Is there a safe way of getting my external hd into Japan?

I currently live in the Philippines, but I'm planning to move to Japan in a couple of months, and I'm wondering what's the safest
way to get my external hard drive that has all my eroge and hentai over there.

If I bring it with me on my flight, they might check the contents and put me in jail, so I was thinking maybe I should just mail it to myself, and I was wondering if that was really any safer. Will the contents of my external hard drive still get checked and get me in trouble?

I'm not sure of how safe it is, but perhaps you could use a site for storage? Or you could just delete all of the "illegal" stuff and redownload it once you get to Japan. You may be considered a weirdo by customs, but so long as it isn't illegal they can't charge you for it. Email it to yourself, perhaps? Put it on a site that both doesn't care and is above the law? Although the only one that I can think of would be 4chan, and they disapprove of underaged stuff, so don't go there if you want to store it online.

...what is it that's illegal?

I agree with Daggerrise. Upload it all onto the internet and you can download it when you get there.

If encryption legal on your country (AFAIK it is), you can just key-cipher your risky contents.

The easy way is using TrueCrypt, an easy to use virtual-drive-on-file encryption tool. You just have to install it, create an encrypted virtual disk of the desired size, pick a password, and then move all your risky files to that virtual disk.

Next time you want to access those files, you'll need to mount the virtual disk, for what you will need the password.

http://www.truecrypt.org/

@Daggerrise & Momo Momo
It's just regular eroge and hentai (for example, Gurenka, Liquid Black Box, Ishuzoku no Torikohime), but I mean if they find out isn't that like illegal enough for them to bust you for piracy or something?

Uploading them to a site sounds like a good idea, but unfortunately my internet speed is not that great and there's like 600 games in that thing so...yeah, that's not really an option for me. :(

@warcry
That sounds interesting. I'll definitely look into that. Out of curiosity, is there any confirmation that this method has worked in the past, in evading their inspections?

When I travel, I just keep my Hardrive in my carry-on. I have never had a problem with that.
But just encrypt it. Or transfer the illegal things to your laptop, which they rarely check.

This, just encrypt it and take it as a carry on.

I defy them to beat AES :P

In other words, if you do right, they won't ever discover it unless they force you to tell the password*.

By the way, do they really inspect people hard drives in your country airports? .-. That's somewhat rough.


*Even in this case, if you're witty enough, you can split your encrypted volume in two: with some password you access your blessing porn; with other, your intimidator accesses completely different, totally legal data (previously wisely put by you in order to trick them).

Keep it in your pants.
No but really, I dunno... I need to make mine into an internal at some point I think

Encryption it is then! :)

I'm just trying to be extra careful because awhile back I remember watching some youtube videos about Americans going to American airports and getting their laptops,cameras and cell phones contents checked, copied and confiscated all the time.

In the Philippines, pornographic content of any kind is illegal. So you can just imagine the hissy fit they'd throw if they found out about my collection.

This could just be in the US, since security has become much more strict after the incident that was 9/11. I can't say for sure, but I think it'd be at least a little looser there. They'd essentially be criminals if it weren't for safety regulations. I'm not saying you shouldn't be cautious, but rather that you shouldn't really use the US as a source for that thing.

If you wanna be ghetto about it, FedEx that shit.

shipping seems the least complicated. once it's inside the packageing, it's unlikely they would open it, then check whats on it. shit, i've known people that shipped drugs through fed ex and ups, though only state lines, never across international borders. but then only narc dogs would've been an issue, and i never heard of a porn sniffing dog.

It's the Philippines... Dodgy shit goes down in their mail system.

I'd probably go for encryption as well, but if you really are scared that they could break through that, hell, get out there, take a box and mail it. They only scan the boxes, and if you put it in something like a metal lunchbox, it'll pass though like a breeze. A toolbox would be fine too, with a few tools inside.

But that might be considered as smuggling.

Idk.

Just encrypt the shit out of it, and put it in your hand bag.