID's to your "phone", and only browse remotely through a one-shot VPN account. If someone wants you, none of this will matter, but it WIILL prevent against the scraping snorbling layer.
 
fshalor said:
Not sure if you are fully aware of what In It Means, but for any phone, if its locked down to the max and also not sending all traffic through a 3rd party VPN, it's esentially telling the world everything.
All your emails, and IM's are Man In The Middled. Every DNS query you make to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 are wide open.
Switching to using DNS sec and using even a weak VPN like Nord will shield you a bit out the gate.

HTTPS only gets you encapsulated shielding, it does nothing for the destionations or queries.
Second tier, things like << an unnammed corp software >> Man in the Middle all of your SSL if the cert is loaded on your laptop or phone, which if you click "yes! manage it!" will be through the pipeline.
Click to expand...

How is any of this relevant to a DHS agent looking through the phone that you have on you, that you’ve only been using for a few days/weeks?

We’re not talking about intercepting anything while you use a device. If the feds/NSA want to track what you’re doing online, they can do it. But that isn’t relevant to a port of entry check of your device.

fshalor said:
If going remote, forward email to a proton or one-shot email. Don't link any ID's to your "phone", and only browse remotely through a one-shot VPN account. If someone wants you, none of this will matter, but it WIILL prevent against the scraping snorbling layer.
Click to expand...

Indeed.
 
Dennis in MA said:
Hold up. One cryptic post a day ago with no details at all. . . and NES goes into full panic mode. How many of you are in the bunkers??? Beef jerky or rice?
Click to expand...

No panic here —I’ve been following the issue since ACLU sued. But it does bother me that CBD agents can grab your contacts and bookmarks and keep them for years on a whim.

Nor do I expect they get much legitimately useful intel except from the stupidest of criminals.
 
fshalor said:
Or just flush / travel only with clean fresh cheap old phones off amazon/ebay/swappa.
One And Shred.
Click to expand...
I wonder if a coin-operated cell phone and hard drive shredder at the Mall would be a money maker? With a large window so you can watch it ground into dust...

The scrap gold and silver would pay for itself... 🤔

 
OP's heads up is very concerning as I am frequently overseas for work. So now it's looking like our government is the #2 freak show right behind China? Stocking up on popcorn while I wait for more detail / facts.

I don't buy into all the conjecture about the need for burner phones etc. Use a VPN for your browsing, clear your cache and history periodically, and GTG. I had no problem getting gmail nor even NES and other firearm enthusiast sites in China via VPN. Over the last 10 years I've regularly visited over 30 countries including Russia and China and am usually well into the interior of these countries. China was getting awful in terms of surveillance cameras everywhere, no acceptance of 'Western' credit cards at businesses anywhere else on the planet would accept them, and some other crap I don't miss. I have had many great trips there and my team has been very successful, but I hope I never need to go back. Everywhere else was fine and in many or most cases significantly better in terms of security than any of our Dem controlled shithole cities. Keep in mind I'm going to countries with a good industrial base and am not going anywhere on the African continent nor to the 'stans.
 
Mountain said:
OP's heads up is very concerning as I am frequently overseas for work. So now it's looking like our government is the #2 freak show right behind China? Stocking up on popcorn while I wait for more detail / facts.

I don't buy into all the conjecture about the need for burner phones etc. Use a VPN for your browsing, clear your cache and history periodically, and GTG. I had no problem getting gmail nor even NES and other firearm enthusiast sites in China via VPN. Over the last 10 years I've regularly visited over 30 countries including Russia and China and am usually well into the interior of these countries. China was getting awful in terms of surveillance cameras everywhere, no acceptance of 'Western' credit cards at businesses anywhere else on the planet would accept them, and some other crap I don't miss. I have had many great trips there and my team has been very successful, but I hope I never need to go back. Everywhere else was fine and in many or most cases significantly better in terms of security than any of our Dem controlled shithole cities. Keep in mind I'm going to countries with a good industrial base and am not going anywhere on the African continent nor to the 'stans.
Click to expand...
There’s more on your phone than just internet history. But yeah, that is a good procedure too.
 
PappyM3 said:
There’s more on your phone than just internet history. But yeah, that is a good procedure too.
Click to expand...
Agreed. What I can control (location services, cache, history, etc.) I can and do. I try to stay informed about the crap that is hidden or added without my knowledge and disable it. The rest I'm not going to lose any sleep over but I'm not going to give anyone voluntary access.
 
Most of our Homeland Security agents "heros" bag morons like deadbeat dads who cry poor mouth and stiff their ex and their kids on child support but yet, somehow, have enough dough to take their trophy girlfriend on a nice overseas vacation. When a deadbeat dad runs up a big enough tab, a state will be looking to arrest him. If the warrant ends up in NCIC and the returning dad is identified, Customs will arrest him. Shit arrests like that are probably a lot more common than capturing a wanted terrorist.
 
eddy1953 said:
Most of our Homeland Security agents "heros" bag morons like deadbeat dads who cry poor mouth and stiff their ex and their kids on child support but yet, somehow, have enough dough to take their trophy girlfriend on a nice overseas vacation. When a deadbeat dad runs up a big enough tab, a state will be looking to arrest him. If the warrant ends up in NCIC and the returning dad is identified, Customs will arrest him. Shit arrests like that are probably a lot more common than capturing a wanted terrorist.
Click to expand...

CBP makes about 100 NCIC arrests a month. They search or seize over three times that many phones and electronic devices, but in the overall scheme of things, both actions are rare:

CBP Enforcement Statistics Fiscal Year 2023

Securing America's Borders
www.cbp.gov
 

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