What would be the safest method to keep your data?

Discussion in 'privacy technology' started by Someone21, Jun 8, 2013.

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  1. Someone21

    Someone21 Registered Member

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    Hey guys, do to my work I travel to many 3rd world countries, recently I had a very unpleasant experience where I had some government security people raiding my hotel and taking my laptop, phone and other electronics.
    I was not provided an explanation beyond that they have reason to suspect that that I am a national security thret which go’s without saying I am not.
    After this I had to change my passwords to everything, emails, messengers, social sites, online banking passwords and get new digipass’s. My company even called them asking the laptop back because it contained confidential information which belongs to the company but noone cared. After a month all was returned to me and I was told thank you for your cooperation, no explanation was provided till this day.

    I wanted to get some opinion on what would be an ideal way to keep all information secure and at hand if anything like this happened.
    I was thinking buying a 64GB micro SD card and installing windows with truecript on it and working on the drive. Using a usb adaptor you can boot to the drive and conduct all work related things on it and when done just switch back to the laptops default OS.
    I am thinking of a micro SD card because it is very small, can be easily hidden and hard to detect during a search. I love dropbox but if your computer is taken all dropbox files are still available for them to see.
    Does anyone have any other recommendations?
     
  2. JackmanG

    JackmanG Former Poster

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    The article I linked here offers quite a few suggestions and provides a number of links to more info on data security when traveling.

    Definitely read that and check out those advice links he provides.
     
  3. LockBox

    LockBox Registered Member

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    I don't advise you try it, but you hear often about the micro SD cards being perfectly chewable and edible. This sounds very bizarre, but I've read it several places.

    There's some good stuff in the Schneier article and also, I think it's extremely important to separate any sensitive data from your laptop. Your micro SD card is a good place to start. Many keep a small encrypted Truecrypt container in the cloud and access only in an emergency and through a VPN or public hotspot.
     
  4. Someone21

    Someone21 Registered Member

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    Thanks so much for the info and help guys.
    I need to have a solution where I can use it actively during work with email and Skype and Auto Cad and so on. Something that I can work on and still keep it safe and off limits. What would my speed sacrifices be?
     
  5. Creer

    Creer Registered Member

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    Also another good link is this lecture with law school professor and former criminal defense attorney :
    http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc
     
  6. JackmanG

    JackmanG Former Poster

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    Yeah he gives good information, along with the Flex Your Rights series, but that's really for dealing with local LEOs in the US. It's not really applicable to what the OP is asking about.

    Foreign countries (particularly of the 3rd world) don't have to abide by US city laws. And even when coming back into the US you're not dealing with your average city cop, most of the time you're dealing with TSA. This is all a completely different animal. And what's more, those "best practices" outlined in those kinds of videos are generally tips and info on what your rights are and what to do in specific situations with regard to interacting with LE. They don't advise on how to protect data that may be confiscated.
     
  7. Someone21

    Someone21 Registered Member

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    thanks for the post, exactly, the countries in the 3rd world have no regard to law's in any way, they do what they think they want or need to do.
    I was thinking a micro sd card as a way of keeping it small, but what would the speed drop be and the life of the card if you keep using it as a primary OS drive?
     
  8. Saytar

    Saytar Registered Member

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    Spend a few dollars more for one of the higher speed SD cards for photography work. They are considerably faster than the run of the mill cards. I wouldn't think that a save would take much more than a sec or two longer than a direct write, unless you were saving a several gig file. But small pics, documents and the such you probably wouldn't notice enough to NOT do it.

    One of those micro cards would be great, just a dash of pepper or hot sauce............yum yum.
     
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