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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

#851

Post by inigyou »

kube-system wrote: post #426
panny wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think for a moment. What is the difference between giving them a password which wipes the phone and giving them a password which opens a blank phone? It's the same thing. They punched in a code, they are presented with a wiped phone. Can they prove the guy gave them a distress password and wasn't simply carrying a wiped phone to begin with? No, but they just need to imply that is the reason to charge him with the fel…

> What is the difference between giving them a password which wipes the phone and giving them a password which opens a blank phone? > It's the same thing. They punched in a code, they are presented with a wiped phone. No, the behavior between the two is in fact visibly and obviously different. The regular passcode unlocks the phone. The duress passcode reboots the phone and resets it. I know this because this is lite…

You can say it was a wiped phone to begin with, and that may work in court. They're welcome to have evidence it wasn't true, but whether they actually have that evidence is up in question.

But it's irrelevant in this case because the guy confessed.

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

#852

Post by inigyou »

convolvatron wrote: post #325
teiferer wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tyranny does not care about "proof". It doesn't even care about plausible deniability. Best you can get away with is lack of suspicion. Have a secondary phone with some standard apps on that you use now and then so theyhave a history and just look like you are just not a technical person and read novels on dead trees instead. A lot of work but likely works.

are we seriously approaching a point where its quasi-illegal to not participate in the socials?

We are already there. Border cops have been searching people's socials to see what you think of Trump and denying entry if you don't like him or if you don't have enough socials or don't let the cops search them. This was a year ago.

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

#853

Post by gottorf »

fn-mote wrote: post #805
flanked-evergl wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What relevance does that have here, though? Most countries that are actually signatories don't even adhere to it. The UN is totally feckless and hypocritical, and even if they were not, they are antidemocratic.

> What relevance does that have here, though? It is a moral statement, not a law. The poster is arguing that the US is behaving in an immoral manner. The basis for their argument is the Declaration of Human Rights.

The UDHR is full of statements that wouldn't even be agreed upon in a room full of people in the US, let alone around the whole world:

> The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Social progressives would strongly disagree.

> Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

Communists would strongly disagree.

> Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

Several UN member states that are absolute monarchies would strongly disagree.

We could go on and on. The UDHR is just a distillation of the postwar liberal consensus, voted on by only 58 countries back in 1948. Hardly the stuff that moral authorities are made of.

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

#854

Post by inigyou »

wat10000 wrote: post #822
panny wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think for a moment. What is the difference between giving them a password which wipes the phone and giving them a password which opens a blank phone? It's the same thing. They punched in a code, they are presented with a wiped phone. Can they prove the guy gave them a distress password and wasn't simply carrying a wiped phone to begin with? No, but they just need to imply that is the reason to charge him with the fel…

They could be indistinguishable in theory, but looking up some videos of the process, it appears that GrapheneOS doesn't try to make the duress pin process look like your phone was just blank the whole time. It says "wrong pin" and then the whole thing resets.

That still seems plausibly deniable enough if the cops aren't taking careful notes. Which is a gamble,but you still shouldn't confess.

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

#855

Post by inigyou »

gblargg wrote: post #531

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.

Graphene thought of this but concluded there's no way to make it plausible enough and properly secure.

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

#856

Post by eugene3306 »

talon8635 wrote: post #837
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…

So, how easy is this today on computers? If I have an Ubuntu 26.04 machine running, I can easily image the entire thing, completely wipe the machine, then reinstall from a flash drive and it behaves as if nothing happened? This isn’t my territory, so excuse my ignorance, but I’d love to know how

easy! google "archwiki dd" scroll to 2.2

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

#857

Post by Cider9986 »

ux266478 wrote: post #662
Cider9986 wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not physically possible[1] to be deniable and a bad[2] idea. [1] https://veracrypt.io/en/Wear-Leveling.html https://veracrypt.io/en/Trim%20Operation.html [2] https://nitter.net/GrapheneOS/status/2082153517234676150#m

I think you are vastly overestimating the amount of analysis that border guards are capable of.

Once it's a known feature, analysis finding out about it would be added to commercial forensic tools. Given the first two links, simply hooking up a computer to the unlocked phone would allow Cellebrite to give border guards the information that you are using a hidden partition in a user friendly UI.

For example, documents like this[1] document any features that law enforcement should be aware of.

[1] https://www.swgde.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025-08-21-...

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

#858

Post by inigyou »

doh wrote: post #590
gblargg wrote: post #531

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…

Why does Apple allow this app to exist, when it banned Iceblock?

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

#859

Post by inigyou »

otterley wrote: post #699
gblargg wrote: post #531

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.

Let’s not devise ways for people to break the law while evading detection, shall we?

Let's. "When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty."

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

#860

Post by inigyou »

otterley wrote: post #697
seanhunter wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want actual legal advice pay for an actual lawyer. You aren’t going to get it asking a bunch of randoms on a tech forum. Since we’re techies we tend to think about technological nuances and have a certain literal frame of mind (eg “They can’t make it illegal for me to just type the wrong pin” is the type of thinking I’m talking about here) whereas in law weird precedents and your intent really matter so you re…

I am a lawyer (this is not legal advice) and agree with the main thrust of this comment. The law is not “hackable.” Ultimately people are making decisions about guilt and punishment. And judges really, really don’t take kindly to defendants who think they’re trying to outsmart the court.

At the same time, courts regularly get outsmarted without knowing it. The key is that they don't know it. Right? So don't brag about how you outsmarted the police or the courts, especially not to the police or the courts. I am not a lawyer and you are, but I hope I'm right about this point.
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