If your threat model means you can’t afford for border security to view your device, wipe the damn thing yourself before crossing the border and restore it from an encrypted online backup on the other side.

You’re just carrying a blank phone that you intend to set up and use later, and they can’t force you to install your backup onto a phone.

Now, this is sus as hell, and you’ll probably draw all kinds of extra attention, but if border security wants access to your phone in the first place, you’re already in a weird place.

this isn't even that weird, when I worked in a BigTech it was pretty explicit that there were certain countries where you should not bring your actual work device through the border, and you'll get set up with a different one while in that country.

Those who thought that a duress pin was a good idea for border crossing are probably going to choose this alternative.

It doesn't have to be blank - just clean.

Pff one time when travelling to the US I brought two laptops, macbook and a thinkpad. I just reinstalled the thinkpad and somehow the border patrol was very interested in it. Asked me to ‘show my gallery’… it was a guiless setup and only had a terminal, problem was… somehow my keyboard layout or something was messed up and i could not even login… i spend around 2 hours being questioned by 6 people…they didnt even take a look at the macbook

The french cybersecurity agency (ANSSI) used to share leaflets to tell you to do just that. The US government wasn't named, but it's part of the ones that like to do some economic intelligence and no euro who read the news would trust it more than a banana republic when it comes to crossing the border.

Now having a corporate device with little data is no longer outstanding. Everything is in the cloud these days.

As for personal devices, you can explain you're taking a dumb cheap laptop for your holiday as you're working on a desktop PC at home. You're not taking your entire house when you're on a trip, just a laptop to check tourism information and post blog posts

I myself bought a crap laptop on ebay to shove it in bags and backpacks and go to conferences and not be sad the day it's broken.

but above all, he's a citizen so shouldn't care about looking "suspect". He has a right, not a privilege, to cross that border. They can explain a judge how he looked sus if they really want to search his home.

What is sus as hell is the US government. It is incredible how people here are accepting things that was outrageous a few years back.