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International travel is a privacy nightmare these days
(lemmy.world)
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
Fifteen years ago I was traveling to the US. I had a stop in Germany and Chicago before I reached my destination. Every time I was on a ground I was questioned, I had to fill several documents, I had a full body scan and I had to power on all my devices and perform some basic tasks, e.g. I had to take a photo with my camera and show it to the agent.
The showing that devices work seems to be the weirdest thing. Like somebody couldn't put a large enough amount of explosive into a cell phone simply by shrinking the battery down to give it like 5 minutes of run time.
My old Note 4 had a zero lemon battery pack. It made the phone an inch thick.
Back then I was both surprised and creeped out by the idea some stranger would look over my shoulder when I use my device. Nowadays, you need to hand out your device and provide the pin to unlock it. I honestly miss the good old days.
You probably can't fit a large enough explosive in a cell phone battery compartment to reliably crash a plane by exploding it anywhere in the passenger cabin, though that seems like more of an airport security thing than a customs thing.
If you use phone to carry explosive, and a separate device to direct the explosion you can cause a lot of (directed) destruction.
But maybe not crash the airplane as a result.
We've seen them lose a door and the front third fo the roof before, they're surprisingly robust
Aloha air? 1988? Yeah man that one lives with me on how safe planes really can be considered.
As long as it doesn't have an auto pilot feature that makes you nosedive to counter a completely mismanaged weight and design flaw.
We recently got a demonstration of that with the "spicy pager" attack Israel pulled. A laptop could be even more devastating.
gotta that post 9/11 public migration sentiment and the massive consequences of the patriot act.