How can they prove that? What if it was a glitch?

jeroenhd 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That shouldn't be too hard. Get someone from Google or someone with any tech knowledge to explain to the judge how phones normally work, what encryption keys are, the implications of wiping an encryption key, and then get someone to show the difference between entering a normal PIN wrong several times and entering the duress PIN. You just need to convince the jury (or judge, if there is no jury for whatever reason).

People have gone to jail or have been executed for less than a glitch. Theoretically a highly charged particle from space could've messed with exactly the right transistors exactly when entering the correct PIN and trigger the wipe process. There is no way to prove that didn't happen. But you don't need that kind of proof.

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tosti 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Right, the halting problem means one can hardly prove anything at all when it comes to software.

	▲	bot403 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Sure buddy. And the uncertainty principle means you can't prove I was at the scene of the crime. The fact phones don't usually wipe themselves will be plenty good for a judge. Btw: Regardless of the above I support this guy's right to protect his private data from baseless and unreasonable searches. He should not be charged with a crime.
	▲	bena 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		No, it means there is no general solution to the problem of proving software correct. You can prove if a specific program will halt or not given certain parameters. You cannot write an algorithm that will work to prove if any arbitrary program will halt.