sym links

if the data copy algorithm does not handle symbolic links (fancy stuff), you might even provide them with terabytes of data

somebody's gonna write a RandomFS to generate all the data border police ever needed

Big Brother calls kettle black

Hello, anybody out there? How about the irony of a British paper ranting about the US Big Brother attitude with respect to laptops, while you Brits have plastered your own yard full of cameras and other "you'll be watched and controlled" gadgets.

When you start cleaning up your own house, you may proceed to use the broom elsewhere.

--
Greetings Bertho

Checks in europe

Well we could ask to EU to perform anal probes to all Americans that visit Europe. May be we can get some meaningful data from that mining.

Jinx

Yet another example...

... of the powers that be not having a clue about anything...

If I wanted to take something "naughty" into the USA, the best way to do it would be to download it from my country of origin over a VPN link once I was safely past the thought police.

Not to mention the huge volume of data you can now store on removable devices... MicroSD cards the size of a fingernail can hold many many gigs of data, and they won't trigger a metal detector. Even if they did it could be placed in a mobile phone, are they going to check all those?

And even if both of those wouldn't work for whatever reason, how about a multiple key encrypted file such as truecrypt supports, I give you a key, and you view my shopping list. I use the 2nd key, and oh look, here's the hidden photo of G Dubya's ancestors breeding with turnips.

Congratulations

Congratulations America. You receive my vote as the most fascist 21st century world power. You have been drifting in that direction since the close of WWII. The real change came in 1980 with the advent of Ronald Regan as there was a real government push to take away civil rights and increase police power. I believe this was done under the guise of "the war on drugs." Then came the 2000 presidential election that stank to high heaven of fraud. And finally came sept. 9, 2001. An attack on America caused by out unrelenting support for Israel. Politicians used this as their excuse to wrap them selves in the flag and extinguish the last of out rights as well as to increase the power of police to almost Godlike and untouchable status. Oh yes, I almost forgot, also to invade Iraq and start a war. And now almost as an after thought we must endure searches of our laptops when we return to "the land of the free."
My poor America what has happened to you? How have you come to this? You have been hijacked by criminals much as Germany was in the thirties. How different you are from the beautiful free place of my youth. Perhaps the "enemy", whoever that is, will drop the bomb on DC and we will get a chance to start anew. I wouldn't mind that much really. Just give me a week or two notice so I can buy gold.

Wow! Do Americans really think the terrorists are that stupid?

Ok, so I guess the terrorists, who are so smart as to mastermind some of the most carefully cordinated terror acts, having planned and concealed them for several months - I guess they are so stupid that they have files on their desktops named:

airport map.bmp
Building_BlowUp.doc
suicide_bomber_checklist.xls

Great, so now they have truly figured out how to fix this terrorism thing. Great! We will now have world peace.

hahaha

and this is the democracy and freedom that USA wants to spread arround the globe... no tks...

Congratulations

Just to add the other comment "Congratulations": The USA is run by the people who put Hilter into power. Prescott Bush (G.W Bush's grandfather) was convicted in 1942 for "Doing business with the Enemy". They (Federal Reserve/Bank Of England same owners) financed the NAZI's and helped put those fascist's into power. The real scary thing is that there are 180 countries in the world and the americans have military bases in 139 of them.

Congratulations yourself...

...on being yet another America-bashing clone.

If you are a U.S. citizen, I heartily recommend you exercise your "last remaining Right" and move elsewhere to that mythical land with greater freedoms. Oh, that's right - there isn't one. Well no matter, just leave anyway.

If you are not a U.S. citizen, please keep up the good publicity job and stay put. We don't need any more conspiracy nuts here.

@Jinx and the anal probes

Perhaps you'd find our heads up there and you could pull them out for us.

end of yankdom

since theres an interweb, as the poster above rightly points out, where anything can be transferred anyway, this is totally pointless.

rest assured that i shall not be affected by this, as i have not travelled to the US-hellhole (nor shall i ever visit again) since being questioned and fingerprinted there by some imbecile law-enforcement joker a few years back.

this country has no history or future and certainly no culture worth speaking of. you can experience the full range of cuisine at any local mcdonalds if you really have to. the USD is going down fast, this is the end of the most pathetic obese empire of all times..

at least the romans knew how to party!

I understand the United deteStates

They protect their intellectual property by disrespecting foreigners.
I hear that around mid-Q1, next year, US will be under new management.
Bad policy must be expected to come and go, from time to time; but honestly, some commentors vent venomous hate-speak at every opportunity. Is it any wonder that we can't just all get along? I wish I had a magic wand and pixie dust to make it all go away. Where is Merlyn when you need him?

Bravo

There is no concentration camp in USA, at least none as we know of

Someone wake up Bill

Bill,
If you are much under 40 you are too young to remember the America that I do. I was born in the fifties, was a child in the sixties and came of age in the seventies. It was a time of great freedom in the U.S.A. Sadly those days are long gone as fascism had reared its ugly head. Please do not be such a fool as to presume to tell me that its not happened. I lived through the events and times I described in my first post. Any one with an I.Q. above room temp should be able to see it. A blind man with a stick could see it.
And yes, I am an American. But I am not living in the states. I choose to live abroad because I am disillusioned with the thing that my country has become, and because I have the means to do so. But I didn't leave America. America left me. Do you know why they call it the American dream, Bill? Because if you believe in it you must be asleep.

im getting while the gettings good

put it to u like this, i am a US citizen, and the laws are so crazy here my wife and i have decided to move to the EU. this is a place where ppl sue u for looking at them the wrong way or being labled a sex offender for public urination. on top of it the us tax laws state that after i move out and even if i work for a foreign company i have to file a us tax return FOREVER

Sneaker-net

Scenario 1: It is a scene right out of the movie "The Man with One Red Shoe", the 90 year old couple travel with laptop to Mexico from Europe and hand Laptop to Felipe. There, Felipe (who is actually CIA) hands the laptop to Carlos the Coyote (who smuggels people in and out of Mexico). Carlos hands the laptop to Lupe, who is a former special-ops agent for the Mexican government and a double-agent for the DEA.
Lupe gets the laptop "confiscated" and presto, the US gets their data and the new cold war continues...

Scenario 2: All your data are belong to us! No soup for you! Move along por favor...

it's the weak point of the American justice system

Just one judge who knows nothing about computers and technology is enough to allow unconstitutional search and seizure.. at least while the ruling holds. This says nothing about the government, but more of the inadequacy of the judicial system in the 21st century -- not just in America. If you all above me knew how our legal system worked you wouldn't be as outraged as you are now.

The main problem now is simply that judges are not knowledgeable enough to render a correct opinion. There are few avenues of appeal for the defendant, especially once you've reached an appeals court. (Non-expert) judges have too much power here in the US.

how can unknowledgeable judges even be allowed to set policy?

So this is a super power and leading nation that allows ignorant or unknowledgeable judges to work and set the rules everybody has to live by???????????/

Extra Money for the RIAA

Does this mean the RIAA can go after the federal government for all the MP3s they will be copying off of peoples PCs?

Please believe it!

Please, everyone reading here, believe these comments about how terrible it is over here in the USA. It is a terrible place and nearly every other place in the world is much better. So... if you don't currently live in the USA, please understand how terrible it is over here and stay away. If you currently live here, please take your first opportunity to move somewhere else and leave this terrible place to undeserving people such as me. I cannot tell you how sad I am that people like sulu no longer live here. What a loss for us! And we are SO sorry to see secret squirrel leave us.

And, Jinx, when you do that anal probe? You will be doing it to someone from a country that has saved your butt multiple times in the past so you don't have to speak German or Russian as your native language and say, "Heil!" every day.

The reason the EU countries can afford to feel superior to the USA by supporting everyone with enormous social programs is because thanks to the USA, they don't have to invest in their military as much because they know that if trouble strikes, all the terrible people in America will come to their aid yet again.

The sad thing is that in spite of your vitriol, if something happened, the USA would come to your aid and as soon as we saved your butt again, you would go back to talking about how bad we are. Maybe we should just let Iran know that if they take a crack at you, we aren't going to defend you this time!!

And, if you're in Britain - SMILE! You're on candid camera!! Yes... the land of the free and the home of bad teeth. Socialism rocks!

details, devil is in them

@agamemnus actually this is fully allowable and not really a "new" legal interpretation.

Non-citizens have always had shit-all for rights in the US. That anal probe, well with the right details always is doable if the border guards feel like it. This is nothing really new or surprising except the word "copy" which would mean duplicate. I wonder, hrm, if it's being stored, published? violating copyright laws? Or just archived for more information than they can possibly use?

As for US citizens. There have been multiple rulings allowing border patrol access to your information. There hasn't really been any expansion of the search and siezure procedures under the constitution in a number of years. It's based upon solid interpretation of the constitution. Unless something really changes in how we interpret some key conceptual bits around computers and what they represent (thoughts in our head, etc.) or pass some additional privacy laws this is here to stay.

Now the real question to ask is what benefit is the government aiming for and who does it impact the most? Mostly it hassles business travellers and a few well to do types that travel with their laptops. Tell me, I don't really know, do most terrorists travel WITH their laptop? Or do they use internet cafes and they purchase equipment when they set-up a base of operations?

Mostly this is just a misguided use of our tax dollars that will net us little additional security and cause lots of annoyed travellers. Sad. But not changing unless the government sees fit to re-allocate resources in a manner more efficient. What was that about Democrats and bloated government? Maybe this is one of those ummm whadaya call it, pork-barrel thingys.

Let them eat data

Everyone should bring a laptop. Fill the disk with data. Be sure to encrypt it.

No concentration camp?

Of course not.

We keep it on that island south of Miami. You know. Gitmo.

We haven't had concentration camps here since we "evacuated" all Japanese-Americans from the west coast in WWII. (Unless you count Indian Reservations.)

Agree with Bill

Mr. Sulu, I also was born in the U.S. during the 'fifties and have lived on the West Coast and East Coast my entire life, yet I haven't found any loss of freedom like you have, nor do I see it in the lives around me. There is some, of course, as mostly necessary measures to prevent further attacks against the U.S.. Nations and societies have always increased surveillance and restricted freedom when under attack. For those who compare this to old style Fascism, well, I know the difference, as branches of my mother's side of the family in Poland disappeared when the Nazis and Soviets came calling during WWII.

@Bill and moving out of the USA

I read a quote from an american that went like this -

"When I criticise the way the USA is I get told that if I dont like it then why dont I just move to another country? Well the trouble is I'd rather live in the USA than be subjected to US foreign policy!"

That about sums it up. Oh and I'll throw the cowardly facist nanny state that I live in, the UK too.

All this crazy border stuff would stop overnight if all the other countries got together and fingerprinted all US citizens going into their countries and retina scanned them too. Then theatend to sell the biometric data to the highest bidder.

Or maybe just strip search them all. Whats good for the goose....

Congratulations Again

Congratulations to Mr. Sulu for really fighting for the "American Dream" by, well, running away. Yes, I was born in the 50s. Yes, I remember that there were fewer regulations but also much higher crime and greater general stupidity in the way people behaved. Yes, I have flown supersonic and fought on the ground in two armed conflicts to defend that dream. Oh, and I wasn't drafted - that was abolished just before I came of age - and we are SO MUCH LESS free now that we have an all-volunteer force, aren't we?

I still enjoy the freedom of personal flight, which has been EXPANDED in recent years while almost every other country on earth has made it virtually impossible to fly a private airplane unless you are a zillionaire.

I have walked the streets of impoverished countries, and listened to citizens BEG for us to come in and get rid of their heinous butchers-called-rulers. I have spent time in countries where women are stoned or mutilated for simply daring to suggest that they, too, are human beings with rights. Naturally, the U.S.A. is far, far worse than these...

We've certainly gone backwards in racism, too - with a black candidate for President gathering voter majorities in the lily-white Midwest. He promises CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN - essentially promising to make our economy just like Europe, with all the wonderful economic success they've had. Sadly, his pastor DOES appear to be racist, but it's OK - Barack Hussein Obama assures us he doesn't really believe any of that, and his wife is finally proud of her country.

Now, don't get me wrong - America has its' problems. We have a national debt approaching a magnitude not seen since WWII - and with no good reason like a REAL war to explain it, and no plan to reduce it, but done just so that Socialist politicians (of both major parties) can bribe voters for their support. Never mind that the programs promoted by BOTH major parties are unsustainable in the long term, and that we are effectively STEALING from our children for a quick feel-good. Never mind that, because despite all of that we still have the strongest economy in the world (even if 15% of our workforce are uninvited guests - oh, they just HATE America!). But I will confess that severe Debt is a form of Slavery - as Jefferson warned us - and we may have to have a bit of a revolution against our so-called leaders before all is said and done to make them control their more unfortunate spending habits.

Now, I will speculate that Sulu left because he/she was no longer welcome here due to multiple drug violations - but of course that is unsubstantiated by anything other than Sulus' vague admonitions that America is a totalitarian State. Well, I guess to some people it seems that way, 'cause they do come down harder on multiple-offense druggies than they did in the 60s. Well, that is, if you are manufacturing drugs that didn't exist in the 60s. But overall, you have to be really wicked or plenty stupid to actually go to jail for ANYTHING in this "facist" country - something that really bothers me, since child molesters and crooked politicians walk arm in arm as free persons here.

I just thank God that 40 states recognize our Constitutional Right to Bear Arms with Right-to-Carry laws. Which other country was it with similar freedom? Somehow, it escapse me at the moment. Anyway, perhaps it is the only thing that brings law and order to a country where you really have to work at it to even get arrested....

But, Sulu, I admire you for doing the RIGHT THING. Now, if you would just persuade all of the rest of your America-hating friends to leave I think America just might have a chance after all!

@TucsonAZGuy

America only saw the last few days of WWII - We were in it from the start - Some allies you were - America lost every war they were involved in