I was expecting more stealthy techniques, like the old sticking a hair and tape on a door or carbon shoe prints under the carpet type tricks. I was imagining people spraying invisible coatings on USB sockets or something.
The problem with doing something as elaborate as wrapping stuff in vacuum packed beans is that it draws attention and provides an adversary plausible deniability due to customs inspections etc, "Oh sorry the DEA had to inspect your package but it's fine, here's your beans too".
Is that really a problem? I think you’ve described a valuable signal, and you may have a different threat model in your mind.
If my use case for this device is so sensitive that I’m taking these steps to avoid it being intercepted, any evidence of tampering, even slight, means the device is compromised, /full stop/.
In your scenario when the government hands me three bags of lentils & my device I thank them, walk to the nearest dumpster, and pitch the whole lot in because I have to assume it’s been bugged.
True, my point is only that it's far from free and therefore has limited purpose... You gain highly reliable interception signalling at the cost of significantly increasing the probability of interception.
As you suggest, if your use case is so sensitive or critical that you can afford to send 10 laptops and only use the ones that arrive in tact then fair enough - however for the more common scenario of just being a privacy conscious individual who would like some degree of ability to determine tampering in transit - this is a non-starter.
It's not unthinkable that a method exists with as much resilience without attracting unwanted attention.
Good point, but if my package contained illegal material, I'd know I'm being played. Of course, they'd just arrest me instead in that case, but maybe that's preferable?
The problem with doing something as elaborate as wrapping stuff in vacuum packed beans is that it draws attention and provides an adversary plausible deniability due to customs inspections etc, "Oh sorry the DEA had to inspect your package but it's fine, here's your beans too".