iPhone / iOS ecosystem risks when travelling / MFA catch-22

[AlmightyKang]

I'm doing a lot of travelling this year. I have scheduled trips to places which are quite frankly a bit dangerous as far as places to go and tend not to have service networks or anything Apple related. This is not abnormal for me but I've come to look at risks when travelling a little more seriously after a couple of near misses over the last couple of years. In one case I left my 13 Pro on a marshrutka in the middle of Central Asia. By luck, someone I was with had Telegram conversation with the driver open still. Secondly, someone tried to steal it outside Istanbul airport. I managed to keep hold of it fortunately. Ergo I decided to look at risks of getting stuck SOL with an iOS device in a little more detail as this could happen anywhere in theory.

Most of the places I'm going have absolutely no people using Apple devices because they are too expensive. That means that there is no service network and no ability to replace the device on the road with anything other than crap Android handsets from China. Obviously at that point I won't be able to access my iCloud account because I have no MFA capability via an iOS device. I would need access to that because all the flight boarding passes and stuff are app based these days so I don't want to end up with no plane ticket, no phone, no comms in the middle of nowhere and have to hitchhike to my embassy etc and cry in there for a bit.

Interested to hear any mitigation possibilities for this, even if it means moving my universe somewhat.

Example of what I consider potentially: I did actually do one trip with a Pixel 6a running LineageOS after that last one because I really don't care if I lost that. That had encrypted keepass DB on device and I had a USB-C stick with that on it in my cash belt. This was of course completely bloody inconvenient! I also had the keepass DB uploaded to my public www on a not obvious URL that I could remember too.

 

[Shirasaki]

Another way to mitigate the risk is carrying an extra trusted device that you can access iCloud and critical passes, such as boarding cards. As for other online contents, I would consider configuring a VPN to tunnel into my home network to access them. It’s tough to organise backup solutions in such situations but nevertheless it needs to be done.

 

[AlmightyKang]

Another way to mitigate the risk is carrying an extra trusted device that you can access iCloud and critical passes, such as boarding cards. As for other online contents, I would consider configuring a VPN to tunnel into my home network to access them. It’s tough to organise backup solutions in such situations but nevertheless it needs to be done.

That's a possibility for sure but what. I do have two iPhones but that somewhat increases my risk exposure and there's a chance the spare one will get stolen at the same time.

I have considered just uploading an encrypted zip to my public web site on a known but hard to guess URL containing my keepass DB with an iCloud recovery code in it, but looking at the process I still need a trusted device to change the iCloud account password or log in at the same time.

AFAIK there's also a wait period on the recovery key which is going to be a PITA if I need to hit a flight.

 

[Shirasaki]

That's a possibility for sure but what. I do have two iPhones but that somewhat increases my risk exposure and there's a chance the spare one will get stolen at the same time.

I have considered just uploading an encrypted zip to my public web site on a known but hard to guess URL containing my keepass DB with an iCloud recovery code in it, but looking at the process I still need a trusted device to change the iCloud account password or log in at the same time.

AFAIK there's also a wait period on the recovery key which is going to be a PITA if I need to hit a flight.

I dont think boarding pass Etc could be retrieved that way tbh. Maybe just consider uhh carry paper boarding pass when traveling to those countries. At least you can leave, instead of having to rely on embassy, which may or may not be able to help you out.

The idea is keep physical copy of travel critical documents ready rather than relying too much on your iPhone.

 

[AlmightyKang]

I dont think boarding pass Etc could be retrieved that way tbh. Maybe just consider uhh carry paper boarding pass when traveling to those countries. At least you can leave, instead of having to rely on embassy, which may or may not be able to help you out.

The idea is keep physical copy of travel critical documents ready rather than relying too much on your iPhone.

Yeah if only. Some of the airlines don't actually issue paper or printable ones now. Also you have to check in online

I keep paper copies of everything I can.

 

[Shirasaki]

Yeah if only. Some of the airlines don't actually issue paper or printable ones now. Also you have to check in online

I keep paper copies of everything I can.

The danger of digitising everything. I guess eventually we are going to be digitised as well After death.

Hope you can find airlines that fly to your usual work places with paper tickets.

 

[AlmightyKang]

The danger of digitising everything. I guess eventually we are going to be digitised as well After death.

Hope you can find airlines that fly to your usual work places with paper tickets.

Yeah not a big fan of this. After doing much reading it turns out you can get PDFs to print out of my usual airline - it's hidden inside the app of course. When you share a boarding pass using the share panel there's an option of sharing as PDF. Share it to yourself then print it!

 

[Shirasaki]

Yeah not a big fan of this. After doing much reading it turns out you can get PDFs to print out of my usual airline - it's hidden inside the app of course. When you share a boarding pass using the share panel there's an option of sharing as PDF. Share it to yourself then print it!

As long as those airlines are fine with printed ticket rather than the “real deal” aka digital version only, just use it while still can.

There is a reason why paper and pen is still around after thousands of years of human civilisation evolution.

 

[AlmightyKang]

As long as those airlines are fine with printed ticket rather than the “real deal” aka digital version only, just use it while still can.

There is a reason why paper and pen is still around after thousands of years of human civilisation evolution.

Apparently they are.

I'm a part time mathematician. We still use large amounts of paper 🤣