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US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

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Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#151

Post by gruez »

wpm wrote: post #145
gruez wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>with the deceptive pin code but the defense can simply plainly say they didn't want the police to read their private device. That's as convincing as saying you burned all the documents because you don't want people who break in to read all your financial records. It just happened to start after the SEC came knocking

Except this isn't the SEC actually pursuing a voicable crime. This person was under no suspicion at all. They were simply coming home after being abroad: last I checked that is not a crime. Outside of a crime, "evidence" is just called property. If the TSA can't show "we have provable evidence gathered elsewhere to show that there was possible incriminating data on that phone" all they did was wipe this guys phone. A…

>We could just as easily say having any passcode on your phone at all is obstruction of justice, since the feds could want to look on your phone for whatever made up reason, and if they can't because its encrypted, well why did you do that? What are you trying to hide? Evidence of a crime!?!?!

I specifically said this wouldn't be covered, because you set up the pin before you knew any investigation occurred. However, I think it's reasonable if you were pulled aside by CBP while deplaning, and while you're waiting to interview you decided to hastily turn on encryption on your laptop, or eat a bunch of papers you had on you, I'd say that's similar to evidence tampering, not unlike flushing drugs down the toilet when you see a cop pulling up on your driveway.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#152

Post by jandrewrogers »

reenorap wrote: post #47
sfRattan wrote: post #25

Ultimately, when you choose to enter a duress PIN that will wipe your device, you have to recognize that choice may have legal consequences. I don't like the amount of power our government has at the national border when it comes to detaining and pressuring citizens, but our Constitution explicitly grants it at least some of the power it now exercises in that context. If your threat model includes US state actors at…

Have the duress PIN on sticker on your phone. Maybe put it backwards and don’t say anything to border patrol. Have them try it out and erase the phone and then you can legitimately say you didn’t do anything and they did it themselves.

The police will ask you if the PIN unlocks the phone before using it.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#153

Post by kube-system »

mullingitover wrote: post #112

Seems like they’re going to have a struggle proving intent. “I was stressed out and afraid and I got the passwords mixed up” would be the magic words I’d hear as a juror and I wouldn’t be able to vote to convict.

If you get a jury who doesn't think that "strange self-destructing phone" isn't a criminal's tool to begin with. Which I'd guess is probably not likely.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#154

Post by jibal »

sfRattan wrote: post #78
deejaaymac wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lying to a fed They asked for the pin, maybe they should have said "not the duress pin" >Destroying evidence How did they know there was any evidence on there? >it exists for when compromising the device could get people the owner cares about killed or disappeared and the owner considers their own liability, disappearance, or death a preferable outcome. No, the duress pin is there for when I'm under duress and being…

> They asked for the pin, maybe they should have said "not the duress pin" This is a Mickey Mouse distinction no court will take seriously. > Wiping a device I own is extreme? When the consequences are potential years in prison for lying to the US government or, in another country, torture or death in prison for obstructing an authoritarian government, then yes... Extreme. All I'm saying is to decide to use a duress…

It's sad that your perfectly valid previous comment is dead (and that HN even works that way) ... adding is ≠ ought probably doesn't even help for the people who don't grasp that in the first place.

People who think that tricking the cops into wiping your device legally absolves you need to grow up. Also those who argue that LE can't prove any evidence was destroyed since it's been destroyed.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#155

Post by dolphinscorpion »

cameldrv wrote: post #74

I’ve seen a lot of people on the internet over the years say things like “the government can’t make x illegal, it’s just y.” For example, the government can’t make wiping your phone at the border illegal, it’s just punching four numbers into your phone, just like a pin, only a different four numbers, which could just have well been your pin. U.S. law though is highly non-autistic and what you were trying to do is jus…

Yes, I had the duress codes but entered them by mistake. I wanted to enter the real one but

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#156

Post by achierius »

nkrisc wrote: post #96
reenorap wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have the duress PIN on sticker on your phone. Maybe put it backwards and don’t say anything to border patrol. Have them try it out and erase the phone and then you can legitimately say you didn’t do anything and they did it themselves.

But if the prosecutors can make a convincing argument that your intent was exactly that all along, then you may end up convicted anyway. Intent matters. It might be hard to prove, but it matters. It may not even be that hard; what other possible explanation is there for someone putting a PIN visible on their phone that wipes it while crossing a border?

For if someone steals the phone?

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#157

Post by randallsquared »

cameldrv wrote: post #74

I’ve seen a lot of people on the internet over the years say things like “the government can’t make x illegal, it’s just y.” For example, the government can’t make wiping your phone at the border illegal, it’s just punching four numbers into your phone, just like a pin, only a different four numbers, which could just have well been your pin. U.S. law though is highly non-autistic and what you were trying to do is jus…

> U.S. law though is highly non-autistic

When the judge and officers of the court agree with me, the law is reasonable and just, but when they do not agree with me, the law is arbitrary and capricious. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Having the law be whatever it's thought to be by police, prosectors, judges, and others can lead to obvious injustices, but there's been no serious attempt to remove ambiguity in any country's legal code as far as I know.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#158

Post by bobthepanda »

DanHulton wrote: post #65

If your threat model means you can’t afford for border security to view your device, wipe the damn thing yourself before crossing the border and restore it from an encrypted online backup on the other side. You’re just carrying a blank phone that you intend to set up and use later, and they can’t force you to install your backup onto a phone. Now, this is sus as hell, and you’ll probably draw all kinds of extra atten…

this isn't even that weird, when I worked in a BigTech it was pretty explicit that there were certain countries where you should not bring your actual work device through the border, and you'll get set up with a different one while in that country.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#159

Post by TheDong »

cameldrv wrote: post #74

I’ve seen a lot of people on the internet over the years say things like “the government can’t make x illegal, it’s just y.” For example, the government can’t make wiping your phone at the border illegal, it’s just punching four numbers into your phone, just like a pin, only a different four numbers, which could just have well been your pin. U.S. law though is highly non-autistic and what you were trying to do is jus…

This was really well written in "What color are your bits": https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

Programmers have trouble seeing color (two identical numbers are the same bits, how can typing '1234' to unlock one phone be legal, and '1234' to unlock another phone be illegal?)

Courts care about color (intent, provenance, permission), even though that color cannot be digitally represented.

Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

#160

Post by CGamesPlay »

gruez wrote: post #17
Grimblewald wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that the dummy OS views the remaining space as legitimate and accessible free space. Using dummy directly is of course dangerous, as you might overwrite sectors with legitimate data, but also, you can access dummy os from secret. so you'd drive dummy from secret to prevent that but can load dummy as main if under duress and it looks fine. Browser, logged into various inconseq…

If you read the linked thread, you'd see the reasons are: 1. SSDs (including phones) have TRIM/discard, so you need to disable it, otherwise the hidden volume would get wiped. You going out of your way to disable it is going to be suspicious. 2. Even if the above wasn't an issue, you can't really use the outer os to any meaningful extent, because you run the risk of overwriting the inner volume. That makes your decoy…

I last used this feature probably more than a decade ago, but: you provide 2 passwords when decrypting. If the first password is the main volume, the second is attempted as a hidden volume. If both match, the main volume registers the hidden volume as free space but prevents writing to it. If the hidden volume doesn't match, the main volume will clobber the hidden volume.

So the main/hidden volumes really works like a duress: you might destroy your hidden volume while using the main one under duress, but that does not apply when using the main volume while able to additionally unlock the hidden volume.

If you are in a situation to need to worry about any of this, you're probably going to jail for one reason or another, anyways.

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