Bill Stewart wrote:

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Just set the BIOS not to boot to floppy, If the customs people have any clue, the first thing they do is hit DEL at the appropriate BIOS prompt I think you give them WAY too much credit, not to mention many systems give no such prompt. But highly suspect if anything they will check the BIOS *after* first not being able to boot to floppy successfully.

Any tax-collector who's illiterate enough to ask "Do you have Internet on your computer" is probably not going to know what's happening, especially given the disparity of system boot behaviour.

Some things may get their attention, like the sound card yelling "Begin destruct sequence! 10, 9, 8, 7....." or, more politely, "Stop, thief! Help, someone is stealing this computer!" or "Virus detected. Please remove the infected diskette and contact corporate security for further instructions" but your basic subtleties like a Linux boot screen and copying the diskette to backup and then wiping it are beyond the typical border guard's technical training, and don't smell interesting enough to get his dog's attention (unless there's a good high-pitched tone as well.)

I may post a more thoughtful article about the offensiveness of this practice or the technical cluelessness, but for now I'll just rant about the sheer folly of allowing anybody to touch your computer whose primary training is in Shouting and looking for people who match profiles, like Irish accents or obvious wealth or obvious poverty.

The practice is as offensive as the KGB-like DWI roadblocks but don't be so hasty to assume the long-term incompetence of the federales in any country. If the interest in scanning PC's persists, or *dammit* increases, there will be increased funding and somebody who is technically capable will provide more sophisticated analysis tools. Period. Better get used to it. I doubt the issue will just go away. Design your CM accordingly. Mike