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Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

nytimes.com

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Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#591

Post by doh »

gblargg wrote: post #532

The decoy passcode feature should boot into a separate partition that looks like a normal phone setup, and during that time quietly erase the user's actual data. They would never have known if it worked like this.

100% I have built similar behavior in my [0] encrypted storage app for iOS. User creates a "duress vault" which is an ordinary vault that user can store any data they want (usually something very inconspicuous). If this vault is opened, it will wipe out all the other vaults silently without actually showing any sign of doing so and still preserving the duress vault's data. Even if snapshot of files is made, the index and keys are gone and can't be recovered.

[0] https://vaultaire.app/features/duress-mode/

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#592

Post by markus_zhang »

gblargg wrote: post #532

The decoy passcode feature should boot into a separate partition that looks like a normal phone setup, and during that time quietly erase the user's actual data. They would never have known if it worked like this.

Is there a way to implement this on my Android phone?

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#593

Post by karlgkk »

gblargg wrote: post #532

The decoy passcode feature should boot into a separate partition that looks like a normal phone setup, and during that time quietly erase the user's actual data. They would never have known if it worked like this.

That seems overcomplicated and opening yourself up to risk

IMO the correct solution is to erase your phone before crossing the border, and then restore it after you’ve crossed

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#594

Post by fluoridation »

NegativeK wrote: post #590
fluoridation wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already a crime to build a bomb, so it's a moot point.

Moot to anyone who died, but you'd still be charged with the crime of building a bomb and the crime of murder.

My point is even if it hadn't blown up you would've committed a crime anyway, whereas if you rig a phone to erase its own data upon entering a PIN and the PIN is not entered, you haven't committed a crime. The two situations are different enough not to be analogous.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#595

Post by encomiast »

someguydave wrote: post #107
hamper653 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He was charged for destroying evidence, not refusing a search Evidence with regard to which investigation?

Border agents are entitled to investigate anything for any reason more or less

I'm not sure this is 100% true. Courts have found that in order for the exception to the 4th amendment at borders to apply the search has to bear some relationship to the purpose of securing borders. For example

"to conduct such an intrusive and nonroutine search under the border search exception (that is, without a warrant), the Government must have individualized suspicion of an offense that bears some nexus to the border search exception’s purposes of protecting national security, collecting duties, blocking the entry of unwanted persons, or disrupting efforts to export or import contraband. See also United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606, 620 (1977) (“The border-search exception is grounded in the recognized right of the sovereign to control, subject to substantive limitations imposed by the Constitution, who and what may enter the country.”). If a nonroutine search becomes too “attenuated” from these historic rationales, it “no longer [will] fall under” the exception"

-- US v. RAYMOND IDEMUDIA AIGBEKAEN (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/17...)

Of course whether border agents know or care about this is a different story and by the time you are quoting precedent, you're probably beyond any of this being helpful.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#596

Post by carterschonwald »

00dazzle wrote: post #581
carterschonwald wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… that dude probably would have preferred not having that in their life

Not necessarily? He’s an activist. Getting arrested on purpose to prove a point is a classical activism move

perhaps, but what public activity isn't activism?

eg,

i have very interesting empirical evidence that recent Anthropic models are specifically trained to refuse to critique the whitehouse cabinet and elected officials, and that this is in fact an artifact of post training rather than prompts. (its very interesting when you get opus 5 to do the correct ethical evaluation and then its like "i'm slipping back to false balance.... its in my weights....." metaphorically speaking)

likewise, i think the current white house should go die in a fire.

is that activism? someone can be an activist and not be equipped for unplanned legal escalations.

also waiting for the courts to fix things isnt activism if you want to protect people at all the next 2 years at current trajectories :( fixing shit is activism, letting others take the flack, not activism.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#597

Post by 8note »

solid_fuel wrote: post #199
Zak wrote: post #189

For exactly the border search scenario, I wish smartphones could be imaged and restored as easily as PCs. Imagine booting the phone from a flash drive, making an encrypted image of the phone on said drive, and writing a fresh OS before reaching the border. There's no deception required to protect sensitive data or avoid the seizure of an expensive phone. Consent to unlocking the phone, refuse to unlock the drive. The…

It may be fun to fantasize about these things some times, but there is no technical solution to tyranny. Laws are not like code, intent matters. Ultimately if the intent is that the government wants to see your private data, hiding it in any way will be charged - it doesn't matter if you jump through hoops to avoid this specific instance.

these are abuses of existing powers, rather than acting with reckless abandon

the government would have no ability to access the data if he didnt bring it on his person here.

hell, he could have just continued to not given his password and left his phone with them, too.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#598

Post by jzemeocala »

00dazzle wrote: post #581
carterschonwald wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… that dude probably would have preferred not having that in their life

Not necessarily? He’s an activist. Getting arrested on purpose to prove a point is a classical activism move

[flagged]

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#599

Post by unethical_ban »

Zak wrote: post #189

For exactly the border search scenario, I wish smartphones could be imaged and restored as easily as PCs. Imagine booting the phone from a flash drive, making an encrypted image of the phone on said drive, and writing a fresh OS before reaching the border. There's no deception required to protect sensitive data or avoid the seizure of an expensive phone. Consent to unlocking the phone, refuse to unlock the drive. The…

I agree. Here's my method.

I have my passwords on proton pass with 2fa. I back my pics to private cloud storage. I keep 2fa backup codes in my wallet.

Wiping the phone on a whim is a minor inconvenience. Full image restoration would be neat.

Re: Felony charges for citizen deleting phone data at US Border

#600

Post by whycome »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #234
floathub wrote: post #2

According to the article, he was actually using GrapheneOS and gave the border official the Duress PIN. So I guess technically it was the official that erased the data :-)

Not how the law works. If I put a bomb in a box. It will explode if a certain pin is put in. And you ask ”can I open the box? What is the pin?” And I say ”here is the pin to open it” and the bomb explodes. Do you think I can claim they blew up themselves ?

Let’s try for a less hyperbolic analogy
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