The lead article/editorial in Bruce Schneier's latest CryptoGram
(http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram.html) points out the foolishness in
warning
people to beware of terrorists taking pictures. Millions of people take
billions of
pictures every year for legitimate or innocent reasons, and the major terrorist
attacks have not involved terrorists walking around taking photographs of the
targets. It doesn't make sense to try and protect yourself by raising an alarm
about an activity that is probably (*extremely* probably) not a threat.
Rather ironically, the second piece talks about the fact that your laptop may
be
searched when you fly to another country, and the advisability of laptop
encryption. Leaving aside privacy and legality concerns, Schneier is for
encryption.
Now, I don't fly as much as some, but more than many. Since I'm a security
researcher, I've got all kinds of materials on my laptop that would probably
raise
all kinds of flags. I've got files with "virus," "malware," "botnet," and all
kinds of
other scary terms in the filenames. (I've got a rather extensive virus zoo in
one
directory.) Nobody at immigration has ever turned a hair at these filenames,
since
nobody at immigration has ever asked to look at my laptop. (Even the security
screeners don't ask me to turn it on as much as they used to, although they do
swab it more.)
I'm not arguing that people shouldn't encrypt materials on their laptops: it's
probably a good idea for all kinds of reasons. However, unless I'm very
fortunate
in my travels (and, from my perspective, I tend to have a lot more than my fair
share of travel horror stories), the risk of having immigration scan your
laptop is
not one of them.
====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
When you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev/rms.htm
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