GrapheneOS duress PIN could land a man in prison
https://www.androidauthority.com/grapheneos-duress-pin-us-prosecution-3691271/Open linkView original on lemmy.caSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on lemmy.cahttps://www.androidauthority.com/grapheneos-duress-pin-us-prosecution-3691271/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca
64 replies
If the phone's security prevents them from accessing information, then they have no information. How can they prove there was any information on it to begin with?
Funny how the lemmy liberals never believe that the US is the authoritarian country lol
Really? I feel like I'm constantly seeing complaints about the US's growing authoritarianism.
I mean from the cadre of Anti-russia, Anti-china accounts who try and tell me I am a conspiracy theorist for thinking that the CIA is behind "all world events" despite talking about a specific event where the CIA actually overthrew the country I am from.
They didnt grow to it. Nobody just gave a shit before, because it wasnt against all skin colors.
It's not even about skin color, not really. It's about poverty and people not having a chance to get out of it. I would also commit crimes if I felt my life had no future and im white.
As a consequence, black people commit crimes and white cops become racist because they see that. But its not really about skin color if you look at the full picture.
Oh yeah racism in the US is not about skin color, brilliant take.
It's about poverty, yeah. White people would act the same as black people if they lived in poverty. In fact, you see that happening in America too.
You have to give someone a chance in life or you end up with desperate people. I never understood the idea that poor people should just say no to crime when they have absolutely nothing to live for otherwise. That's crazy.
If you don't think racism is real and not at all based on race you are a literal fucking idiot. Try reading a fucking book whitey. Fanon, George Jackson, Malcom X. Take you pick, not sure you'll have the comprehension to understand.
I think I may be more intelligent then you actually... :)
Anyway, see you around.
And that person is the officer that destroyed the evidence
You have to carry a piece of paper in your wallet that contains a PIN. The piece of paper contains no further information, just a PIN. You decline to answer any questions regarding this piece of paper or your phone’s PIN.
This might not be a good idea, depending on your jurisdiction.
Or just set it to your mmddyy or something typical for weak passwords
You can have a business card with a "phone"number on it. (Your pin can be any part of that number it is only you who needs to know where to start reading the code). You don't need to have a sus number only piece of paper. :)
The point is that the cops would find and enter the pin.
It's the wipe pin.
They wiped it, not you.
I'm not going to disclose my specific way, but numbers don't need decimal digits to be expressed and parsed. An hypothetical example:
Believe it or not, this is encoding the today's date, 2026-07-26.
Oh = 2 letters
Elipsis = no letters, so 0
ye = 2 letters
shadow = 6 letters
Nahamah = 7
My = 2
Mother = 6
The funny part? I just conjured this technique during the composition of this very reply. It's somehow easy for me to conjure atypical steganographic techniques, and I use steganography quite often IRL. In this way, I can literally write down my passwords and keep in my wallet, and absolutely nobody will get to figure out it's meant to be a password.
Luckily for FBI and other investigation agencies, I dont even think of visiting the USA, but good luck for any fed or cop trying to keep up with my plethora of steganographic techniques (and my neurodivergent brain) amidst plausible deniability if I ever did. Lol
[email protected]
Name one thing that can't land you in prison in the US. I'll wait.
pedophilia (if you are rich)
You don't even need that first part. Being rich makes it 10x harder for you to be prosecuted.
Even convicted pedo can avoid prison https://www.cnn.com/2014/04/02/justice/delaware-du-pont-rape-case
Indirectly murdering hundreds of thousands of people in pursuit of profits.
And manslaughter with a car.
With the caveat that, if you don't achieve those profits, it will land you in jail.
Got me there
For profit slave labor prisons are very lucrative I hear
Being white
Supreme court has ruled that warrantless phone search at the border is bogus, but theyre too shitpantsed to stick with it
Not if you live within the jurisdiction of the 4th Circuit. The court "ruled that a lower standard applies to manual searches, allowing the government to conduct extraordinarily invasive electronic device searches without any suspicion of wrongdoing, simply because the border officer chooses to search by hand rather than with a forensic tool."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/fourth-circuit-says-border-agents-can-search-your-phone-hand-no-suspicion-required
they are evil and hypocritical is what they are.
they want to make an example out of people trying to escape the panopticon.
Does this apply to non-US citizens as well?
Seems like what's needed is the ability to load an alternate profile or some kind of demo mode based on the pin. Something that looks normal but doesn't have any info you don't want others to see, without actually deleting anything.
Nothing is needed. Erase your shit before you travel in or out of the US.
You can already have multiple independent users in graphene (maybe in stock android too idk). You have to switch them before the possible search though.
I had this feature on a Xiaomi phone that i had a few years ago. I could even set up the fingerprint reader to open a different profile depending on which finger i used.
Sounds awesome.
Or loads a dummy profile and deletes other profiles without giving away what is happening.
Dont think that would be as secure. Once a phone has been unlocked after reboot, even if it has been locked again, the operating system and ram can be accessed quite easily with the correct tools and border controls have those tools.
Even a Graphene phone is only properly secure before first unlock after reboot. So i would not personally rely on allowing acess to any profile. I would assume its possible, (probably trivial) to gain complete access from there.
Any duress pin use should be covered under a person's right to avoid self incrimination.
If the phone is owned by your employer and they are the investigation target, then you might be on dodgy ground.
Alternately, a user profile that isn't displayed anywhere, but accessible only through a specific PIN, maybe. Not sure how you'd explain the storage space either option used, however.
It should work like truecrypt used to where there's no sign some of the encrypted blob is not actually visible in the fake os.
I think the point is that if you load an empty profile (no photos, no videos, no apps, etc) but your phone storage is nearly full, it could throw up a red flag.
That's why the fake profile would not show that the storage is full. Unless they try to load lots of data onto the fake profile it would not be obvious.
What a coincidence that it was the guy protesting the police who was also suspected of possessing such materials. If it turns out they had real independent grounds to suspect he had such images, I'll change this view, but for now I assume that's the cops' standard line to shut down people's questions. Just say they thought the political target had CSAM, and immediately people see him differently, plus the police can accuse anyone who challenges their actions of supporting pedophiles.
They implied that based on his use of grapheneOS/erasure of the device. In reality he is a Stop Cop City activist. The fascists just want to associate good privacy and security practices with criminality and depravity.
Sounds like bs without any definitive proof
How do you know if phone got erased?
This is yesterday's news. Destroying evidence is a crime in a lot of jurisdictions. With that in mind, I don't understand how somebody who apparently uses Graphene OS didn't bring an empty burner when crossing one of the most notorious borders in the world.
Which isn't to say that the laws that require you to unlock your phone and that throw you in jail if you securely wipe it aren't hostile and inhumane.
In order to be convicted of destroying evidence, there needs to be proof that there was "evidence" on the phone in the first place.
If something on the phone is already known without doubt, then what's the need for access? if there is doubt at the time of the wipe then there is no proof or destroying evidence. 🤷♂️
Except that this person wasn't accused or even suspected of a crime.
How are they supposed to know there was evidence on it? I'm allowed to delete my files, aren't I?
Not quite. If you know or shouldreasonabley believe someone is about to arrest you or sue you, depending on the circumstances, judges can tell juries to assume the erased data would show something bad. But it depends on the details.
Be careful not to swallow your spit. They may think you're swallowing a bomb and shoot you on the spot.
i think it would have been different if he wiped it before he came through customs. he gave them the pin, which destroyed the data after it was requested. almost like the phone was boobytrapped.
personally i just try to delete most of my communication apps on the plane before i get back to the states (signal, lemmy, instagram...) in case they want to search my phone and get mad about a meme. (precident). i also try to offload as much as possible to selfhosted apps where applicable (rss reader, podcasts) so i can just log back in and have everything.
i dont know how far these searches can go, but id be worried about password managers and app store history too along with any account where you can just "log in with google" or whatever. once the device is unlocked and in their hands, they can have access to quite a bit of personal information.
i bet theyre just pissy this technology exists and are trying to make it illegal.
Not if you're given a Lawful Order (tm) to produce that material. Whether or not that material is incriminating is irrelevant.
They aren't but it is the same as if you have been accused of murdering some one and you burn the car you are accused of moving the body to the river in.
Edit: I am not saying i think its how i should work but its the logic behind it
They didn't accuse him of anything, and let him go afterwards. This was an illegal search attempt.
I'm no lawyer, but I think that's called circumstantial(ly improbable). Try convincing a jury of that. 🥲
This sounds a lot like proving my innocence instead of them having to prove guilt.
If I understand correctly they didn’t actually delete anything it just shreds the encryption keys so it can’t be accessed. Idk if the difference matters a whole lot though.
No it wipes the data from the phone
source
That is a distinction without a difference. Either way the once accessible data can no longer be accessed any longer.
Very interesting! I'd like to ask a lawyer how they think the courts would view that. The data is intact, just not decryptable. 🤣
Sounds like we might find out how the courts will view it.
Stay strong 😓✊
I cross the US border every few months.
Stopped carrying a laptop, still crossing the border with a graphene phone, tho.