UnNews:Photos of US travelers taken in Customs data breach
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| Photos of US travelers taken in Customs data breach | 
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11 June 2019
WASHINGTON, DC -- A data breach at a US Customs and Border Paranoia (CBP) subcontractor has gone from bad to worse. It started with a leaked Microsoft Word document titled “CBP Perceptics Public Statement,” which raised fears that photos of people’s faces and license plates had been compromised as part of an attack on a federal subcontractor. It escalated when security experts pointed out Customs long-running and controversial pattern of snooping through mobile devices belonging to individual voyagers.
"We thought that Customs was snooping through devices just to breach lawyer-client confidentiality or turn away visitors intending to engage in peaceful protest" wrote A. Gumshoe, technology editor for trusted computer industry magazine Two-Bit Hack, "but now it's evident that all that data stolen from personal digital assistants is now in the hands of government contractors, and has likely been leaked. That unsightly photo of portly Uncle Harry posed in front of the Eiffel Tower in a swimsuit three sizes too small? It's in the hands of the cyberterrorists now, and Heaven help us if they threaten to release it."
Homeland Insecurity authorities are advising America's infrastructure providers to prepare for the worst. According to an unnamed volunteer for the Wikimedia Foundation (which publishes Wikivoyage®) shadowy figures have contacted the WMF with threats to upload one image an hour to the open-edit travel wiki until their demands are met. Wikivoyagers are divided; some are adamant that voyagers should not capitulate to terrorists and their demands, while others ask whether paying the ransom could suffice to convince the hackers to instead upload the offending content to Internet Brands® rival wiki, Wikitravel, in order to put that wiki out of the misery of the community once and for all.
Sources[edit]
- Drew Harwell and Geoffrey A. Fowler "U.S. Customs and Border Protection says photos of travellers were taken in a data breach". Washington Pest, June 10, 2019
- Patrick G. Lee "Can Customs and Border Officials Search Your Phone?". ProPublica, March 13, 2017
- Ashifa Kassam "Canadians travelling to Women's March denied US entry after sharing plans". The Grauniad, Jan 20,2017