Wtf!

yeah, I wouldn't have that. I'd sue, sue, sue.

btw, it's for these reasons that I carry an encrypted hard drive with me. There's nothing much on that hard drive... source code for clankiller, some database backups, my MP3 collection... that's about it. But customs officials can't access an AES-encrypted drive and (at least in the US) they're not allowed to demand the password. To make that even better, I don't even know the password... I have it stored online *somewhere* behind a password I do remember.

I got one of those hardware encrypted USB sticks for my father. After 10 tries it reformats itself. I forgot to test it though, should it format itself whether i can use data recovery programs to recover what was on it.

I have just a regular external hard drive, but I encrypted the entire partition using True Crypt.

http://www.truecrypt.org/

A minor problem is if you plug it into a Windows PC, it asks if you want to format the drive automatically, since it doesn't see a valid partition.

There's no auto-wipe feature for true crypt, but the chance of someone cracking a decently strong passphrase is pretty low. Assuming they even realize it's encrypted in the first place. Though if a customs official formatted my personal hard drive, I would have some very irate words for them, their supervisor, and their lawyer once I took them to court over it.

All this bullshit makes me want to walk through customs and tell the officers there that I've got a PC full of snuff porn acting out multiple scenarios ion which the president will be killed. Of course, if I did that in the US I'd probably 'disappear' to a sort of Gitmo, so maybe not.

heh... the Australians might hand you over to US authorities so their hands are clean.

Though supposedly all they're looking for his kiddie porn and bestiality. So I'm sure snuff porn is ok. Acting out killing the president is, imo, a legal expression of free speech. There's a difference between acting it out and planning it out.