I want to start off by saying I did not read the article; The topic surrounding secure devices while traveling has been on the rise in recent months so I will present some solutions which I believe all should take note off. I believe to obtain and maintain a truly private and secure mobile phone we must all be using a GrapheneOS device. However, for those of us who are still using iPhones I present solutions for you as well. Here are a few things to consider when traveling across borders:

• GrapheneOS Devices

If you are even the slightest bit of a privacy enthusiast you likely don’t need an introduction to GrapheneOS so I will attempt to provide a succinct summary on why I believe GrapheneOS devices are the best phones to carry when traveling.

I believe GrapheneOS devices are the most private and secure mobile devices to have; Ironically they only work with Google Pixel devices, however this is not without good reason. Google Pixel devices offer superior hardware security than most Android devices on the market, which is why GrapheneOS will only work on Pixel devices.

GrapheneOS utilizes the robust hardware security features that Google Pixel devices offer such as the ability to re-lock the bootloader after installation. Typically, uploading a custom OS to an Android device requires you to unlock and disable the bootloader. After the OS is installed you must keep the bootloader disabled in order to continue using your custom ROM. This is horrible for your security. If someone has physical access to this device they can upload malicious software; likely without your knowledge. Having a locked/enabled bootloader is paramount to your privacy and security especially when crossing borders into foreign countries.

GrapheneOS has the upper-hand when it comes to this issue. After installation, not only do you re-lock the bootloader, but GrapheneOS will detect modifications to any of the Operating System partitions and prevent reading of any data whatsoever. The authenticity and integrity of the OS is always re-verified upon each boot. If you wanted to unlock the bootloader of a GrapheneOS device you will not be able to do so without completely erasing every piece of encrypted data on your device.

GrapheneOS has been tried against many of the forensic machines that Law Enforcement/ TSA/ Border Control use such as Cellebrite. To my knowledge at the time of writing, there have been no known cases in which Cellebrite was able to succeed in cracking a GrapheneOS device in a BFU (Before First Unlock) state.

• BFU (Before First Unlock)

When you first boot up your phone, you are required to input your password to access your phone’s data. This is known as a BFU (Before First Unlock) state. After this initial “first boot” you enter your password which is then stored in your phone’s RAM. This is known as an AFU (After First Unlock) state. Storing your password in RAM is necessary because your device is constantly decrypting information on your disk in order for your device to “compute”. When your device is in this AFU state it is much easier for your device’s password to be confiscated because the password to decrypt your phone’s contents is stored in RAM. Simply rebooting your phone without entering your password will put your phone in a BFU state where it will remain until you put in your password. These same tips also apply to other devices such as laptop computers.

• Strong Passwords

On the topic of BFU (Before First Unlock) it is important to talk about strong passwords. Although your phone may be in a BFU state if you have a weak password it is only a matter of a short while before your device is cracked. A typical 4 to 6 digit pin is trivial to crack. Use either a very long and complicated pin or a very long and complicated alphanumeric password/passphrase; preferably the latter. Your password doesn’t need to be super complicated just make sure it’s long and memorable.

• iPhones

If traveling with an iPhone I highly recommend you look into Phone Pair Locking. For the sake of my fingers I will refer to Phone Pair Locking as “PPL” from now on. PPL was designed for businesses to deploy numerous iOS devices with the same configurations. PPL is done through a MacOS exclusive application known as “Apple Configurator”. Apple Configurator allows businesses to configure permissions as well as place restrictions on iOS devices. What does this mean for us? It means we can configure our iPhone so we never have to worry about forensics again. Note that PPL is best enabled on a new device because enabling this will result in a complete wipe of your phone and you will NOT be able to restore from a backup. PPL creates a trusted relationship between your iOS device and a MacOS computer. This means that the only computer you will ever be able to transfer data to while plugged in via cable is the computer which you have setup PPL on. PPL will not allow a forensics machine to analyze data from an iPhone. PPL will not allow a forensics machine to copy any form of data for later inspection. PPL eliminates the threat of any forensic machines from being able to access any data off your phone.

I apologize for keeping this section brief but there is more we need to consider. Do not travel with the same computer you have set up PPL on. That computer is your key into your device. Leave the key at home and forensics can never use your computer to access your phone’s data. PPL is NOT a replacement for strong passwords and BFU state, it is an additional feature which you should enable to ensure that your device remains secure. Another thing to consider is Apple Configurator is only available on MacOS devices. I assume you can use a MacOS Virtual Machine if you do not own a MacOS device, but I have not attempted this so I do not know. Unfortunately PPL is ONLY available for iOS devices. To my knowledge nothing similar to PPL exists for Android or GrapheneOS devices. Because of PPL I actually consider iPhones a decent option while traveling.

• Additional tips

Preferably use a secondary device. Purchase a new device specifically for traveling and keep a very minimal amount of information (if any) on it. In the event Law Enforcement is not able to crack your device they may just outright confiscate it and you will have to say goodbye to your phone. Be wary of what clothing you wear and what stickers you have added to your devices (if any). If your clothing expresses political affiliation or you look like a crypto shill with BTC stickers on your laptop and a Bitcoin shirt and hat you may be probed and questioned by overly zealous Border Agents because “you are carrying more than 10 thousand dollars across the border”. This may result in confiscation and or secondary inspections. Try to wear plain clothing and remove or cover stickers that you think could possibly result in issues.

• Conclusion

I would like to apologize for making this post extremely long, it turned out much longer than expected. Since I’ve opened this can of worms add a comment to this if you want me to write a full guide. I have excluded a lot of information in an effort to keep this post as short as possible. But if I write a guide I will include everything with absolutely no stops.

I’ve had this exact same issue with a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller; IIRC, my fix was disabling Steam input.

The PC port of Batman Arkham City was horribly implemented and littered with issues involving, DirectX11, Nvidia PhysX, and .NET.

If the pre-game launcher/menu launches (the launcher that displays, Play, Settings, View ReadMe File, Exit) go into Settings and disable anything related to DirectX11 and Nvidia PhysX.

If the following doesn’t work you may need to install an older DirectX version (DirectX 9 I believe) and/or edit a PhysX DLL file. Batman Arkham Asylum has very similar issues as well, I believe solely installing an older DirectX version fixes it though.

Take all this with a grain of salt because it’s been a very long time since I’ve played Batman Arkham City.

Flatpak’s security and sandbox has gotten much better in recent years. I’ve been using Steam via Flatpak for a while now and haven’t run into any issues yet, other than not being able to make desktop shortcuts of my games.

I use Flatseal (another Flatpak application) to further restrict my Flatpak’s permissions) The default Flatpak permissions for Steam aren’t bad IMO (at least when compared to other Flatpaks) but you can tweak it to your liking using Flatseal.

If you want to take it a step further, I would recommend using Goldberg’s Steam Emulator, which is FOSS, and it will allow you to bypass Steamworks DRM (which is Valve’s very weak DRM) for games which solely use Steamworks DRM.

I find that the overwhelming majority of my games just use the Steamworks DRM if any, but YMMV. Using Goldberg’s Steam Emulator is also a good way of preserving your library if, in the unfortunate case, Valve decides to remove a title from your library for whatever stupid licensing reason they come up with.

After freeing your games using Goldberg’s Steam Emulator you then could use the Flatpak of Lutris and disable network access for Lutris/further restrict permissions it has to the rest of your system using Flatseal.

If I don’t alt-tab the game doesn’t break.

It’s likely the 560 driver on Wayland being the culprit here. Specifically resizing XWayland windows. You could try running nvidia-smi in a terminal and see what specifically is causing this VRAM spike.

Reports of excessive VRAM usage with the 560 driver on Wayland. See this for a potential fix. Hope it helps

Excluding hardware (microcode, UEFI, etc); within my Linux system, the only proprietary software I have installed are Nvidia drivers and Steam (installed via flatpak). When I first made the switch to Linux, I was actually shocked at the minimal amount of proprietary software I actually used/needed.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/ is a wealth of information, of which, I am not willing to let go, as it is a resource of current news that is very relevant to this “Linux Gaming” sub. So no; I will not stop linking https://www.gamingonlinux.com/ to this sub just because you got butt hurt.

Undoubtedly

I don’t think it ships with a desktop environment by default; I think they’re just referring to the Qt framework. If it is mentioning a desktop environment - it’s probably LXQt.

LMAO. Microsoft really made Windows Server and won’t even use that crap themselves.

Buster clearly disapproves of the upgrade.

Or as I’ve taken to calling it; GNU+Linux

Fr. Had me thinking ASUS Motherboards. Really had me going there😅

I’m still in shock how quickly they have progressed.

TLDR; It started as a young teen who just wanted to get games for free; It continues because companies don’t give two flying hoots about me.

Currently, I pirate because I can’t rightfully give any money to these anti-consumer companies that will only victimize me. I can’t own anything anymore, and this absolutely frustrates me. If I could own the media I purchase, I wouldn’t pirate anymore. (by this I mean I wouldn’t pirate the media I consume. I’d still data hoard because it’s a literal addiction, please help!!)

I don’t pirate games anymore; or better said, I rarely pirate games, and when I do they’re ran in a VM with VFIO because I really don’t like the idea of running arbitrary code on my system; even though we have reputable, vetted, and trustworthy groups. (As a general rule, I don’t trust what I can’t verify.) I buy all my games on Steam for convenience, and I opt to use Goldberg’s Steam Emulator (which is open source!!) to store backups of my games, and this setup works wonderfully! I stay away from games with invasive DRM like Denuvo (I play these in a VM), and I’ve long stopped buying EA and Ubisoft games. The only forms of media I pirate nowadays are movies, and music (and the occasional game).

Or as I’ve taken to calling it, GNU+systemd+Linux.

Too bad I’m on Linux.

Maybe I’m just nostalgic but I think a classic IPA doesn’t need a modern twist. I’m all for IPA open sourcing their beer; heck, free beer is good enough for me.

In all seriousness though, I already saw a user recommend kanidm. I can vouch for kanidm; written in Rust, it allows offline authentication and offline caching of user info, which is really handy if you’re in a situation with poor internet connectivity. kanidm is feature rich:@g5pw@feddit.it already mentioned OAuth2 support, LDAP, RADIUS; etc. It even supports TOTP!! Kanidm doesn’t support SAML IIRC, But SSO can be achieved through OAuth2 with OIDC.

From kanidm’s Github:

Kanidm aims to have the features richness of FreeIPA, but without the resource and administration overheads. If you want a complete IDM package, but in a lighter footprint and easier to manage, then Kanidm is probably for you. In testing with 3000 users + 1500 groups, Kanidm is 3 times faster for search operations and 5 times faster for modification and addition of entries (your results may differ however, but generally Kanidm is much faster than FreeIPA).

https://github.com/kanidm/kanidm

Incredible!! I don’t think I have ever heard this explained in such simplicity. Great write up.