Davi Barker hassled by the TSA "for having Bitcoins"

[MWD]

http://badquaker.com/archives/2990

This is my best friend Ben Stone interviewing my good friend Davi Barker about Davi's ridiculous encounter with the stupid stupid TSA, who thought his metal logo medallions
http://muslimagorist.com/products/shiny-badges
were "Bitcoins" and hassled him over it.

It's mindblowing how stupid the TSA are. And these are the people who are supposed to recognize danger and protect us from it??????

Wow....just....wow.

MWD

[Ben]

I'm travelling to the US soon so this worries me, I will be sure not to have any Bitcoin branded items with me.

[khal]

Sad...

Avoid travelling with a computer too, several stories report they may browse its content.

[MWD]

Sad...

Avoid travelling with a computer too, several stories report they may browse its content.

Though they MIGHT not be smart enough to figure out if you have non-music data on an iPod or something. Especially if you hid the folder/volume, etc. Probably best would be to encrypt it and upload it to a non-publicly listed server so you don't have it on you, but can get it at your destination. You could do that and just have a computer with innocuous normal square stuff on it, retrieve and unencrypted your data at your destination, then upload with changes, and wipe from your computer before traveling again.

List of things to have on an empty computer to look innocuous;
--bad poetry about flowers
--List of failed diets
--half-finished novel
--Popular music, paid for from iTunes store
--folder of (and desktop wallpaper of) silly non-political meme images. Especially cats.
etc.

MWD

[domob]

Yes, that's definitely good advice! I think the EFF posted a good and extensive guide about border crossing with devices, too. The only time I visited the US so far, I used a freshly installed OS (with disk image backed up at home). I didn't need any important data (just used the computer to back up pictures taken during the stay), but would have uploaded them to my server in case I had needed some. That's the way to go, IMHO.

[virtual_master]

https://www.eff.org/wp/defending-privac ... al-devices
Having a new laptop with a fresh OS and nothing else could be a good strategy but having an old notebook with a fresh OS could create the impression that you want to trick them so it would be eventually better to have beside of a fresh OS the half of the notebook storage filled with some open source texts and films to keep them busy investigating it.