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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

#231

Post by refurb »

jameson wrote: post #109

> During the questioning, agents repeatedly asked Tunick to unlock his phone and warned they would seize it if he refused. When he finally provided a passcode, the phone appeared to restart. I'm confused to understand if Tunick did anything illegal here. If the authorities want the phone, they should have the warrant and seize it without Tunick's permission. It appears authorities did not have the warrant which give…

CBP doesn't need a warrant to search at the border, including electronic devices.

However, if Tunick was smart he would have refused to provide the PIN, and let them seize it. He'll get it back eventually, but it was in his right to refuse.

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

#232

Post by red369 »

bb88 wrote: post #20
Grimblewald wrote: post #2

VeraCrypt has a cool function which is a reserved space for a decoy OS.[1] Everything else registers as free space while decrypting to dummy volume. You make the dummy volume look lived in, and forget. provide dummy password, volume decrypts such that only dummy is accessible/readable. give proper password, real OS and FS decrypt and load. Something like this may need to become the standars over duress pins which sho…

This is always been the dumbest thing about "hidden volumes": It relies upon your adversary not knowing about veracrypt's hidden volume. Which BTW, is plainly ADVERTISED on the web site. The second he knows you have veracode, he will ask for the other encrypted volume. See also relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/538/

But Veracrypt can be used for encryption of a volume, without creating a hidden volume. I assume it would often be used this way.

The $5 wrench decryption technique would be even more unpleasant if you hadn’t created a hidden volume, as there would be no way to prove you hadn’t.

Should people be sure to never use Veracrypt volume encryption unless they create a hidden volume? I have trouble even thinking this way!

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

#233

Post by itake »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #131
zuzululu wrote: post #85

why not just have a separate device for traveling ?

Yeah, that's my position. If you're paranoid enough to be using GrapheneOS, why would you take it to an airport in the US of all places? I bought a second hand iPhone for overseas trips, which my daughter promptly stole because she wanted an iPhone, but then i got her old android phone, which was LineageOS-compatible, so that became my travel phone.

How do you manage data between your primary and travel-phone?

I _think_ you would need a fresh iCloud account (thus losing access to purchased apps and subscriptions). You also need to manually create fresh social media accounts, copy over contacts, etc.?

Any advice on how to automate this process or is this just a 2-4 hours exercise you do before your trip?

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

#234

Post by thecrash »

sire-vc wrote: post #226

To everyone who thinks this is somehow a violation of rights: if you were being questioned by border officers, and were asked 'Sir could you please open your suitcase', and you pressed a button that caused it to burst into flames, there isn't a country in the entire world that wouldn't arrest you on the spot. Why would 'wipe a phone when officer requests it opened' be treated any differently? Suspicious behaviour is…

It doesn't sound like this person pressed any buttons. They were pressured to provide a PIN or be delayed and further harassed. They obliged, and agents decided to enter it to attempt a warrantless search of the phone.

It's not stated, but probably we can assume the person didn't ask for his phone to be searched - probably he asked NOT for it to be searched, at least based on his multiple requests to talk to his lawyer.

Considering those factors, I'd say border patrol is more responsible for wiping the phone than the person.

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

#235

Post by [deleted] »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #220

I suspect that this will ultimately be thrown out for a very simple reason which is that the government will have to prove that a duress PIN was actually entered. That is going to be quite difficult unless the person charged openly admitted it. The reason is because anyone running an os with a duress PIN that has done nothing wrong can be accused of using a duress PIN because the whole point of the duress PIN is that…

[deleted]

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

#236

Post by rock_artist »

For non-graphene users (eg. Boring iPhone people like me).

So there’s a feature called Duress PIN which as explained through some comments means you put a different pin which intentionally wipes the phone. It’s not auto wipe or wipe after several failed attempts but intentional wipe of device. (Worth explanation as the current title nor the article doesn't easily explain this was made by the US citizen providing the alternative passcode)

For more technical details:

> GrapheneOS provides users with the ability to set a duress PIN/Password that will irreversibly wipe the device (along with any installed eSIMs) once entered anywhere where the device credentials are requested (on the lockscreen, along with any such prompt in the OS).

https://grapheneos.org/features#duress

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

#237

Post by TheTaytay »

sire-vc wrote: post #226

To everyone who thinks this is somehow a violation of rights: if you were being questioned by border officers, and were asked 'Sir could you please open your suitcase', and you pressed a button that caused it to burst into flames, there isn't a country in the entire world that wouldn't arrest you on the spot. Why would 'wipe a phone when officer requests it opened' be treated any differently? Suspicious behaviour is…

Right, but by that rationale, it’s also suspicious to say “no” when they ask if they can open your suitcase. Or decline to tell them where the key is. Or ask to speak to your lawyer first. Or refuse to tell them what is in the suitcase. Or lock the suitcase in the first place. And I want to live in a society where those behaviors are protected.

(1password has a “traveling” mode that wipes it of sensitive passwords before going across borders. Is that suspicious? Should it be criminalized?)

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

#238

Post by nearbuy »

morkalork wrote: post #101
gruez wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Destroyed materials that might be relevant to an investigation that you know exists.

Hmmmm sounds like the government can launch endless bs investigations, wait for their target to throw something (anything, a piece of paper, whatever) in the trash then charge them with destruction of evidence. A infinite guilty-change glitch if you will.

What you're describing is malicious prosecution or abuse of process. It's illegal and it would destroy the prosecution's case. Not only that, but the victim could sue for damages.

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

#239

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #221
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…

Not a lawyer, but destruction of evidence would only be valid if there was first some reasonable suspicion of a crime? Is that right?

This is my core question as well. At what point do you have to maintain property so the government can use it to testify against yourself?

If I have a dash-cam, and I wipe the SD card, can the government imply that because I erased the card, it must prove that I was speeding? The dash-cam automatically over-writes old footage - perpetually destroying evidence.

Given nebulous cases such as "hacking" a site by looking at the HTML[0], am I destroying evidence of crimes whenever I format my PC? I hope the government requires specific charges and more proof of a crime other than missing evidence. Say I destroy my diary - can the government claim that is the key evidence where I confessed to being the gunman on the grassy knoll?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28992667

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

#240

Post by anonymousiam »

There was no warrant, nor any court order compelling him to provide the unlock code. They had no probable cause, other than that they had labeled him a "terrorist" because of his political activities. The CSAM pretext was provably just a pretext. If he gets good representation, he should be able to (eventually) beat this rap.

If he had simply refused to provide the unlock PIN, he would have walked away. They may have kept his phone, but they would never have got anything from it anyway.

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