September 2009 Archives

You may thank the gods for all the technology innovations that have made carrying vast amounts of information in electronic form easy and economical. But the Department of Homeland Security doesn't think so. For DHS really, the dramatic increase in use of compact, large capacity, and inexpensive electronic devices are turning out to be a huge security threat and quite a headache. So much so that about two weeks back, DHS granted itself the broad authority to search electronic devices possessed by travelers, including US citizens, at US borders.

This means that almost any electronic device - such as laptop computers, thumb drives, CDs,DVDs, cell phones, SIM cards, digital cameras, iPods or any other devices capable of storing electronic information - will be subject to searches by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), regardless of the fact that you may look like a criminal or terrorist, or not. 

Moreover, DHS has also retained the power to make copies of such devices if it thinks that is required, and even seize them depending on the threat perception of the CBP or ICE police.

DHS says that searching these devices is actually an extension of searching a backpack or a briefcase; after all if briefcases can be searched why can't be electronic devices? But for cyber security experts, it is not that simple.

While some consider this move to be a blatant breach of privacy, according to a few security experts, it is actually much worse; it is, they say, another form of that type of e-policing, which is opening up new avenues for cyber criminals to access private data. 

"The DHS policy fails to comply with the intent of the federal Privacy Act and leaves US citizens returning to the United States subject to surveillance by government and an enhanced risk of identity theft," says EPIC, a Washington, DC-based public interest research center that focuses public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and tries to  protect privacy, in its reaction.to the DHS announcement.

According to Lillie Coney, EPIC's  Associate Director; the first question that comes up is "whether the information gathered from such electronic surveillance are interpreted properly and are used only for the purpose they are obtained."

Lillie and her ilk fear that increasing e-policing by governments around the world is opening up newer avenues to cybercriminals who have found an easy way to hack into computer networks riding on back of  e-policing. 

Their argument goes like this; "The whole problem of lawful interception is that such interception installs equipments and these quipments could come with backdoors that cybercriminals use as interfaces to break into private computer systems," says Jonathan Logan, a security expert from Europe who specializes in e-policing.

"Anytime you create vulnerability in the system so that law enforcement has access to computer systems, then you are creating an access to information and that access can be exploited. And it is reasonable to expect that criminals would also know how to exploit them," adds Lillie Coney to Jonathan's arguments.

DHS however, says that conducting search operations on electronic devices is imperative to determine whether a violation of U.S. law has occurred. 

Because of the availability of electronic information storage and the capacity for comfortable portability, the amount of personal and business information that can be hand-carried by a single individual has increased exponentially, says the department. And it is this capacity for comfortable portability that criminals are exploiting to bring merchandise contrary to law into the United States.

That may be true; still security experts are not convinced. According Paul Rosenberg, Cryptohippie Inc, a security technology company, even as e-policing around the world is increasing by leaps and bounds, it may be emerging more of a bane that a boon.