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Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock

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Re: Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock

#61

Post by [deleted] »

xoa wrote: post #26
420official wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's true that the legality of law enforcement forcing passwords in unclear, courts can absolutely force you to enter a password even if it's not written down by holding you in contempt indefinitely.

> courts can absolutely force you to enter a password even if it's not written down by holding you in contempt indefinitely. This is not true outside of a narrow exception. Indeed this is the core point of the 5th Amendment, to protect you from having to be witness against yourself. It's just as binding on the judicial branch as it is on the executive. Ordinarily, a court may not compel a defendant to testify or say…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock

#62

Post by armadyl »

deadbabe wrote: post #54

There should just be a way to setup an alternate dummy account based on the finger you use. This gives the illusion of compliance but your real data is safe.

If you're in a situation where this is a pressing issue, it's not a good solution as it's trivial to detect if it's a fake environment, especially if they get suspicious and run external forensics on it.

iirc the GrapheneOS team won't implement this feature for that reason

Re: Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock

#63

Post by ezconnect »

xoa wrote: post #26
420official wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's true that the legality of law enforcement forcing passwords in unclear, courts can absolutely force you to enter a password even if it's not written down by holding you in contempt indefinitely.

> courts can absolutely force you to enter a password even if it's not written down by holding you in contempt indefinitely. This is not true outside of a narrow exception. Indeed this is the core point of the 5th Amendment, to protect you from having to be witness against yourself. It's just as binding on the judicial branch as it is on the executive. Ordinarily, a court may not compel a defendant to testify or say…

There are lot cases where it is proven that you don't have any legal protection on border crossings.

Re: Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock

#64

Post by armadyl »

How beneficial is this versus just being theater? The example used in this is the government accessing the reporters laptop via biometrics.

But in this case, and especially under this admin legal or not this app won't stop them, unless I'm misunderstanding the macOS security model. Even with FDE enabled, sending it to the lock screen with biometrics disabled will not do anything to stop them from being able to access the contents of the hard drive via forensic methods with relative ease.

I think that at best this will only stop the casual person (i.e. a family member or roommate/random snooper)? In which case there would be no point to switch away from biometrics.

You're far better off just keeping more private information on the iPhone and isolating that data from a Mac, since that has far more resistance to intrusion in AFU mode than a Mac.

Re: Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock

#65

Post by gh02t »

armadyl wrote: post #64

How beneficial is this versus just being theater? The example used in this is the government accessing the reporters laptop via biometrics. But in this case, and especially under this admin legal or not this app won't stop them, unless I'm misunderstanding the macOS security model. Even with FDE enabled, sending it to the lock screen with biometrics disabled will not do anything to stop them from being able to access…

My interpretation was that it's easier to physically force someone to mash their finger on the sensor than to get them to divulge a password, not that it offers you any kind of legal protection. But yeah, it's a plausible but somewhat contrived situation to find yourself in.

Re: Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock

#67

Post by nofriend »

gh02t wrote: post #65
armadyl wrote: post #64

How beneficial is this versus just being theater? The example used in this is the government accessing the reporters laptop via biometrics. But in this case, and especially under this admin legal or not this app won't stop them, unless I'm misunderstanding the macOS security model. Even with FDE enabled, sending it to the lock screen with biometrics disabled will not do anything to stop them from being able to access…

My interpretation was that it's easier to physically force someone to mash their finger on the sensor than to get them to divulge a password, not that it offers you any kind of legal protection. But yeah, it's a plausible but somewhat contrived situation to find yourself in.

It does offer you legal protection. In the US, the right to not self incriminate protect you from divulging passwords but does not protect you from giving up biometrics. In other countries the rule is different.

Re: Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock

#68

Post by midtake »

akdev1l wrote: post #52
Terr_ wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point what you need is true multi-factor. For example, both fingerprint and per-device PIN. Regrettably, that's not often offered as a feature, even when the infrastructure is already there.

Notably macOS cannot do this

If you create a piv certificate on a yubikey and just plug it in while logged in, it automatically registers it as a login method.

Re: Show HN: PanicLock – Close your MacBook lid disable TouchID –> password unlock

#69

Post by dddddaviddddd »

october8140 wrote: post #66

If this were a concern for me the better choice is shutting down the laptop to encrypt the drive and disable biometrics. This does nothing since the drive is still unencrypted.

> This does nothing since the drive is still unencrypted.

Even though the data is unencrypted in memory, an attacker would still need either a local privilege escalation (from the login window?), or some sort of side-channel attack if they're still not able to get the password.

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