  According to The Guardian, the US Department of Justice is prosecuting Atlanta resident Samuel Tunick after he allegedly gave a GrapheneOS duress PIN while border agents were trying to search his Google Pixel phone.

It sounds like he did give them the password, but it was the password to wiping his phone and not unlocking it. I'm surprised they didn't back up the device first.

▲ prmoustache 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

From what I understand he was not formally arrested at the time, just interrogated at the border. I am not familiar with US laws but from what I understand the device was not (yet?) considered evidence in an investigation. I imagine backing up might not be as easy an option without tearing down the device as the memory chip is no the device mainboard, so not something you can necessarily do on the side of the road or at a border without a formal warrant/investigation.

	▲	evan_a_a 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Border searches are special case in US law where the 4th amednment protections aren't as strong. See the EFF page about it for more: https://www.eff.org/issues/border-searches

▲ riedel 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is really an interesting case. Hope to see a ruling here. The edge cases are really interesting as well, like the fake pin on the back of the phone. I also wonder generally about the 'destruction' of data Wouldn't the government need to prove that there is no backup, because just making it more difficult (like hiding) would probably not call for the paragraph. Unfortunately for the rest of us the defence is based on more proven grounds. I guess only plausible deniability is helpful: I e.g. would love to see my trusted android space being empty/recreated on false password.

	▲	Terr_ an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> The edge cases are really interesting as well, like the fake pin on the back of the phone. "Your honor, I have the real pin memorized because I use it all the time, but since I can never use the duress code, I had to keep it somewhere handy." Or "Pickpocketing and phone-snatching is a real problem overseas, I put it there so that criminal would wipe the phone trying to get in, denying them access to things like my bank account." Heck, those aren't just plausible, they might be a good idea.

▲ ludicrousdispla 15 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So, technically, the border agents wiped the phone. I wonder how specific their request was of Tunick when they asked for the password.

▲ cryo32 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My trick there is not travelling to the US.

I carry a burner phone when travelling most of the time anyway. It has access to email only, 99% of which is in offline folders anyway.

▲ jcul an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm not sure it would have been that easy for them to back it up.

Depending on his settings.

You can disable the usb port entirely if you like, so that it is only possible to charge the device by switching it off. Or enable charging only when unlocked etc.

Or if his device had rebooted I don't think it would be possible to extract anything.

▲ microtonal 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It sounds like he did give them the password, but it was the password to wiping his phone and not unlocking it. I'm surprised they didn't back up the device first.

The duress password does not wipe the phone. It wipes the encryption keys from the secure element. The phone's storage is the backup, but it is worthless, unless law enforcement has an attack against AES that does not require a brute force attack (unlikely).

▲

Dylan16807 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Oh please. That's not a real distinction. The phone as a unit, flash plus enabling chips, is wiped in an unrecoverable way.

And the primary copy is not a backup.

	▲	microtonal 23 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This site is called Hacker News :), people might just want to learn how it works technically, so I think it is worth mentioning technical differences. Also, it does make a small difference in practice. Erasing keys is pretty much immediate, while erasing storage can take some time (especially for phones with larger storage), so the attacker could still try to power down the device in some way to avoid all storage gets wiped.
	▲	inigyou 39 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It might be a real legal distinction, but probably not.

▲ imkac 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Backup is useless without security chip.