IWhen Kenneth G. Lieberthal, an expert at the Brookings Institution, travels to other countries, he follows a routine that seems straight from a secret agent movie. He leaves his smart-phone and laptop at home. Instead he brings loaner devices, which he erases before he leaves the U.S. and wipes clean the minute he returns. While traveling, he disables Bluetooth and Wi- Fi and never lets his phone out of his sight. While in meetings, he not only turns off his phone, but also removes the battery for fear his microphone could be turned on remotely.
Lieberthal connects to the Internet only through an encrypted, password-protected channel. He never types in a pass-word directly, but copies and pastes his password from a USB thumb drive. By not typing his password, he eliminates the risk of having it stolen if key-logging software got installed on his device.