How to lock down your phone if you're traveling to the U.S.
362 comments
·April 9, 2025sipofwater
joshdavham
[dead]
kleiba
> Before traveling, back up your devices so you don’t lose anything permanently. Then delete anything you’re worried about being misinterpreted or saved by the government. That can include conversations that compromise the privacy of the people on the other end. You might delete messages about politics, contact information for political dissidents, apps that save offline copies of sensitive documents like Google Docs, even your phone’s built-in Notes app.
Mind you, this is for entering the country that considers itself the freest in the world...
snthpy
> Before traveling, back up your devices so you don’t lose anything permanently.
_anything_ here presumably doesn't include freedom of movement of when you find yourself in an El Salvador concentration camp.
Next up: How to replace your Real Madrid tattoo by obtaining a skin graft
akimbostrawman
Like most rights and laws they only apply if you are already in the country or a citizen.
They are still unreasonable searches enabled since and by the patriot act.
timewizard
How does a country "consider itself?" I mean, I get that the propaganda mouthpieces push this message, but that's not quite the same thing.
Meanwhile there are very few countries that don't have the same type of border security that we do for foreign nationals. This advice is just as pertinent if you travel to the UK or almost any EU country.
Clamchop
Us Americans have been taught exceptionalism all our lives. The people consider themselves to have built and to live in the freest and generally most superlative country that ever was.
We were pretty "soft" (dislike the term) on the land borders and on immigration. Fairly easy to enter, to claim asylum, to live and work on different sides, and so on.
I don't have an answer for the question of if we should be making our border security as intense as it can be elsewhere, but I don't love the story of just doing as other countries do. We're exceptional, right?
I don't think this is a great comment I'm writing, but it's how I feel about things right now.
po26511
> We're exceptional, right?
Yup, and that pushes a nationalistic agenda even if not intentional. We're exceptional, so everyone else is mediocre and such border policies don't seem that strange? IMO a historical example of where being exceptional led us is the Trail of Tears.
Moving in the direction away from exceptionalism and more towards doing as other countries do is a simpler story toward reaching cooperation / peace than the alternative. Since if you don't, then you have to force your ideals on others, or every conversation just ends with "but we're exceptional and you aren't".
timewizard
> have been taught
As I said, and not to be flip, but "propaganda mouthpieces." The odd part about "social media" is that it actually instills a sense of reward in people when they uncritically repeat what they've been told like a Manchurian candidate. While at the same time being an outlet for their frustrations with the outcome of these same policies and ideals.
> live in the freest and generally most superlative country
Since the 1950s the government has been opening and reading peoples mail. We had the Church Committee and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In this era people did not make the same mistake. This notion of the "freest" country honestly started after 2001. "They hate us because of our freedom," was a useful excuse to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
> We were pretty "soft" (dislike the term) on the land borders and on immigration.
That depends on your perspective. The cold war certainly had an impact on some citizens of the world more than others. The 2001 trade center attack just moved the goalposts. Here we are moving them again.
> but it's how I feel about things right now.
That's the most valuable thing you could possibly do. Thank you.
pornel
> We were pretty "soft" (dislike the term) on the land borders and on immigration
That's absolutely not the impression US gives to the people outside. The visa system is soft only on one specific demographic it deems worthy (educated, wealthy, commonwealth citizen), and treats everyone else with contempt at best.
Getting a visa requires extensive background checks, and an in-person interview in a part of a consulate built like a prison. The green card lottery keeps people on uncertain ground for decades, during which they are second-class citizens and can have their entire life uprooted at any moment.
Claiming asylum via safe modes of transport has been made technically impossible (anyone suspected of seeking asylum won't be sold any tickets, won't be let through any security), and deadly dangerous and intentionally cruel towards everyone desperate enough to try anyway.
Unfortunately, many countries are like that, and the USA is not better than average even on the good side.
more_corn
Used to.
breakingrules3
[flagged]
bigyabai
Nope, based on fact: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...
dizhn
[flagged]
redserk
[flagged]
redczar
I’ll add a few more freedoms.
1. Can’t walk about drinking a beer.
2. Can’t carry too much cash or it’s at risk of being confiscated.
3. Criminalization of walking. https://illinoislawreview.org/print/vol-2017-no-3/the-crimin...
4. Pretty much have to own a car in most places.
5. Thousands of polling stations closed since the Voting Rights Act was gutted.
6. Federal politics held hostage by low population states. It’s insane that North Dakota has slightly less federal power than Texas.
7. Not even the House of Representatives has proportional representation.
ta1243
The OP was talking the "leader of the free world"
You are talking about America
That's two very different things
jncfhnb
Really feel like point number two weakens your overall point here
stackedinserter
As someone from totalitarian regime, I can say you clearly don't appreciate freedoms that you have.
null
benlivengood
krsdcbl
Being from Germany our history classes in school went into great depth about the countries past - and I can't help but feel increasingly scared and left utterly speechless by all the parallels I'm seeing unfolding in the US ...
wat10000
We get to choose between allowing government agents to go through our files or losing our expensive hardware.
This is a lot better than the choice between allowing them to go through our files or not entering the country, but it's still pretty gross.
vuggamie
dizhn is free, for example, to lick as many boots as he desires. No one can take that away.
dizhn
How do you figure that?
MPSFounder
Poor reply. I want America to be free for anyone who is on our soil. Not just for me and those lucky enough to have been born here, and not just for the political aristocracy and their Israeli darlings. Some Americans welcome a master it seems, when it speaks Hebrew
anon291
Hmmm. And yet this is normal for entering just about every other country.
The people being deported are those calling for genocide. Good riddance. You do not have a right to come to this country to organize a foreign country's wars.
lern_too_spel
We know that there are also Israelis calling for the genocide of Palestinians. None are being deported. I'd be willing to believe that some of the students being deported have called for genocide, but the government must produce evidence. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/court-tells-government...
486sx33
This is untrue. No one is calling for genocide of Palestinians. They just need to evacuate the rubble caused by hamas and move to safer places
gruez
"Locking down" is almost always a bad approach when it comes to border crossings. You have very little rights at the border, so keeping your phone locked and refusing to divulge the 20 characters password isn't really an option. Even without the threat of detaining you, they can refuse entry (if you're not a citizen/permanent resident), or seize your $1000 phone/laptop. Far better to wipe your phone and restore from backup after you've crossed the border. The article does make a good point that you should seed your wiped phone with signs of activity so it doesn't look freshly wiped.
gorgoiler
I used to do this but these days I’m petrified of the restore being imperfect in some way.
I use the he.net app for TOTP. Will I get those back in working order?
I have a billion photos I want to keep — were they properly backed up to iCloud?
My mail settings are a pita to recreate. Will those come back?
Are passwords stored in the Secure Enclave? Could I lose those?
When I sign back into iCloud am I going to be able to use a username and password, or is it going to require me to approve the login on my laptop — which I left at home — as a second factor?
WhatsApp, Signal — how much is tied to my physical phone and/or any key material unique to the OS — material that is irretrievably lost, by design, when it is wiped.
I think really the long term answer is to stop using an opaque, closed source iPhone. Maybe some time in the next five years one will emerge that competes with Apple’s quality? Until then, every border crossing is going to risk handing over a huge part of my life to ICE because I can’t risk losing anything in a backup/restore hysteresis loop.
Post.: Another future direction would be for iOS and apps to recognise this as a common use case and provide guarantees about what is and what isn’t restorable after a wipe.
There’s also a conflict here between wiping data so that it is irretrievable and wiping data to later retrieve it. If you wipe with the intent to retrieve I can believe that immigration will just detain you until you restore your phone so that it can be searched.
IncandescentGas
Your phone could become damaged and inoperable every day. From dropping it in the toilet, being stolen, a house fire, etc. If you're "petrified" of losing your data, it's worth the work to ensure your data backup procedures are adequate.
gorgoiler
You’re right, but also I know I have enough backed up to survive a catastrophe. What I don’t want to do is to test my backup in a non catastrophe situation and invalidate all my TOTP, WhatsApp history, mail settings etc. just because I wanted to test disaster recovery.
It feels like buying a fire safe (phone and app backups) without any kind of understanding if it works then burning your house down to see if it works. I want a fire safe (phone and app backups) that is up-front with guarantees it works!
I should have said this by the way: for a long time I did wipe my phone when crossing borders, learning the hard way all the little details that don’t quite work properly when doing a restore from backups.
gausswho
I've spent the last month and a half building an encyrpted backup system I could sleep peacefully with, independent of tech giants that secretly compromise you. I'm almost there but it's not easy for a lot of reasons you mention and more.
Ultimately it's not enough for individuals to spend this effort for themselves. We need a self-managed option that is nearly as turnkey as iCloud. A distro with it built from the outset.
ta1243
Is it even possible to test a backup of a typical phone without first wiping the phone?
It's not like my backup of my ~/Photos directory where I can copy to a USB and md5sum the files on a separate computer and check the match.
mystifyingpoi
IMO if you are so concerned about it, then just buy a second phone, and leave the "first" phone at a family member, or at least someone that you trust. If something fails to restore, just call them to read you the OTP code or whatever.
mmmlinux
If you're worried about your backup data being correct, you don't have a backup.
batch12
This is true. A backup that can't be restored is worthless.
LWIRVoltage
I am in a similar pickle.
This is an issue I face- I have a collection of thermal cameras that use apps to control them- after every install onto a phone, they then reach out t oa server to authenticate.
Here's the issue- though I have a few older phones- these apps are 32 bit ones, so no modern phone after Android 13 will run them. And they are all now not on the app store anymore,as they all came out about around 2016. i did use a APK extractor to pull the APKs to store them - but the native backup functionality wouldn't capture that authorization in the future, I might rob myself of my ability to use some extremely expensive, and long-term invested capable hardware, by backing up and restoring-
I suspect a full image would solve this problem, but I don't think one can do that outside of things like TWRP- but that requires unlocking the bootloader, and if you do that it wipes your device- AND is more vulnerable to Custom's usage of Cellebrite and etc, to my undertanding.
I don't have this issue with laptops ,as I can fully image them and wipe and restore ahavend have a perfect replica/ no issues. But my thermal cameras do not run off of PC and th eform factor wouldn't work if they did
jjav
> I’m petrified of the restore being imperfect in some way.
A lot of this is from anchoring important things to your phone. I practice, and strong recommend, avoiding that as much as possible. Your phone should be entirely disposable. If you drop it in the ocean, would you care (other than the monetary loss)? If yes, find way to detach those things from the phone. There should be nothing important on a phone.
shepherdjerred
This is like sticking your head in the sand. Okay, maybe the backup is imperfect? What’s your plan if you phone is lost, damaged, or stolen?
squigz
This is why testing recovery is a critical part of any backup plan.
wing-_-nuts
>or seize your $1000 phone/laptop.
So be it. I used to say that the reason I valued my privacy was not that I did not trust my government _today_, it was the fact that data would be available to every potential authoritarian government _tomorrow_.
Welp, today has become tomorrow, and yeah, I'd _absolutely_ rather just have my devices seized than have the contents of my phone dumped into a database that can be searched without a warrant, for the next 15 years.
Rights (like the 4th amendment) that are not exercised are not upheld. I'm sure the threat of having one's devices stolen (let's be clear, that's what this is), is enough to deter many people. For myself, my next course of action would be to contact the ACLU and sue the government for violating the 4th amendment.
dylan604
Having your $1000 device stolen by the government as an acceptable outcome is something only a fatcat on HN with their cushy salary would be able to tolerate. I'm not a FAANG employee, and don't make that kind of salary. Loosing a $1k anything would not be something I could just shrug my shoulders and just turn around and immediately replace it.
Even if you do sue the gov't, it'll be at least a year before any kind of resolution that results in the return of that device. Them keeping my phone would be one thing, but if they also kept my laptop, I'd be screwed. My laptop is much more than $1k, and there's no free laptop with contract cell service I could use to replace it. Now I'd be without a means of working.
These kinds of situations make me really yearn for the days of replacing the internal hard drive of a laptop. I could swap out my daily use drive for a travel drive, which would be much less of a hassle than the options on offer for modern laptops.
aftbit
My Lenovo from last year still has non-soldered NVMe drives. I would probably just install Windows on a separate partition and set it to boot to that, then install a few games and set my Chrome homepage. I bet CBP won't be mucking around with bootloader settings looking for Linux, and even so it would be pretty trivial to just remove GRUB from the EFI partition for the travel days.
jjav
> Loosing a $1k anything would not be something I could just shrug my shoulders and just turn around and immediately replace it.
I'd suggest that if $1K is a big deal to lose, one should not spend such an ungodly amount on a phone.
Perfectly adequate phones can be had for $100-$200. I couldn't imagine wasting more than that on a phone.
gruez
>Welp, today has become tomorrow, and yeah, I'd _absolutely_ rather just have my devices seized than have the contents of my phone dumped into a database that can be searched without a warrant, for the next 15 years.
You're totally ignoring the option of wiping your phone prior to crossing, and avoiding both fates.
>Rights (like the 4th amendment) that are not exercised are not upheld. I'm sure the threat of having one's devices stolen (let's be clear, that's what this is), is enough to deter many people. For myself, my next course of action would be to contact the ACLU and sue the government for violating the 4th amendment.
This already has been litigated, and the courts have affirmed CBP can deny entry or seize your phone. By all means, try to affect change by writing to your senator or whatever, but displays of civil disobedience is mostly pointless. ACLU won't even take on your case because it's been settled, and the chance of it being overturned is slim.
buyucu
My company gives burner phones and laptops for employees and salespeople traveling to countries with agressive borders. USA is on the list, together with Israel, Iran and a few others I can't remember now.
crossroadsguy
And maybe remove business critical or private data from "well known" online accounts or cloud services well known to US or from US or the one they might force you to give them access to - or the account where it might be trivial for them to show you have an account and then they might demand access. I know the article says they won't ask you for cloud accounts but I mean who the hell knows (esp. in today's USA), they might as well ask you to give access to iCloud Backup/restore because as you said they have close to or exactly zero rights there.
sksxihve
This 100x, last time I crossed a border I shutdown my phone and because my phone was off the border guard considered that suspicious. Also apparently not using google maps is considered suspicious even if you're in an area you've lived your entire life.
dylan604
I would definitely come across as suspicious to any border inspection. I have no Google apps, I have no social media apps. I have very few apps at all. I definitely qualify as someone that would be the type to wipe their phone. Also, my photos would definitely look like something someone staged to show activity, as the vast majority of my photos are of my fur babies. I don't do selfies, so that would be sus too. My browser history would also appear to them to be wiped, because I simply do not browse the web on the phone. I doubt it would be a quick conversation of me convincing them I'm really just that boring.
AstralStorm
Someone needs to implement an application that fakes these things convincingly...
tantalor
> refusing to divulge the 20 characters password isn't really an option
> wipe your phone and restore from backup
If they can compel you to divulge the password, then they can compel you to restore from backup in front of them.
Pooge
I think their point is that you have plausible deniability because they wouldn't know you have a backup.
reassess_blind
A dual password "Hidden OS" feature like Veracrypt offers, or at least used to offer would be best. If implemented correctly the existence of the hidden OS can't be proven, and a dummy password would log into a dummy OS. I don't think it exists for phones, but is surely a gap in the market.
AstralStorm
Except they might know that if it's a major provider. That's easier to learn than the password to unlock it.
jjav
> If they can compel you to divulge the password, then they can compel you to restore from backup in front of them.
Of course, if your backup is to a US-based cloud service, they already have full access to it.
notatoad
they can't if they don't know you have a backup.
if they're really out to target you and they've got you under investigation, then maybe they know what your primary email account is and that your phone isn't signed in to it. but the advice here is for the traveller who just doesn't want to be hassled at the border by the guard who wants to flex their power.
ryanmcbride
Well since the phone is wiped just don't be logged into your real account and don't have any cloud backups to backup from?
eastbound
> Far better to wipe your phone and restore from backup after you've crossed the border.
It’s a mantra but it’s incorrect: You’re supposed to list your “online accounts” to the border agent in the US.
null
jFriedensreich
Ignoring the US political situation for a moment I want to point out how ridiculous modern phones and apps storage access given to their users is. You used to be able to mount a phone as a full hard drive and have access to all your files, do a real full backup without some encrypted databases that only facebook, google or apple hold the key for. The first tragedy is that we accepted that the US gives no rights to non citizens the second tragedy that no one talks about is that we accepted giving away our own data sovereignty and using devices that make us more vulnerable and effectively digital slaves.
ta1243
> Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.
But Stallman is a kook.
mschuster91
> do a real full backup without some encrypted databases that only facebook, google or apple hold the key for
Game developers pushed really really hard for this, to combat cheaters or those wishing to skip on in-app purchases and ads.
And Netflix was the driver behind the anti-rooting measures, who in turn were pressured by the MAFIAA and other "rightsholders" (aka, parasites).
gausswho
It's for this reason I really just want a Linux that optimizes for a phone-factor touchscreen. No cell radio. The vast majority of my time I am never far from WiFi and I don't see why I need to give up the phone's form factor just to operate with digital hygiene independent of blackbox spyware.
fsflover
> I really just want a Linux that optimizes for a phone-factor touchscreen
I'm writing this from a GNU/Linux phone, Librem 5, which offers the full freedom of a desktop (including a full desktop mode when you connect it to a keyboard and screen). My daily driver.
> No cell radio.
Librem 5 has a hardware kill switch for that.
LWIRVoltage
This is an issue I face- I have a collection of thermal cameras that use apps to control them- after every install onto a phone, they then reach out t oa server to authenticate.
Here's the issue- though I have a few older phones- these apps are 32 bit ones, so no modern phone after Android 13 will run them. And they are all now not on the app store anymore,as they all came out about around 2016. i did use a APK extractor to pull the APKs to store them - but the native backup functionality wouldn't capture that authorization in the future, I might rob myself of my ability to use some extremely expensive, and long-term invested capable hardware, by backing up and restoring-
I suspect a full image would solve this problem, but I don't think one can do that outside of things like TWRP- but that requires unlocking the bootloader, and if you do that it wipes your device- AND is more vulnerable to Custom's usage of Cellebrite and etc, to my undertanding.
I don't have this issue with laptops ,as I can fully image them and wipe and restore ahavend have a perfect replica/ no issues. But my thermal cameras do not run off of PC and th eform factor wouldn't work if they did
morepork
Have you considered using an Android emulator to run these apps? It should be much easier to make full image backups that way.
Scene_Cast2
I root my phone out of principle (and it does come on handy sometimes). Rooting a phone seems increasingly rare, unfortunately.
Tostino
I did for years. Custom roms and all. Then over time there was just less and less of a need for me to do so, and more and more of a hassle if I did (banking apps breaking, etc).
miros_love
Not sure about CBP specifically, but many countries already use specialized tools to break into phones and silently install backdoors — Cellebrite comes to mind.
As my favorite blogger puts it: "If the data is important, it's not stored in only one place. If there's no backup, it wasn't important." With that in mind, wiping the device and filling the gallery with high-resolution images of genitals covered in excrement remains one of the more effective passive defense strategies.
Jokes aside, it's depressing that crossing borders often means giving up fundamental digital privacy — and that we've largely normalized this. The idea that any government agent can dig through your phone without a warrant just because you're crossing a line on a map is dystopian at best.
pandemic_region
> gallery with high-resolution images of genitals covered in excrement remains one of the more effective passive defense strategies.
I would not call that passive defense, that's a full on attack on the stomach.
gosub100
> and that we've largely normalized this.
This (along with healthcare) are examples for the "both parties are the same" refrain.
Neither side wants or advocates for the status quo (for US citizens to lose their rights at the border) but neither side is doing anything about it. They could easily eliminate the "constitution-free zone" exemption at borders and airports, but from what I can see, no lawmakers are talking about it.
throwway120385
If anyone starts, it's pretty easy to trot out some story about how CBP caught a drug smuggler or human trafficker or terrorist because of the searches and then the matter is quickly silenced.
aaron695
[dead]
beloch
>Don’t just take a wiped phone: If you are especially worried about your data, you may think about wiping your phone or computer entirely before a trip and restoring from a backup later. However, a nearly blank device can create its own problems.
Wipe your phone. If more people do this before travelling to the U.S. it'll quickly become less "suspicious". This is a privacy issue. I don't have anything to hide, but I also don't like the idea of having the contents of my phone backed up and saved for 15 years. It's just like how there's nothing under my pants that is of interest to the authorities. I just prefer wearing pants.
Another good tip for travelling to the U.S. is to fly, rather than drive, and to do a TSA pre-check at your point of departure. That way, if the Americans get too paranoid, you're not trapped on foreign soil and subject to their whims. You can just cancel your flight and go home.
Better yet, don't travel to the U.S. right now unless you absolutely have to. It's not a good time to vacation there. Your country may have travel advisories in effect for the U.S. (mine does). Listen to them.
soraminazuki
The problem is convincing the public to do this. That's going to be an uphill struggle considering the inconveniences of wiping and restoring a phone. The chilling effects these kinds of policies have on people is another major factor.
The alarming thing is, we all do have something to hide now, unless you're full MAGA. When anything vaguely critical of the current administration can be used as grounds for detention without due process, every bit of information on our phones becomes "sensitive."
seattle_spring
Hopefully the absolutely bonkers level of irony that these policies have been put in place by people insisting to be "free speech absolutists" is not lost on them.
pretzellogician
I've often wondered if there's a supported way to have a honeypot passcode, i.e., a secondary passcode that leads to a relatively empty account.
(Although as per the article, a fully wiped account looks suspicious -- it would need some innocuous apps or apps with no login info, etc.)
troyvit
This would be useful beyond getting in and out of customs too. For instance, most people don't want to carry around a work phone and a personal phone, so we end up mixing two personas on one device, and it gets awful. For instance I keep two 2fa apps, one for work stuff and one for personal stuff. It would be so much easier if I could have a separate login that showed just my work apps. Like ... wouldn't it be nice to only have to see work slacks when you log in using a work persona?
theamk
Recent enough Androids have this "Work Profile" feature. You get two app stores, and work apps get little "work" overlay. There are separate lock settings and sound/notification settings for work profiles too - I think this means you can have simple pincode for personal stuff and more complex for work one. And you can turn off all work apps at once with a single button press. And if your admin gives "remote wipe" command, only work apps are wiped.
Sadly this is automatic, which means regular people can't use it. You workspace admin got to enable MDM, and then phone will prompt you if you want a work profile when you try to install it.
remram
You can use Shelter to create your own work profile: https://f-droid.org/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/
Sadly it doesn't seem to work on all phones.
codethief
The ability to set up multiple user accounts has existed for a long time: https://support.google.com/android/answer/2865483?hl=en#zipp...
Side note: The sibling comments talk about creating a work profile which is different in that it still lives within the same user account and is not fully isolated.
troyvit
Holy cow thanks for sharing this!
itscrush
Certainly doable, grapheneOS has it https://grapheneos.org/features#duress.
unethical_ban
I really want to respond to the dead comment under this.
Setting a duress password is not tedious.
AFAIK the justification for them to say "don't rely on adblockers for security/privacy" is that you can be more easily fingerprinted and those adblock lists are a moving target, vs. having better sandbox capabilities in the browser.
The rest is conjecture I don't have the motivation to debate at the moment.
As for the rest of the article... just get a second phone if this is a major concern, or wipe the phone and have it be perfectly clean when you go through customs. The only thing you need to remember is the password + a single TOTP backup code (write that one down maybe) to restore your cloud password safe (which you should have) then you can get access to all your other data from there.
AstralStorm
More easily fingerprinted by which blocked script or request? (Personally I prefer a whitelist on these.)
If they rely on phoning home, such as a comparison of requests on different access, that's some top notch log analysis. Expensive too, compared to just running JS.
temptemptemp111
[dead]
mystified5016
Most android phones I use provide an option to wipe the device if the wrong passcode is entered too many times.
There was a lot of talk about duress passcodes several years ago, but I don't think any phones ever got it. Sure would be nice to have
pxeboot
GrapheneOS has the duress password feature [1]. I have it enabled, but have never needed to use it.
notahacker
A duress password that booted into an innocuous "safe mode" without access to your full browser and chat history would be a whole lot less likely to get you into more trouble than one which wipes the phone...
potato3732842
Truecrypt supported this decades ago, obviously not a full phone OS though.
LWIRVoltage
Veracrypt. It's successor, keeps this feature - of allowing for a truly hidden OS- but there's a HUGE flaw everyone missed- it requires your laptop to be setup as MBR-= which only allows for 4 partitions, and you can't have more than like 2 TB of filespace on it total.
We need a similar solution for UEFI- that allows for truly hidden, foolproof hidden OS installs.
morepork
On Android you could add a second user which gets its own passcode and set of apps/accounts. If they know what they're doing they could see there are multiple users on the lock screen, but it may be enough.
singleshot_
It’s probably worth a review of 28 U.S.C. 1001 before you try this.
tartoran
Yes, a duress account would be highly needed in these times. I'd even go as a whole partition and the whole thing enclaved so it's nearly impossible to know if there's another partition.
temptemptemp111
[dead]
incanus77
One lesser-known tip for iPhones with FaceID or TouchID: press and hold the lock button and one of the volume buttons until prompted for power options/medical ID/emergency call. You'll then have to enter a passcode in order to use those auth methods again. Having to reveal a passcode can sometimes be considered a higher bar than biometric auth. You can do this even when in it's in your pocket without looking, quite quickly, and there is haptic feedback.
aeternum
Pretty much every country you travel to can detain you at the border simply for being suspicious. You generally have very few rights as a non-citizen and have to decide if you will really risk being detained vs. giving up your phone passcode.
Better to use a burner/travel phone.
connicpu
On android you can hold down the power button and then tap lockdown mode. Then it will require your pin/password to unlock again. Ideally have a password as your authentication method if you're concerned about privacy.
ytpete
On newer Android, holding down power apparently just launches Gemini's AI assistant. You can change it back in settings, or just hold down power + volume up to get to the old menu that has the Lockdown button.
(Not to be confused with power + volume down which takes a screenshot).
iAMkenough
Border patrol agents have the authority to compell you to give them your password or passcode. If you refuse, they can detain you and seize your device (same for FaceID/TouchID).
That's assuming border patrol operates within the law and constitution.
https://informationsecurity.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toru...
dylan604
If you know you're traveling through an adversarial border, just disable Face/Touch ID before getting to the border agents
ryandrake
This is not really a checkmate. If the border officials are suspicious, disabling biometrics is not going stop them. What are they going to say? "Ohh! Drat! You foiled us! We can't compel you to enter your passcode! Go on, have a nice day!"
dylan604
No, but they can't say you've temporarily disabled biometrics if they are not enabled.
fragmede
I wish there was a way to activate it with Siri though, in case I were accosted in a manner such that I could talk to my phone but my hands were, say, handcuffed.
BrandoElFollito
Also known as "how to visit detention centers".
The amount of bad advice here is staggering. You are not James Bond or some kind of ninja Seals secret agent.
You are a nobody attempting to enter a country, and you will be pissing off the border police.
Have some common sense.
lawlessone
>Have some common sense.
The common sense would be don't go to countries where you risk being immediately sent home or to a slave colony in El Salvador for writing something mean about its president.
BrandoElFollito
Oh yes, this is one of the possible solutions with common sense. This is what I decided to do BTW.
lawlessone
You made the right choice, I didn't mean to sound critical of you, more the situation.
Its sad but people taking these other measures are rolling dice every time they go. Negotiating the leopard.
my biggest worry entering and leaving my own country is that my bag was lost, or theres a queue.
stevenwoo
Some of the college students with revoked visas just happened to be in the vicinity of a protest (near commute to their apartment ) against Israel killing so many civilians, and then there’s the batch who had speeding tickets. They are hellbent on deporting criminals of any level and thought criminals to meet quota. So I would not trust anything to be benign when viewed by US agents.
qwerpy
Yeah, be careful about going to Thailand: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqx48egpgq1o
justinhj
[flagged]
tootie
The US is deporting grad students with visas and green cards. They are absolutely going after nobodies right now.
sipofwater
"With more than 300 student visas revoked, international scholars worry as the government expands reasons for deportation": https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/us/us-immigration-student-vis... (www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/us/us-immigration-student-visas-revoked/index.html)
buyucu
Common sense is suspending US travel. I did that last month.
BrandoElFollito
So did I - and I kinda liked the place (not the border police, it seemed as if they hated me and hated the fact that I was coming to spend money there).
wat10000
CBP hates everybody, citizen and non-citizen alike.
jesterson
Would you elaborate why? (without being vague) I assume it's not common sense just because you did it?
Issues with border patrol can happen in any country. If they have bad mood, or you suddenly decided to piss them off, they will do their best to make your life harder. The US is not the best or worst to that matter. People who chose working as border patrol are not the smartest people out there (otherwise it is unlikely they would choose working at border patrol).
So I understand all precautions but saying its "common sense" not traveling there is a huge stretch IMHO.
buyucu
The news is full of stories where random travelers are detained for multiple weeks on the US border.
I don't want that in my life. As simple as that.
kevin_thibedeau
... Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
BrandoElFollito
Who came for you? You want to go to the US (or any other country) and therefore you align with their rules.
Nobody forces you to go there, and especially play secret agent. If you go, you know that what you have can be searched so have nothing, or have something that is not controversial.
The same applies to all the countries in the world.
antris
US has been "coming for us" for decades. What the US does does not fit neatly into its own borders.
Extraordinary rendition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
Coups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...
kstrauser
Bluntly: fuck that. I'm many generations deep in this country, and when I travel to visit other places, I have the right to return here to the home where I was born. No part of our Constitution says I have to kiss law enforcement's butt to be permitted to come back to my house. I understand that they're trying to do their job, but the government also needs to understand that I'm not interested in participating in dragnet searches.
I feel no moral or legal obligation to let them search through all my stuff just because of their policies, which don't seem at all compliant with our highest laws and ideals.
necovek
This a quote GP posted from a novel or opinion piece: I don't know off the top of my head, but it should be simple to look it up :)
hiddencost
[flagged]
netsharc
I remember looking at a friend's bookshelves and noticing a travel guide to the Soviet Union. It had a short chapter on what to expect when crossing the border and the fact you might be followed by the security services.
And what do we have in 2025?
I don't think it was a Lonely Planet https://www.bbc.com/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/AP5ln7N8TRGkf...
jltsiren
Travel to the USSR was different, at least towards the end. Partly because they didn't have the surveillance technology we are used to. Partly because of widespread corruption. And partly because they didn't want to scare away visitors bringing in hard currency.
As far as I understand, the key point was visa processing. If they considered you suspicious (maybe because you were a reporter or a religious worker), they might flag you for surveillance. Otherwise they didn't really care. The expectation was that you would exchange currency in the black market, because the official rates were terrible. And that you might make some money by selling western goods. If you were part of a tour group, the chances are your official Intourist guide was involved in this.
NoTeslaThrow
FWIW I wiped my phone entering the country and they ushered me right through anyway. Still, I was very concerned about finding texts from other people and getting them in trouble. I think the fear is the point more than the practicality as it stands.
BriggyDwiggs42
Wouldn’t the best method just be to buy a second phone prior to your crossing, use it for innocuous things, and leave your real one at home?
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ryandrake
Or, just don't bring a phone.
BriggyDwiggs42
Wouldn’t that look suspicious these days?
AstralStorm
Having a beard looks suspicious too. Literally there's nothing that can also not having anything as a suspicion.
Too old phone? Suspicious. Too empty phone? Suspicious...
Mirror: https://archive.is/rDbgD