[3238] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Computer hard disc scanning by HM Customs & Excise
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vin McLellan)
Tue Aug 25 11:58:28 1998
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 02:45:31 -0400
To: dcsb@ai.mit.edu
From: Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net>
Cc: cryptography@c2.net, cypherpunks@algebra.com
My earlier message inadvertently did W.H. Murray an injustice.
Mr. Murray looked more closely into Her Majesty's Customs and
Excise procedures on his own, and apparently concluded that scanning
foreign travellers' hard disks and removable memory devices will, indeed,
be considered "routine" by C&E. Then, he got religion with a vengence.
Below are two posts from William Hugh Murray -- an influential
international consultant on information security with Deloitte & Touche;
and guru to a generation or two of American infosec professionals -- off
the talk.politics.crypto newsgroup. This guy puts more weight in a phrase
than most do in a page.
_Vin
- - -----
(1)
Subject: Re: UK Customs Check for laptop porn
e_svoboda@isc-queens.co.uk wrote:
> This is taking thing ad absurdum.
> It is not clear to me WHY should some one have ANYTHING on their
> laptop which the customs could POSSIBLY object to.
I am afraid you miss the point. The point is not whether there is
anything objectionable on my computer but whether or not there is
anything interesting on it. The point is not even so much whether my
computer is interesting but whether our computers, taken collectively, are
interesting to government.
While I may not have anything on my laptop that C&E have any
legitimate objection to, I have much on my laptop that is none of HM's
government's legitimate business. Some of it is personal. Much of it is
data of or about my clients which I have a professtional, ethical, and
contractual obligation to keep confidential. Some of it might never have
been shared if such procedures had been routine, to my detriment, to that
of my clients, and to that of the commonwealth. If you do not understand
that, you understand little of the workings of civilization and nothing of
the value of privacy.
HM's government is behaving in a manner calculated to sow fear,
uncertainty, and doubt. It is behaving in a way that will certainly
limit trust, travel, trade, and tourism. It is behaving in the manner of a
police state. This behavior is particularly dangerous in a country where
the police have exceptional license and where they
behave well only out of their own tradition and custom, rather than as a
matter of law.
William Hugh Murray
New Canaan, Connecticut
- - ---------
(2)
Subject: Re: UK Customs Check for laptop porn
Jay Holovacs wrote:
> Eventually it may not be your privacy that is compromised, but that > of
>your employer, your customers or others who you don't even know.
Just so.
Of course, this does not even account for the commerce that does not take
place as a consequence of such procedures. I will have to advise my
clients to eschew discretionary travel through or to a country that has
such procedures. Since I never travel without my computer, would not be
much value to my clients without it, and carry on it information which I
owe a duty to my clients to protect from copying, I will not go back to
England unless and until HM's government renounces such extreme measures.
As it is one of my favorite destinations, I do not say that lightly.
William Hugh Murray, CISSP
New Canaan, Connecticut
