Traveler's Laptops May be Detained At Border - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Dillon, encryption is all well and good, except it could even make matters worse - what they can't read easily, they'll want to hold onto even longer. The NSA can crack it if they want to, anyway. That's why it's called "PGP" (Pretty Good Protection) - and that's going back a good number of years, when computing power and computing cost wasn't what it is today.
My own approach to this potential issue (which fortunately, is rare), is to send any critical info (book research, for example) back home electronically, so I'll have it in case CBP decides to hold onto the laptop. NSA is sniffing all web traffic anyway - but at least they don't stop the files from going through.
If I was in a different line of business, I'd be less casual about all this, I'm sure.
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Co-Author, PassPorter's Walt Disney World, PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line, and PassPorter's Disneyland and Southern California Attractions
I'm kind of with Dave on this - the most important thing on our laptop is usually our holiday photos and trip reports and we tend to put those on to CDs, which I would hope we'd still be able to get home with us.
I take my laptop on all my trips overseas since 2003 & never have had a problem coming back thru customs. Once I did have to turn it on , then turn it back off, but that was all. Only thing I've ever had a problem with was once I forgot to take out a small computer driver set & they kept that, but so far they look at my lugguage more than my laptop.........grin.
Dillon, encryption is all well and good, except it could even make matters worse - what they can't read easily, they'll want to hold onto even longer. The NSA can crack it if they want to, anyway. That's why it's called "PGP" (Pretty Good Protection) - and that's going back a good number of years, when computing power and computing cost wasn't what it is today.
Actually, a 4096 key is pretty solid. Although I will probably go to an 8192 key in the next year.
Last year, a 511 node cluster cracked a 63 bit key in just over 3 months.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Marx
My own approach to this potential issue (which fortunately, is rare), is to send any critical info (book research, for example) back home electronically, so I'll have it in case CBP decides to hold onto the laptop. NSA is sniffing all web traffic anyway - but at least they don't stop the files from going through.
Actually, there's a **** the NSA day every year in which you send an email to at least ten people with a set of key words.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Marx
If I was in a different line of business, I'd be less casual about all this, I'm sure.
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I'm kind of with Dave on this - the most important thing on our laptop is usually our holiday photos and trip reports and we tend to put those on to CDs, which I would hope we'd still be able to get home with us.
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