• He doesn’t bring his own laptop and cell phone. Instead, he brings “loaner” devices. He erases them before he leaves the United States, and he wipes them clean when he returns.
• When he’s in China, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are always disabled, and he never lets his phone out of his sight. When having sensitive discussions, he doesn’t just turn off his phone, he removes the battery because he knows his microphone could be turned on remotely. (Sound paranoid? This has happened in the U.S., though it was with a warrant.)
• He only connects to the Internet through an encrypted, password-protected channel. He copy/pastes his passwords from an encrypted USB thumb drive rather than typing them to thwart keylogging software. (“…the Chinese are very good at installing key-logging software on your laptop.”)

The article talks about an instance where Customs chose to deny a young child access to the flight, effectively denying the entire family travel. Reportedly, the kid had accidentally sat on his passport, which creased the cover and broke the RFID chip.

According to the CBP agent, breaking the chip in the passport “shows that you disrespect the privilege of owning a passport,” and that the airport was deemed justified in denying the family passage. (In what world is it custom’s job to determine your emotional connection to your passport?)

Ridiculous. While intentional tampering is inappropriate (and unnecessary with the wide availability of RFID blocking passport wallets) accidental damage should never result in travel restriction. While it is impossible to accurately determine accidental vs. intentional damage, the passports can be verified without a functional RFID, and there is no reason to deny passage.

Key tips:

• Use (AND VERIFY!) SSL connections when possible
• Use a VPN or Proxy
• Be careful what networks you connect to

Definitely worth a read…