Indonesian moving to Australia soon, I’m just concerned my laptop/phone will be checked for pirated content.
The general rule of thumb I’ve seen around the internet is “encrypt your drive”, which is easy enough. But the other approach typically says “bring a burner phone / laptop” which of course isn’t viable in my case.
Can anyone confirm on the legitimacy of these claims? I know I pirate light (““light”” compared to the vets here), but I’m just so paranoid that I could be held up and sent back home, because this might be my only shot.
Veracrypt and use a hidden encrypted partition so you have plausible deniability. Remove the app after. If it’s encrypted it’ll be fine so long as it doesn’t look obvious.
I’ve never heard of border guards checking devices, ever… and definitely not randomly. If you’re paranoid the cloud is a safer option of course, as others have said. Backblaze is great for cost etc… but definitely encrypt before upload imo.
The hidden volume part is important. Key disclosure laws are a thing in multiple countries
I’ve never experienced or heard of any airport checking the private contents of people’s devices. Wouldn’t that be a massive breach of privacy?
Also how would they know it’s pirated or not. Wouldn’t they have to check for licenses… Wouldn’t that be incredibly time consuming for staff to be checking?
Im in serious doubt this would be a thing.
Aussie here. They have the right to go through all your devices if they suspect you of smuggling or working or wanting to work illegally in Australia. They will read through all your private messages and have them translated if not in English. Even then I’ve never heard of airport security giving a rat’s ass about pirated stuff.
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Wow, that is insane, i didnt know Australia does that.
This is my understanding. They can review devices, buy pirate materials are not illegal, so I don’t think they would care.
Owning pirated materials is likely illegal in Australia, but it’s not what border security are looking for so you’re right they wouldn’t care.
True that.
Australian here. This post reeks of paranoia. Are you moving 10 drives with pirate stickers on them and sweating profusely? If not, don’t worry. The border force are only trained to search for biohazards.
A far more likey risk is baggage agents dropping the bag, or leaving it in the rain. But why are you physically moving data anyway? Unlimited gigiabit connections are the norm here, so you could probably redownload whatever it is when you need it, instead of letting readily available copies of pirated media dictate your interactions with law enforcement.
As said, I’m very paranoid because this might be the only chance I get to move somewhere decent (minus all the, well, problems).
Judging from your statement, does it mean that
- I can bring an external hard drive (like 1 or 2 because I have terabytes of data from my old drives)? and 2. Gigabit connections are essentially available in every single household in Aussie?
Gigabit connections are available almost everywhere, for a cost of around $120AUD/month (usually 1000 mbps down, 40mbps up). Look at a provider like AussieBroadband for details.
2 drives won’t raise any questions - just say you’re a videographer if asked.
Hahaha I can say gigabit unlimited is definitely not the norm unless you live in an apartment tower that’s new or have fttp lol. Remember the NBN was a disaster lol
Aus border security care most about weapons and biological matter; dirt, wood, bugs, plants, food etc.
Coming from Indonesia, you may be profiled vis-a-vis potential biological material but showing that you’ve taken precautions when you packed to make their jobs easier will expedite any bag search.
Unrelated but have an off-site backup! Airport baggage handling are not gentle, and your spinning rust may be DoA.
First world problems? In my country, piracy is the default. Even the government is caught doing so
Funnily enough, I have relations in the Indonesian Government and they use pirated software on a day to day basis lol. So nah, definitely not a first world problem, just me being paranoid.
Aussie airport security care most about food and pest control. If you just have a bag of clothes and a portable HDD in it I would be shocked if they even open the bag up. Just don’t bring any food or wood in and you should probably pass right through.
Just don’t have anything that can potentially be “incriminating”, from the perspective of a border agent. Never hurts to be overcautious, but being too careless can get you deported. Wipe all devices, and have a few photos and populate your browser history with random non-political content so your devices look “normal”. Do not have anything that “criminals” use. Do not have a VPN app that’s visible, do not have Tor, do not have any encryption apps. You can download these things once you get in the country. Just act “normal” and you’ll be fine crossing customs.
Depending on how much content you have you could just encrypt your content and upload it to a cloud storage service somewhere.
After its encrypted and safely stored in the cloud delete your local copy then redownload it at your destination.
Do they usually open up and use your devices to check them for anything? I’ve not been to Australia, specifically, but I’ve never been through an airport anywhere else in the world that did anything other than send my stuff through an x-ray machine or metal detector. They’ve never looked through the software.
The police don’t care.
Kiwi here, been to Oz couple of times. Never heard of them checking for pirated content. But if it’s stressing you, you may appear stressed when checked at customs and that’s never good. So for peace of mind I’d just delete it and redownload when you are in.
They didn’t check my laptop or mobile phone, however I didn’t really hold any illegal materials.
Just don’t bring any food, or any other prohibited things, they care more about real things than files you have in your laptop.
I had all my work related files uploaded to proton, just in case (I was going as tourist, planning on studying).
Good luck :)
Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine
Anecdotal, and obligatory from the US, but I’ve never heard of airport security searching electronic devices for illegal content, even when I’ve travelled abroad. Hell, nowadays we just stick our weed in a carryon bag and TSA doesn’t bat an eye, most security agents in any airport I’ve been through are more concerned about weapons and explosives. Maybe if you get flagged for a deep inspection, but their more likely to inspect your bum than a hard drive in my experience. But that this with a grain of salt from a rando on the internet.
Yeah, this is good advice for US domestic flights, but customs is a whole different ballgame.
I worked within an international terminal (KORD) and have taken hundreds of people through customs. I can safely say there has never been an instance where digital media is accessed, even in secondary which you’re brought to for further assessment when under suspicion. Only thing I’ve seen is accessing recent calls for passengers suspected of lying on their visa and being in contact with relatives; but if their phone is locked they can’t do jack.
Without rambling too much, unless you’re like actively commiting some type of criminal import activity, no border agent will care what you have.
Sure put I wouldn’t take weed on an international flight.
Damn, didn’t think this would gain this much traction. Thanks for the suggestions and help everyone.
Judging from the fact that I’m going with a Student Visa, I guess my best course of action is just uploading it to a cloud service. Might not be the most bandwidth efficient, yes, but sure as hell has the best chance of succeeding.
Again, many thanks for the suggestions, seafarers! May your ship sail smooth, mateys.
