Ryabitsev:Travel (Linux) laptop setup

On his blog, Linux Foundation Director of IT Infrastructure Security Konstantin Ryabitsev has some advice for laptop security when traveling overseas. Some attendees of LinuxCon China in Beijing June 19-20 have asked for his thoughts, so he put together the post, which is good advice, if perhaps overly paranoid for some, no matter what country you might be visiting. "China is not signatory to the "Personal Use Exemption" when it comes to encrypted devices, so bringing a laptop with encrypted hard drive with you is not technically legal. If the border officer does not like you for some reason and has grounds to suspect you are not being truthful about your stated reasons for entering China, you may be asked to decrypt your devices for a search. Failure to do so may result in unpleasantness, and you may be detained or fined merely on the grounds of having an encrypted device when entering the country. (As opposed to, for example, entering a country that is signatory to the personal use exemption, where just having an encrypted device is not grounds for any action. That said, it is never in your interest to make the border officer not like you for some reason. Until you are admitted to the country as a legal alien, the Geneva Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are pretty much the only legal frameworks protecting you as a person against foreign government action.)It is important to point out that you are extremely unlikely to be penalized for bringing in an encrypted laptop with you to China, as any kind of widespread zealous application of such practice would quickly shut down any business travel to China -- and this is definitely not in the government's interest."