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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

#591

Post by Zak »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #573
saalweachter wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smarter thing to do is to just wipe your phone of everything you don't want border patrol to see before going to an airport.

With self-hosting, it's possible to easily bootstrap a clean phone with all your data and passwords from scratch, without relying on any third-party cloud services. The only thing you need to bring across the border is your brain (which contains the most basic information on how to set up your password manager) and maybe some kind of 2FA generator. Your password manager then contains all the other information you nee…

Possible, yes. Easy, not so much. Phone operating systems don't really place nice with local backup and restore, which I consider a serious flaw.

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

#592

Post by ozim »

eru wrote: post #564
ozim wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is „are you sure you marked for deletion all the correct things” because you could have already deleted it before traveling or moved to other device you don’t travel with. Selection on border control might be arbitrary, they can hold you or send you back over a photo or something you wouldn’t think should be a problem. Ideally you would like to have all wiped just in case but then you really stand out…

That's why you do it the other way round: you mark things that you don't want deleted.

That is not really making any difference if you can prepare beforehand

and

you can’t be sure which things can get you in trouble.

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

#593

Post by unparagoned »

Sammi wrote: post #410
IshKebab wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I guess what you really want is a duress PIN that loads into a fake innocent profile.

Or that just selectively wipes only stuff you have marked for deletion. That way the profile stays up to date and believable.

Deleted stuff can easily be recovered. I think the full clean will remove the encryption keys hence making it unrecoverable.

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

#594

Post by Zak »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #504
jjbinx007 wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Wiping is obviously extremely suspicious and asking for trouble" It's sad this is the default view. It's his device, his data, his life on that phone. If he had wiped the phone before the interrogation it wouldn't be a problem. How long before? A second before? A week before? But wiping the data a minute later is suddenly asking for trouble.

it seems to me that if you give them a password to unlock the phone and when it unlocks it has been wiped that will cause problems whether it is the password that causes the wiping or not?

A US citizen has an almost unlimited right to enter the USA. The border search rule permits officials to search for things that are illegal to import. A blank phone is not illegal to import.

A non-citizen who arrives with a blank phone might be denied entry because it seems suspicious.

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

#595

Post by Blue40 »

IshKebab wrote: post #402
schoen wrote: post #383

I co-wrote a border search guide for EFF some years ago. I was very interested in finding clever technical approaches but I later ended up feeling that I hadn't given enough thought to the overall threat model questions (even though the guide did address them, perhaps even somewhat usefully). The big picture problem is that the agents performing the searches have an enormous amount of power in terms of potentially se…

So I guess what you really want is a duress PIN that loads into a fake innocent profile.

My solution to this on GrapheneOS is having the primary user as the dummy. I have some random apps, photos, a copy of my password manager and 2fa app on there. Enough to look valid if not boring. I do all my day to day on another profile that can easily be deleted, with my password and 2fa I can easily setup the apps I use again later.

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

#596

Post by matwood »

einpoklum wrote: post #448
matwood wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think they should not have this power, but the agents and courts probably don't care that I think that. ... > and about not angering the agents more than you plan to When I was a teenager (long ago at this point), I got into an argument with a police officer over surfing in a certain area. It was pouring down rain, so he was annoyed he had to sit outside and wait for my friends and me to come to shore. Once we go…

Too bad you could not bring that judge up on charges of judicial misconduct - if he indeed told you that the charge against you had no merit, but decided to punish you anyway because he did not approve of your demeanor. ... or otherwise, that people in your community could not apply any counter-pressure to such judicial behavior, in the media and public fora.

To be fair to the judge we all had broken an ordinance about surfing in a certain area. It was enacted to protect swimmers in the summer. With that said, there was a storm with wind, rain, and currents that had pushed us into the area. Obviously there were also no swimmers out.

The ordinance was removed a few years later. This cop was also known to hate surfers. All the small beach town BS you hear about.

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

#597

Post by neumann »

I have a friend who is a peace negotiator in the balkans for 20 years. He has lots of amusing (to my horrifying) stories of cat and mouse interrogations with the FSB etc as he travels between Moscow, Kyiv and the West. He uses threema and signal for most diplomatic conversations, but when he travels he only carries burner phones.

If you don't trust a government, ensure you aren't carrying any information you don't want to give up before entering their borders where you will be under their power.

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

#598

Post by vintermann »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #590
schoen wrote: post #383

I co-wrote a border search guide for EFF some years ago. I was very interested in finding clever technical approaches but I later ended up feeling that I hadn't given enough thought to the overall threat model questions (even though the guide did address them, perhaps even somewhat usefully). The big picture problem is that the agents performing the searches have an enormous amount of power in terms of potentially se…

We probably need honey pod fake OS systems that boots up if not properly handled displaying some stars & stripes as background image and having the US national anthem playing for any sound the OS is trying to play.

This would unironically probably work pretty well. The bullies in airports don't have that much time to investigate a phone which "looks good".

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

#599

Post by sylware »

This grapheneOS may be another scheme from the 'deep FBI'/'services' to get intel on the very, VERY, nasty (terrorists, human traffickers, drug cartels, child stuff, etc). If I recall properly, they did that in the past (it seemed to have worked amazingly).

If so, "normal" police would not have the "keys". This would be "the compromise".

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

#600

Post by criddell »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #452
schoen wrote: post #383

I co-wrote a border search guide for EFF some years ago. I was very interested in finding clever technical approaches but I later ended up feeling that I hadn't given enough thought to the overall threat model questions (even though the guide did address them, perhaps even somewhat usefully). The big picture problem is that the agents performing the searches have an enormous amount of power in terms of potentially se…

Just don't travel to the US.

This person is a US citizen. What happens if he just said nothing (beyond identifying and answering basic questions) and refused to cooperate? How long could they hold him? As a citizen they have to allow him to enter eventually.

According to the ACLU I think this person would have been better off saying little and not wiping their phone.

https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/what-do-when-encounter...

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