The latest iPhone model in lockdown mode would be super resistant. Lockdown mode is specifically engineered to protect against Cellebrite / Pegasus-level threats.
However, if you’re a noncitizen you might be refused entry, and if you are a citizen you might never see that phone again. The phone will be stored for years until/if Cellebrite finds a vulnerability in that iPhone model, and then it will be searched. Also the government might target your future phones for Pegasus-style remote attacks, so if you present your phone to CBP in lockdown mode, you may want to leave lockdown mode enabled forever.
Modern iPhones are very, very hard (impossible) to crack today if they’re locked down properly: strong password, biometrics disabled, and/or lockdown mode.
Slightly out of my depth, hopefully others weigh in.
Getting a very good lockdown mode requires both owning the entire stack (Apps + OS + Silicon) and being willing to sacrifice repairability (swapping chips/cameras/displays/touch controllers is a good way to help hack into a phone), and willingness to spend a lot of money on something that few people would actually pay for. Apple is the only company that's even positioned to take on this challenge.
AndroidOS has to work with a bunch of core functionality chips that Google/Samsung don't make. Having a bunch of different code paths/interfaces for a bunch of different SoC's, cellular modems, touch controllers, and cameras is not a winning recipe for security. Both Google and Samsung also use their own SoC's (Google Tensor G5, Samsung Exynos) but Samsung also uses a lot of Qualcomm Snapdragons ... and if you're using someone else's SoC there's no chance in hell of coming up with a proper "Lockdown Mode". Samsung or Google might be able to come up with a fully integrated solution someday, each have invested in parts of this. Beyond SOC's, Samsung has their custom silicon which helps them lock down security for their combo touch/display controller. Samsung has also invested a lot into customizing their Knox Secure Folder solutions (and everything else branded "Knox" as well, which is all mostly industry-leading for Android options). Google has the Pixel with their own Titan M2 security chip, and obviously they own the OS.
But it's a lot of work when so much of your engineering is dealing with changes that other companies are making. Google has to keep up with Samsung's hardware changes, because the tail wags the dog there, and Samsung spends a lot of engineering time figuring out how to deal with / customize / fork changes to AndroidOS that Google pushes (while the dog still wags the tail, too). Both have to deal with whatever Qualcomm throws at them for cellular modems, and it required a monumental effort/expense from Apple to only just recently bring up a replacement for Qualcomm's modems.
It is configurable. It can be used to charge (either way), for data transfer, or for remote control. You can set it up with a fixed behavior, or to request permission everytime you plug a data cable.
Right this was in the context of Canadians visiting - they can’t deny entry if you’re a US citizen but they can certainly make the entry uncomfortable.
Conversely, I live in the Netherlands (though I am originally from California) and my entire summer is booked full of either family or friends visiting from the US - the friends are mostly here to get a feel for the place and see if they want to emigrate.
I wonder how many Americans of means are vacationing abroad instead of domestically just to get some respite...
I had never vacationed abroad in my whole life, then last year I traveled separately to Amsterdam (with 2 nights in Groningen) and Paris. Both trips ended up being cheaper than similar domestic trips. Both times I was extremely sad to return home.
I would love to emigrate to Europe. One of the nights in Amsterdam, I couldn't sleep and spent the night frantically researching how to legally emigrate.
If all of the undocumented people in the US spent this much time trying to emigrate legally, the US wouldn't need ICE and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
There are 2 separate topics that seem to get bundled together a lot.
1. Should we deport illegal immigrants? While there are some debate here (sanctuary cities, immigration reform etc), it's not the primary cause of the current ICE repulsion.
2. How deportations are done currently. Mass round ups, targeting everyone, including those with no criminal record, the violence involved. This is what most people are against.
> If all of the undocumented people in the US spent this much time trying to emigrate legally
Many of the "undocumented people" (what an Orwellian phrase) that have been rounded up by ICE are picked up during court hearings or immigration interviews. An easy way for agents to meet their quota without doing any actual investigative work. Say what you will about them but there's no denying those people were by definition "trying to emigrate legally." This has been widely reported.
No. If you're "trying to X legally", that means you don't just do X anyway no matter what the legal system says. Next you'll claim that robbers are trying to earn a living legally".
I appreciate the way you phrased that, "what the legal system says" rather than "the laws," since it's important to keep in mind a lot of what we're talking about is mercurial executive branch policy rather than statutory law. (which is why US immigration has been such a shitshow for such a long time)
On the other hand, you're apparently ignorant of what's actually happening, and it's making you write stupid things. The Trump administration's policy changes when he took office immediately made a lot of people, not my choice of words, "illegal" immigrants instead of "legal" immigrants. Maybe you support that, that's your business, but to claim those people were not "trying to emigrate legally" because the new administration changed the rules is simply dishonest.
Our immigration system is broken. Reagan realized this in the 1980s and gave amnesty to millions and Republicans were going to reform it. But businesses being able to abuse an unprotected 'undocumented class' won out instead.
As someone who immigrated here, legally, from a low-risk country, I can tell you it cost the best part of $35,000 going through the process, and byzantine weirdnesses and requirements that included things like my mother-in-law signing surety on my usage of Social Security and Medicare and other financial commitments because US immigration is in some ways so broken that it cannot at all comprehend a world where the immigrant might be the breadwinner, and not the USC (I was working as an experienced senior IT person while my US partner was back in college).
Ultimately, it would have been quicker, easier, and cheaper (and in the end, just as legal as my immigration) to come here on a tourist visa or the VWP, marry her in spite of the prohibition thereon, and ask for forgiveness and apply to be able to stay anyway.
When it's those three things versus "legal immigration", and other factors, I rather empathize with many of those people.
And as for your comment, it's more and more apparent that Trump intends for ICE to be his cudgel for all manner of opposition, not just immigration issues (witness the attempts to extort Minnesota into handing over state voter rolls, "We will move ICE enforcement out of the state if you do") so no, we'd still be having it.
Most illegal immigrants could spend the rest of their lives trying to immigrate legally and never make it, so that doesn't seem rational. Being undocumented is their best bet, as long as they don't break the criminal law once they're past the border and they make it 100 miles past the border their odds of being caught are next to nil. ICE is mostly catching people that either turn up in the legal system or are documented somewhere where they can be found.
Uh. Most of us will spend our whole lives trying to earn money but never make it to being billionaires. So are you saying it's rational to disregard the legal system and steal?
The irony is rich here. Country X is bad for enforcing its immigration laws. So let's run off to country Y and dutifully follow its immigration laws.
That depends if it's more practical to steal a billion or earn it legally. I suspect the most practical way to get to a billion is to legally steal it, perhaps with some form of regulatory capture or a government franchise granting a monopoly. Whether you think this is right or wrong is immaterial to what the practical approach is.
It is definitely easier to immigrate illegally for a large portion of the world population, and probably most illegal immigrants. Rational actor then would immigrate illegally.
I think this also very much depends on the country. Only a total idiot would try to "legally" immigrate to Argentina as their constitution essentially grants citizenship just for surviving for two years, and meanwhile there is essentially no immigration enforcement and fairly onerous visa process to do it "legally." On the other hand, you'd have to be an idiot to illegally immigrate to China in anything but the most dire circumstances, as they have an Orwellian surveillance apparatus and getting a legal business visa is fairly straightforward particularly in some special economic zones. On the Argentina<->China scale I would rate America as further towards the Argentina side, albeit with no path to regularization of status for most illegal immigrants.
Having a dogmatic adherance to the law leads to irrational actions. But also having a dogmatic disdain for the law also leads to irrational actions. Everything has to be considered in context. In the context of the USA you mostly have to be an idiot to try and immigrate legally if you are low skilled poor person from a 3rd world country with no connections. In the context of an educated American going to Europe, the rational choice is probably to immigrate legally.
From this lenses I don't really see any logical inconsistency in the fact the same person might pick illegal on one path and legal for another. Although yes if they are leaving the US because they hate immigration controls and dogmatically following immigration controls overseas in someplace like Argentina where it doesn't even make sense to do so, then they are definitely hypocrites.
> the friends are mostly here to get a feel for the place and see if they want to emigrate
As a US citizen who has daydreamed about moving to a Dutch city like Ultrecht I'm curious what they found, and how it feels to be an immigrant in the Netherlands.
Sounds lovely. Our kids enjoyed the local bikepacking trips we did this summer, perhaps our next will visit the area. (In the off chance you have personal recommendations for bike touring companies/routes, let me know.)
It's not so easy to do. You can't just daydream about it. A friend of mine spent 18 months just with the paperwork. He's now making half of what he might make at home, but he's happy. The people are definitely friendly and welcoming, but the legal system makes it hard. And the businesses know this so they underpay because they can.
I have a general sense of the difficulty based on preliminary discussions with an immigration lawyer, but the Netherlands seems like one of the easier routes we're considering.
The reason it's "daydreaming" is that we're not yet ready to give up on New England, but I'd still like to start getting our ducks in a row in case there's a rush for the exits and we have to move quickly.
> He's now making half of what he might make at home, but he's happy.
Women absolutely want the divorce more once they come to conclusion some aspect of relationship is over (typically the emotion part but simply spending less time together or feeling most of the burden of raising kids is enough).
Most guys can suck up now-loveless marriage trivially if kids are fine (after kids come, this is pretty standard path for marriages), heck we can still enjoy sex greatly in such situation. Most women, not so much. I know it sounds sexist, trust me I would be very happy if this wasnt true but when I look/ask/listen around it is.
As an cca older guy at certain age the patterns start emerging left and right, and my own marriage can see some of it, just like most other marriages around us.
Some make it, some don't. When it fails its mostly mixture of personality resilience of both sides rather than some objective measure of (lack of) quality of relationship. Its easy to judge but please be kind to those who are going/went through, they may have been a better partner than ie you and still it wasnt enough to sustain it.
Also it’s often fear of stepdads. My mom dumped my dad so she could date a string of abusive assholes. It would give me pause before leaving a marriage that wasn’t utter misery.
Anecdotally, men are a lot more content with marriage. Women want a lot more. The whole “healthy relationship” ecosystem in contemporary times is almost entirely women driven.
A lot more men than women are able to be content with the comfortable mediocrity that is bringing in the paycheque, doing the chores, getting laid once or twice a month, but otherwise not really feeling much passion or enthusiasm or joy with their partner.
It's not the life you hope for, but there's a lot of social messaging that that's just the way it is, it's what you signed up for, you would be selfish to leave, the grass won't be greener, and also it's probably your fault anyway for not being a better husband. The messaging to women in romcoms and the like is much more toward you deserve better, be brave, junk the loser, go get the life you want.
As a guy who was in a mediocre marriage like this for many years, I basically got my emotional needs met elsewhere: through work, family, friends, time and activities with my kids, etc.
Having recently bought a Dutch house built in 1989, it’s baffling to me that almost none of the outlets are earthed. You can use a schuko plug, but it will lack an earth connection and fall out easily.
Because GFIs were not mandatory on all outlets back then and what exists is automatically grandfathered in when the rules change. Maybe in your meter box there are actually GFIs on all circuits, they just never put the grounded sockets in.
Look for green marked groups or groups with test buttons. Those are the ones that are the most safe to use.
But do check behind your sockets, there is a chance you may have the ground wires already pulled in and they just saved on the sockets.
I have the opposite problem here: I have all of my outlets on GFIs and there are ground wires everywhere. But the system is sensitive enough that I can't use my 10KA spotwelder because the phase lag is such that the system thinks there is a leak when there really isn't.
Thanks! I do have a GFCI (aka RCD) at the panel but the lack of grounding is unsettling. If nothing else the Schuko outlet is a lot better at preventing plugs from falling out.
I'll pull an outlet out and have a look for an Earth wire.
Yellow/Green. Sometimes they push them back a bit so it can be hard to spot. Another way to see it is to pull the front off the distribution panel, if you see Yellow/Green from a common rail going into every one of the outgoing tubes then you know it is at least wired up properly. If you only see blue and brown wires going into the tubes except for the ones to kitchen and bathroom then they won't be there. It is possible to pull in a ground wire afterwards but it is quite a bit of work, I've done it, the annoying bit is if there is a pull box that isn't exposed and they made a junction in there, then you have to break stuff to be able to reach the box.
Technically that's illegal but I doubt there is a house in NL that doesn't have at least one or two of those.
Old homes also often have been wired to use radiator/water pipes as ground. This causes a lot of issues now that old, metal pipes are being replaced with modern plastics, which turn a stupidly-grounded socket into a potential death trap.
Also, when there's a light circuit involved, there may be a black wire. In very old wiring situations, you may also encounter red/white/green wires, with green being the live wire rather than the ground!
That practice is highly illegal and reason for getting cut off from service.
Good point about the other color codes, I should have definitely mentioned that. There are three different kinds that you can find still, the white isn't white though, it is gray, and then, in even older houses but usually only in Groningen and Zeeland if they have not been renovated you can still find cotton/rubber insulation which is super dangerous. If you find any of the older systems codes you should basically just rip it all out and rewire.
Yes, I know, but thank you for the mention. The thing to look for is slow or fast response and maximum leakage current. In industrial settings those are used all the time for slow starting motors and other heavy consumers. The reason I didn't do it is because I only had to make a couple of welds and a triple breaker is 150,- euros or so, so I had to redo a bunch of welds and I didn't have to wait 24 hours to get it.
But if this was a regular thing then I would definitely replace the breaker.
The entire situation where you have great rights for “permanent” workers but nothing but precarity for so called “temporary” workers has been a disaster in Europe. It creates an entire underclass, even for people in high paying jobs. It was easier to get a mortgage, etc. in the US as an at-will employee who could be fired at any time than it was as a worker on a temp contract in Europe, in part because at least in the US there was a level playing field.
I realise the UK isn’t in the EU but it is part of the broader trend of creating a privileged class of permanent workers over all others.
This also increases friction in the labour market since changing jobs means likely giving up a permanent contract.
There are some scenarios where it’s a coordination problem. People could drive light fuel efficient vehicles if so many other people weren’t driving large, heavy, dangerous ones, for example.
Those large heavy vehicles are incentivized by loopholes in regulations because politicians were afraid of affecting "domestic jobs" as US automakers weren't even trying to compete with JP fuel-efficient imports.
Yeah, apparently it was originally to try to stop the rules from killing Jeep, which was having a hard time. New ones that allow more emissions for bigger vehicle footprints are also a big issue since it encourages larger vehicles.
Similarly saying “you can’t have slavery but you can buy stuff made by enslaved people abroad” is morally inconsistent. I don’t know the obvious answer to this though.
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