Comment by inigyou
1 day ago
The government can easily get your remote backup, of course. It's just that border control won't know you have one.
1 day ago
The government can easily get your remote backup, of course. It's just that border control won't know you have one.
Not if it’s encrypted and self-hosted. Your doomerism is silly. “The government” is not all-powerful, or they wouldn’t need to pester people for PINs at the border.
Encryption in this case is irrelevant. If they get the encrypted backup they can already charge you if you don't decrypt it.
Self-hosting is the way obviously
Can the border guard go to your house and retrieve something, bring it to the checkpoint, and ask you to do something with it before entry? No. This is out of their legal authority.
Also, you could set up a system where the phone cannot restore the backup on reentry. Perhaps a single use restore key that you use at your original destination, so the restore cannot be performed again until you return home and generate a new code. This evades the (flimsy) charges that were applied in this case.
The best option, however, is to bring a blank disposable device, restore from backup at your destination, then discard the device before you cross the border again.
4 replies →
If the government could easily get the remote backup they would have already done it.