Why did he do this?
Really, if this is a way to protect your privacy, then it's a bad way because it causes such a scenario. Of course it works well against the stolen phone scenario, but not again "state authorities suspect me". Especially if this is the authority of some authoritarian state, where your rights do not really matter.
Maybe he did this as a protest act?
US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
661–670 of 1001 posts
Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
#662One clean implementation of this is to wipe everything on the 2nd password failure.
Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
#663Sort of feels like he should have wiped it right away, not after they seized it (by giving them the “wipe me” passcode). No idea if that’s how the law works, just my gut reaction.
Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
#664I 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…
> you may have to think both about protecting your data by technical means, and about not angering the agents more than you plan to That's the same problem with technical solutions to crime. I come from a very dangerous city and I used to have a car that needed a PIN to work. You could turn then engine on and drive but after a minute if you didn't input the PIN it would turn off without warning and start blasting the…
And there's the problem that if the PIN or worse a biometric version of this becomes remotely well known you've now created an incentive for a car thief to kidnap people even if they only want the car.
Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
#665Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Federal prosecutor success rate is over > 90%. This is a misunderstood statistic. Federal prosecutors won't even pursue cases unless they think there's a high chance of success. They don't operate like two private parties suing each other to force the court to decide something. If the evidence is there or the charges aren't fully formed, they don't waste resources on it. This leads to a contradictory set of complai…
> Federal prosecutors won't even pursue cases unless they think there's a high chance of success. Given the incarceration rates compared to average western standards, that's a moot point. Even if they selectively pursue, they do pursue a hell of a lot, and they do get a hell of a lot of convictions - relatively. Factor in the severity of the convictions, also much worse compared to average western standards even for…
"also much worse …"
Why is convicting and sentencing criminals a bad thing?
Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
#666Wiping could be the last resort. Instead how about auto creating a new profile! As far as I remember Android profiles isolate apps, files, and system data and providing a fresh environment without erasing the device. To make it feel more authentic there could also be an option to automatically install a few commonly used apps by default. Thats it. (assuming the officials don't have time for an thorough inspection)
There are forensic tools that can probably bypass those. I don’t think the agent is just going through your phone by using the phone itself, though maybe it is that stupid, idk.
Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
#667Earlier 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…
Yeah, but without a jury O.J. Simpson never would've walked out of court a free man. For example in Europe when someone dies somebody always has to go to jail, even if they were defending themselves or responding to a potential threat. A jury could show compassion or empathy. Judges are extremely stoic in that regard.
The well-known country of Europe with its single set of laws? That Europe?
Self-defence can be a valid justification for manslaughter, at least in the UK.
Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
#668AFAIK border agents can even clone your device if they deem it necessary.
Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
#669Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a shame that the US appears on that list now.
Half of Europe does, it's just that everyone talks about the US like it's a special case because those searches happen routinely. It's legal to search a phone without reasonable suspicion at airports in the UK under the Terrorism act 2000 (pre-9/11!)
I really hate that these kinds of justifications almost always ends up to serve as a push for acceptance through apathy of the status-quo, as opposed to fueling that outrage that pushes for positive change.
Re: US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
#670Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve been arguing against some LLMs about this point for a good hour and there’s a whole lot of linking intent to action where you can be liable if a court can prove it. Not that an LLM is legal gold but it’s the best thing I have to pass ideas around with. The entire situation is sort of nonsensical and boils down to lots of minutia in law that no normal person would know about. For example having normal widely know…
> I’ve been arguing against some LLMs about this point for a good hour One of the most depressing things I've read on here
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