Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search

techspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

851–860 of 1001 posts

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

#851

Post by drop_star »

aucisson_masque wrote: post #538
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…

> 1. Don't travel with anything you can't afford to lose on device. This means setting up travel-specific password managers and hardware keys for a subset of your accounts that you absolutely need to access while abroad, and being prepared to reset those passwords and disable those hardware keys very quickly once home. > 2. Review past legal cases against travelers and identify what behaviors the government considers…

> Just don't go to the usa

As a Canadian. I won't be going there for a long time

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

#852

Post by ncr100 »

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…

Me solving technical problems without motivating requirements:

Can you just like have the graphene OS device wipe itself if it knows that it's going through a border and you haven't logged into the device in 24 hours?

Or maybe, Enter into a precipitous one false move mode, where it's just about to wipe itself if the 24 hours elapses, And it does wipe itself if someone doesn't put in a code the next time the device recognizes that is being handled, within like 90 seconds of being picked up?

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

#853

Post by EvanAnderson »

wat10000 wrote: post #839
MetroWind wrote: post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can just ask you to unlock it for them.

They can ask, yes. And I can refuse. They can’t detain me more than temporarily, and they can’t prevent me from entering the country.

I'm afraid to leave the country precisely because I worry about difficulties upon return. I understand that as a citizen I can't be denied reentry, but I also understand they can make the process extremely difficult or uncomfortable if they want to and I have little or no recourse.

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

#854

Post by gck1 »

Lio wrote: post #649
raxxorraxor wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would prefer to backup and wipe my phone before travelling. Then have some planned means of restoring the backup when it's safe to do so. Being caught with a honeypot looks much worse than being caught with a new phone. You can always say you bought a cheap "travel" phone if asked.

Its such a shame Android's backup/restore is such a mess, even more so in GrapheneOS. I remember the era before Google and manufacturs started cracking down on bootloaders and custom ROMs - I used an app that could do effective, actually full backup and restore in single click.

Good times.

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

#855

Post by lgl »

nxc18 wrote: post #804
mattlondon wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in these situations your absolute best bet is fawning compliance. Ask precisely how high they want you to jump. Perhaps your friendly smiling Yes-Sir-No-Sir-3-bags-Full-Sir act might just be enough to let you get on your way without anything else happening apart from a stamp in your passport. Even the slightest hint of defiance or surliness from you to a border guard/policeman/etc - potentially at the end of…

It’s weird how few people understand that just being courteous/polite eases most encounters considerably. Absolutely astonishing seeing people try the “I’m going to be as annoying as humanly possible” to the guy with the gun with the “my YouTube lawyer says I can” defense. You don’t want to have to defend your civil rights in court. This goes doubly when at immigration where you basically don’t have rights. This guid…

Politeness is the correct behavior on most walks of social life, but on this case it's a bit like the "turn the other cheek" approach, but in this case, it's turn the other butt-cheek because you're being effed in the A.

Also, you do have rights, but don't seem to really care a lot about them since, in the face of unlawful and oppressive demands by overreaching authorities, your suggestion is to be courteous with the oppressors for some reason.

"Land of the free, home of the brave"

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

#856

Post by NoGravitas »

refurb wrote: post #222
incompatible wrote: post #32

One of the GrapheneOS people (I think) suggested keeping a bit of paper in your wallet with the duress pin, perhaps thinly disguised. Then the cops could try it on their own initiative. I suppose they'd become aware of that trick eventually, but then they wouldn't be able to use all those other genuine pins they find.

A far better approach is for the US citizen to simply say "I chose not to provide my PIN". The officer will say something like "That's your choice, but I will need to seize the device to conduct an analysis. It will be returned once the analysis is complete". Then you shrug, and they will let you enter the US. The cops will try to get into the phone, fail, and return it to you. Just bring a phone you don't mind losin…

You shouldn't count on the phone ever being returned to you, at least not in working order. Otherwise, yeah.

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

#857

Post by feoren »

wesleywt wrote: post #360
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…

What is sus as hell is the US government. It is incredible how people here are accepting things that was outrageous a few years back.

> people here are accepting things

Question: what does not accepting these things look like? Because voting, protesting, donating, and lawsuits haven't gotten anywhere. What are you suggesting we actually do?

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

#858

Post by alwa »

tmp10423288442 wrote: post #806
throwawayffffas wrote: post #797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 2 cases routine inspections and targeted investigations. If it's a routine inspection, being uncooperative will probably lead them to escalate. You generally want to keep things routine and boring. If they want to access your device you have to weigh the costs, just log out of everything before you fly and throw away your device after they have had access to it, it's now compromised. If you are targeted you…

> I am not a lawyer but if you are a citizen they probably can't deny you entry but can probably detain you for an uncomfortable amount of time, and seize whatever they want. Your best defense is to have a burner phone and no other devices nothing they can seize that would hurt you. Even having a burner phone without any personal information on it can be deemed suspicious. It would be best for your phone to have a re…

Suspicious, maybe; but not criminal (like lying to a federal officer in the course of an investigation, or willfully destroying what they’re lawfully trying to search).

Probably even more suspicious if you make sketchy excuses when the truth is fine. I’d go with “I (or %COMPANY%) figure electronic devices get imaged at borders or potentially stolen abroad, so we don’t carry them when we travel.” Blame the other country you’re coming from if you want.

Although I’d just not carry a phone across a border in the first place.

Related, regarding the “hiding a partition on a thumb drive” thing (8 days ago, 287 / 166; project is cool but note that tptacek and others in the comments know what they’re talking about):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48974862

And the immortal words of James Mickens come to mind:

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf

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

#860

Post by idontwantthis »

anduril22 wrote: post #37

As a citizen the safest way is to just refuse. They can’t refuse entry. Not the same for LPRs.

Also not a good idea if you are a citizen with non-citizen family. I assume at this point that anything on my record will come back to haunt them.
Post reply on HN