[3417] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Fwd: US Secret Service checking laptops at airports
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Matthew Lyle)
Mon Oct 5 15:07:58 1998
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 13:47:35 -0400
To: Rodney Thayer <rodney@tillerman.nu>, cryptography@c2.net
From: Matthew Lyle <matt@nova.org>
In-Reply-To: <199810050057.UAA15232@2gn.com>
I wonder about the accuracy of this, anyway... enforcing export
restrictions is US Customs Service jurisdiction, not Secret Service. It'd
be fairly unusual for them to be doing the kind of search described.
At 09:48 PM 10/4/98 -0400, Rodney Thayer wrote:
>
>My point is that not all places ask for the machine to be booted.
>
>>From: "Sidney Markowitz" <sidney@communities.com>
>>To: <cryptography@c2.net>
>>Subject: US Secret Service checking laptops at airports
>>Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 18:26:52 -0700
>>X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0
>>Sender: owner-cryptography@c2.net
>>
>>A friend of mine recently traveled from one of the Washington DC area
>>airports to Ireland and reports that US Secret Service agents checked her
>>laptop for the domestic 128-bit crypto versions of Netscape Navigator and
>>Microsoft Internet Explorer at the metal detector station. She said she saw
>>about six other people who were checked as she was going through. As is now
>>common, anyone carrying a laptop computer was asked to boot it up,
>>presumably to demonstrate that if the case hid a bomb at least it was
>>programmable with a reasonable looking user interface. But in her instance,
>>people who identified themselves as Secret Service agents had her start up
>>her web browser so they could check the encryption level, and made her
>>uninstall her 128-bit Navigator.
>>
>>It didn't seem to matter to them that there are exemptions for devices that
>>are for personal use as long as they are kept with the person while out of
>>the country, or that she is an international banker who was going to conduct
>>business with an overseas office. They didn't bother to determine whether
>>she had a copy of the Navigator install file in a backup directory and could
>>simply reinstall on the airplane. And of course it made no difference that
>>she was going to Ireland where she picked up a locally produced 128-bit
>>crypto plugin for Navigator that she says works just as well if not better
>>than the version from Netscape. (I don't know if her "plugin" is simply one
>>of the scripts that enable the Netscape strong crypto in the export
>>version.)
>>
>> -- Sidney Markowitz <sidney@communities.com>
>>
>
