[ispcp] Beijing - security tips for your devices

[Mike O'Connor]

hi all,

i've been making a few inquiries with senior tech leaders (mostly C level folks i know at Fortune 500 companies) and have discovered a surprisingly strong consensus view across the whole group that i thought i'd share with those of you heading for Beijing.  these are not ICANN folks, these are just regular run of the mill CTO/CIO/CSO type people in large corporations.  

- everybody's favorite solution - leave devices (laptop, phone, tablet, camera, etc.) at home - enjoy the freedom from all that information

- don't take a device (laptop, phone, tablet, camera) you care about.  the government often inspects them at the airport, which can cause you to miss your plane if you wait for it to be returned.  probably another good idea is to leave even more time than normal when departing, to increase the odds that you'll get it back

- don't carry a device that has files that you care about on it (devices get snooped during those inspections, and also in your hotel room, by government employees looking for items of interest to the government)

- keep devices with you at all times (more crazy stuff -- including under your pillow at night and in the bath in the morning)

- don't run those devices before re-scrubbing/reloading them when you return (the inspectors are also known to load snooping software on the machines)

- use a VPN when accessing the internet from any device (the Chinese monitor Internet traffic more aggressively than most).  it's not clear whether we'll be able to use VPNs from the venue, i'm hopeful but not counting on it.

- if you take a phone, take a regular phone not a smart phone

- set your web browser to clear the cache after every use, and restart often

so here's my plan…

- i've scrubbed an old laptop back to the default settings, encrypted the hard drive and made an image/copy of that disk on to a second hard-drive that i'll leave at home (and swap in as soon as i get back)

- i've subscribed to a VPN service on a month-to-month deal that i'll cancel after i get back

- still haven't figured out what i'm going to do about a phone - i may just buy a throw-away one at the airport when i get back in the country to let Marcie know that i'm coming (i'm not going to use the laptop after leaving China)

- all the other toys are staying on my desk at the farm

i know, this sounds pretty over the top, but as i said the consensus was surprisingly strong across everybody i talked to.  

hope this is useful,

mikey



PHONE: 651-647-6109, FAX: 866-280-2356, WEB: www.haven2.com, HANDLE: OConnorStP (ID for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)

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