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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

#251

Post by RRWagner »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #136
godwinson__4-8 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"U.S. law though is highly non-autistic" hilarious but also another point to emphasize is how truly depressing American courts often are. Take the right to a jury. It sounds noble in theory. But when they say judged by your peers they don't mean your actual peers. It's people who couldn't get out of jury duty. Prosecutors have high success rates. Federal prosecutor success rate is over > 90%. Studies of jury psycholo…

Is the high success rate because they are good at winning or good at picking winning cases? Does that 90% include plea bargains?

I've been on jury duty several times and in each time the entire jury pool was dismissed an hour or so into the morning, with "all cases have been settled". As I was leaving, the official said, "see how efficient we are now?". I replied, "The guillotine is efficient, but it's not justice." Look into Aaron Swartz. The % of cases that go to trial is very small, in no small part because plea bargaining is no bargain at all. "Plead guilty and we'll do the minimum (whether you're actually guilty or not), or go to trial and we will seek the maximum sentence, which could be 30 years in prison. What's your answer?"

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

#252

Post by zugi »

rock_artist wrote: post #236

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…

That's a nice feature, every OS should have that.

I believe the old TrueCrypt had two passwords, each revealing a different set of files. You'd put e.g. your tax forms in one, so if forced to decrypt your drive, you could cooperate and do so.

It's not illegal to delete your own vacation photos. So to prove this guy guilty of destruction of evidence, does the government need to prove there was actual evidence in the phone?

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

#253

Post by thecrash »

kdheiwns wrote: post #178
istjohn wrote: post #161

Perhaps a way to avoid this would be to have the duress pin trigger not a device wipe, but a device encryption with a long, pre-set key that you would store in a safe place when setting up the duress pin. Then you haven't destroyed the evidence, but the data is irretrievable without your cooperation. Also, if you don't actually have the key saved, it would in fact be destroyed, but the prosecutor would have to prove…

This is one of those things the other comment calling the law "non-autistic" is referring to. In the eyes of 99% of people, it's functionally the same thing. "Well teeeecccchhhhnicallyyyyyyyy I still have the data..." isn't going to make the security workers at the airport slap their heads and say "damn, he really got us! Go on through!" No. They'll arrest you just the same for obstructing their search. Then they'll…

You are incorrect, US border patrol can not arrest you for refusing to decrypt your phone (if you are a citizen). It is not considered obstructing a search to refuse to provide a password. This is not "autistic" speculation about legal technicalities, there are many many examples which support this. The worst they can do is seize the device.

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

#255

Post by altmanaltman »

tripleee wrote: post #77
AngryData wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile cops can and do regularly deceive and lie to citizen and not only don't face any consequences but actively benefit from it.

I don't really see a problem with this assuming the deception is used to uncover crimes.

If that is the case, it should still be prosecuted to find out whether the deception was used to "uncover crime" or a crime in itself. Just because we're okay with cops carrying guns and assume they'll only shoot the "bad guys", that still doesn't mean they can escape accountability and should not be held to objective standards. It would ridiculous to just use a "trust me bro" framework for this and hope for the best.

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

#256

Post by SoftTalker »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #164
godwinson__4-8 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"U.S. law though is highly non-autistic" hilarious but also another point to emphasize is how truly depressing American courts often are. Take the right to a jury. It sounds noble in theory. But when they say judged by your peers they don't mean your actual peers. It's people who couldn't get out of jury duty. Prosecutors have high success rates. Federal prosecutor success rate is over > 90%. Studies of jury psycholo…

> Federal prosecutor success rate is over > 90% Prosecutors pick their cases. Defense doesn't. The cases that aren't 90%+ sure aren't charged.

And this is as it should be.

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

#257

Post by za3faran »

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…

> or, in another country, torture or death in prison for obstructing an authoritarian government

Also happens in the US

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

#258

Post by kmeisthax »

TheDong wrote: post #159
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.

"Color" absolutely can be represented digitally; C compilers were doing it before we even knew they were doing it. We just like getting away with shit. It's part of the hacker ethos. Probably.

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

#259

Post by BLKNSLVR »

itake wrote: post #233
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A couple of hour exercise setting up the minimal amount necessary for the travel beforehand. Then once you're at destination, you can set up everything else if you want.

I don't have a lot of "everything else" anyway, so my device would probably look suspiciously 'clean' even if it was my in-this-moment daily driver. (HN is my news and social media). I don't use banking apps, but the irony is that I would need to whilst overseas.

One of the funny things is, I should be able to re-setup any device with an old gmail account at any time in any place, but with all the extra security these days, you need an old device to authorise the setup of a new device. I'm going away early next year, so I'll need to have a dry-run of the setup...

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

#260

Post by _kidlike »

f-serif wrote: post #243
rock_artist wrote: post #236

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…

PIN to wipe seems suspicious. How about a PIN where it login to a patriotic profile and phone looks like normal android.

I had this on a Xiaomi, maybe 10 years ago? Very cool feature! I hope they still do it. I think the wipe feature is also very cool, but not used in this way.
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