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rzk 9 hours ago [-]
I think this has been posted in response to this news story [1] to clarify that GrapheneOS has strong protection against data being extracted even without a duress PIN/password.
On a related note, a recent article [2] also describes how GrapheneOS helped a journalist protect his work and his confidential sources citing the 18-hour auto-reboot feature that returns the device to Before First Unlock (BFU) mode, where keys cannot be extracted.
In regards to your first link, the quote "'It’s concerning – and sends the message that [GrapheneOS] is criminal by default,' said Christophe Boutry, a cybersecurity and surveillance expert." really is leading language. It's stating that protection is criminal and that vulnerability is law-abiding.
microtonal 7 hours ago [-]
This is why it is important to continue iterating everywhere that device security is important for everyone. iPhone has nearly the same level of protection and we also do not see it as 'criminal by default'.
Secondly, it is important to get as many people to use GrapheneOS as possible, including non-tech people. The more widespread it becomes, the harder it will become to paint this picture.
chasil 6 minutes ago [-]
I'm not sure that I agree that iOS devices have equal protection.
The recent Darksword exploit should give everyone pause in asserting that iOS is secure:
I trust iOS with my banking and financial apps in a way that I would never trust Google, but I am under no illusion that any architecture can be completely secure.
On the Linux side, I have found SELinux maddening at times in forcing me to the syslog to enable and permit what I need the machine to do.
I have never seen anything this obstreperous in a BSD, but perhaps I have not looked with sufficient depth.
In any case, the Trust / SELinux / Enforcing status is a sizable advantage against iOS.
mycall 4 hours ago [-]
Perhaps GrapheneOS should just be an ASOP release with implicit security features that makes it hard to notice it is anything different. If people think it is a vanilla Android install, it would give them no reason to imply criminal activity.
Cider9986 3 hours ago [-]
Not worthwhile or feasible. The OS is not designed to hide its identity.
kungito 5 hours ago [-]
sounds to me like iphone isnt actually that safe otherwise it wouldnt make sense. maybe we are missing some critical information
Cider9986 4 hours ago [-]
GrapheneOS seems to be consistently the hardest to exploit AFU based on various Cellubrite leaks. iPhones have better protection than all other Androids except Pixels.
microtonal 4 hours ago [-]
I might be wrong, but I get the impression that the GrapheneOS folks generally recommend GrapheneOS > iOS > Pixel >> everything else.
It might have to do with e.g. Apple having rolled out MIE at a broader scale than Google rolling out MTE on PixelOS, where AFAIK it is still largely opt-in (not 100% sure, I always wipe a Pixel immediately).
Cider9986 4 hours ago [-]
Agree. I didn't mean to say stock pixels are better than iPhones.
K3V1N_FLYNN 4 hours ago [-]
Correct, they have a hard on for that garbage.
inigyou 40 minutes ago [-]
IIRC it was the only one that Cellebrite couldn't break, but this was based on quite old news.
K3V1N_FLYNN 4 hours ago [-]
The iPhone is still more secure than graphene, otherwise it wouldn’t be the only device that NATO approves carrying around information related to them. I also highly doubt it was a coincidence that the iPhone was the device of choice for the Artemis astronauts.
Cider9986 3 hours ago [-]
Perhaps the fact that iPhones are run by a multi trillion dollar company while GrapheneOS is an open source project with less employees than an Apple store has something to do with NATO approval. They are not going to approve a device that people have to install the OS themselves. I would base the security of an OS based on expert security researchers, not certain government agencies decisions.
iPhones are probably the most secure off the shelf phones you can buy, but based on leaked documents it's clearly inferior real-world security compared to a Pixel running GrapheneOS. Apple and Google have copied many security features from GrapheneOS like the reboot timer.
GrapheneOS is built from the ground up with a primary priority placed on security. GrapheneOS has much more robust USB port hardening. You can see the full list of features added on their website. Apple bolts on some additional security features in lockdown mode but they are mostly fixes to Apple's services which have large attack surface like iMessage. Additionally they are all built together and not on by default which makes the users willing to use it way lower.
drnick1 46 minutes ago [-]
Apple can at any time push a hostile "upgrade" that will remove or disable the claimed security features. You don't control the operating system, and can't trust that it isn't backdoored, especially given Apple's record[0].
Any independent reasons for your claim besides appeal to authority?
stef25 3 hours ago [-]
> The iPhone
Probably the latest models. Cop told me they have problems cracking those. Older models not so much, that's pretty common knowledge.
K3V1N_FLYNN 3 hours ago [-]
Sorry, you don’t get to move the goals posts because you don’t like the answer, the iPhone is still more secure than a pixel running graphene, end of story.
Cider9986 3 hours ago [-]
Source: I made it up
4 hours ago [-]
close04 5 hours ago [-]
He’s a “surveillance expert” so the language is not at all surprising. These are the people who always bring up the appeal to emotion, associating a benign act with something unpalatable, criminal, terrorist, think of the children.
When your job depends on not understanding and all that.
ChoosesBarbecue 2 hours ago [-]
I'm fairly certain the person being quoted is saying the opposite of what you've implied - i.e. he thinks it is concerning THAT GrapheneOS is automatically associated with criminality.
close04 10 minutes ago [-]
You’re right, I misinterpreted but now that you mention it it’s like those ambiguous figure images, irreversibly collapsed on the proper interpretation. In this case I can only assume my interpretation of “surveillance expert” is also completely off. Can’t edit, flag away.
5 hours ago [-]
microtonal 8 hours ago [-]
citing the 18-hour auto-reboot feature that returns the device to Before First Unlock (BFU) mode, where keys cannot be extracted.
Also worth mentioning that you can set auto-reboot to a shorter period (down to 10 minutes). So if you anticipate situations where your phone can be seized (border crossings, demonstrations), it's worth temporarily setting this to a short time period (or rebooting your phone yourself to get to BFU).
msh 7 hours ago [-]
I dont understand why people like a journalist working on things they dont want seized would carry this kind of data on their device at a situation like this (border crossing), I see it as more useful to remove that kind of data from the device first.
dugite-code 7 hours ago [-]
Probably because everything seems to be an "app" these days. Even when it has no business being one.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5 minutes ago [-]
There's a financial incentive to do this
It's called "online advertising"
With associated data collection and surveillance
Imagine if using the network for advertising was prohibited
This was the case when I first used the internet
Once this prohibition is lifted, after Silicon Valley adopts "advertising services" as a "business model" out of desperation and "adtech" companies appear, then there is new motivation and capability to use the network for performing data collection and surveillance
inigyou 6 hours ago [-]
Exactly. Everything must be switched to Service as a Software Substitute. It's for your own safety, you see.
xnickb 5 hours ago [-]
So delete messengers, email apps and other comms?
Delete the contact book? Clear calendars?
Where exactly should one stop?
daneel_w 2 hours ago [-]
You're misinterpreting. They mean that there are additional options next to only keeping these things on your phone.
xnickb 53 minutes ago [-]
What am I misinterpreting? OP literally said they don't understand why a journalist would carry these data with them. As if the data is a file on your phone. Data can be a contact book on your phone, or a messenger with E2E encrypted messages. What would the alternative to that be? Sending pigeons?
iamnothere 43 minutes ago [-]
Restoring from remote backup when you reach your destination, then wiping again before you cross borders. Or shipping the (encrypted) data separately and picking it up after safe arrival.
xnickb 36 minutes ago [-]
What's the difference between this and wiping when under duress using the special PIN? If you aren't being checked you don't wipe and are gopd to go.
iamnothere 34 minutes ago [-]
Because you show up with nothing on you, and there’s no way to prove that the backups even exist. Especially given how often people travel with blank/disposable phones.
Just as the border guard can’t require you to fetch something from your house before entry, they can’t require you to restore from a remote backup that they don’t even know about.
inigyou 39 minutes ago [-]
The government can easily get your remote backup, of course. It's just that border control won't know you have one.
iamnothere 37 minutes ago [-]
Not if it’s encrypted and self-hosted. Your doomerism is silly. “The government” is not all-powerful, or they wouldn’t need to pester people for PINs at the border.
xnickb 34 minutes ago [-]
Encryption in this case is irrelevant. If they get the encrypted backup they can already charge you if you don't decrypt it.
Self-hosting is the way obviously
iamnothere 32 minutes ago [-]
Can the border guard go to your house and retrieve something, bring it to the checkpoint, and ask you to do something with it before entry? No. This is out of their legal authority.
Also, you could set up a system where the phone cannot restore the backup on reentry. Perhaps a single use restore key that you use at your original destination, so the restore cannot be performed again until you return home and generate a new code. This evades the (flimsy) charges that were applied in this case.
The best option, however, is to bring a blank disposable device, restore from backup at your destination, then discard the device before you cross the border again.
choo-t 7 hours ago [-]
Because you may need the data in the data during/after your travel and lack clean way to access safely, securely and anonymously remotely.
daneel_w 2 hours ago [-]
No one is stopped from backing up important data. It is, in fact, kind of boneheaded to keep all "valuables" on a single device. I don't understand the scenario of not trusting a device to safely access the Internet or the telephony grid while also insisting that they need a PHONE to keep all their stuff on where they're going, and at the same time somehow trust that both themselves and their possessions are perfectly safe from seizure and extortion in the very same location.
inigyou 38 minutes ago [-]
Personally I just got grapheneos to replace my normal phone. It's nice, it works for the user instead of the advertiser, and its security features help block antiuser features in apps
kotaKat 5 hours ago [-]
This is where we need "cloud phones as a service" / "selfhosting a cellphone at home with some kind of remote access system".
Not even kidding here, it's time to bring out thin client computing to cellphones. Let the spicy stuff sit somewhere else. I could bootstrap a Tailscale or Netbird signin remotely, install the access client, and remote back into the 'normal phone'.
Would be then funny to map that to lockscreen PINs - enter a PIN to unlock the device, be remoted into "phone A", enter another pin and be remoted into "phone B", enter another PIN and you're on the 'local device' session. (Or duress-PIN kill "phone A" if someone attempts to bruteforce PINs, etc, etc...)
drnick1 34 minutes ago [-]
You can already do most of that with GrapheneOS or even an iPhone. My contacts, files, photos, etc. are on my home server, accessed through a VPN. My GrapheneOS phone only runs a handful of open source apps. If I were to lose the phone, I would simply revoke the Wireguard key and there wouldn't be anything valuable left on it.
mystifyingpoi 3 hours ago [-]
> "selfhosting a cellphone at home with some kind of remote access system
You can use TeamViewer for that. Or maybe scrcpy could be coerced into working in a similar way.
podocarp 6 hours ago [-]
What about using decoy profiles? Say before the border crossing you switch to another user. Does that expose keys or anything for other users?
0-_-0 6 hours ago [-]
You would need to hide the existence of the original profile while in the decoy profile for this to work, which GrapheneOS considers too complex to implement
inigyou 36 minutes ago [-]
The only really plausibly deniable way to do it is for every graphene phone to come pre-partitioned for this. E.g. 128GB main + 128GB duress, random selection of whether partition 0 or 1 is the duress partition. But that means giving up half your storage.
You can't even make them different sizes because that gives away which one is duress. You could have more partitions with a static split like 32+32+32+32+32+32+32+32 but then you have to manage so many independent partitions it isn't practical.
What GrapheneOS is missing is a complete backup and restore solution so that people can preventively wipe their smartphone before crossing the border. It would be nice to have the possibility to backup/restore every app and their data from an ssh/sftp server the way google/apple users do with google cloud / icloud. I'd rather wipe my smartphone, only add a couple of direct contacts, a copy of my passport and the pdf of my plane tickets, take the plane and cross the border with a smartphone with very little but real personal data they already know and be able to provide my PIN/password to law enforcement if they ask for it, abiding with law if such a law exist (which is the case in my home country), than using a duress and risk prosecution.
Sure that doesn't protect your data from any other attack vector but it allows you to travel with less risk of getting detained by law enforcement of a country you are visiting. You get asked your password, you can give it, and they see a phone that is used like a dumbphone. If you get questioned for that a simple "my phone died yesterday, a friend just gave me his old pixel". If you need more stuff/information during your travel you would basically only need to remember the passphrase to access a password manager or a remote ssh server but you can restore only the stuff you need when travelling and and wipe again at any moment.
Having said that maybe it is better to set this up some way but not have it builtin so that law enforcement doesn't expect that any grapheneos user would have his data on an sftp server somewhere by default. Otherwise we are back to point 0 where they would ask to connect to it and restore to a phone they own. Oh and have a dummy google account you only used to purchase a couple of silly stuff on amazon, aliexpress and shein and random subscription of various "non risky subjects" on youtube. The gmail address would quickly be filled with enough spam to look genuine.
I am travelling abroad in 3 weeks for a month and I am seriously considering wiping up my grapheneOS phone before flying. I am wary that I could be targeted at a border just for having a google pixel with grapheneOS. Or maybe I should just leave my main phone at home and only travel with a new empty 150€ phone with only my main family emergency contacts. I don't remember ever being asked to show my smartphone at a border but you never know when it will happen. Thanksfully until you reboot it there is nothing that shows from the lockscreen that it is not running the regular google pixel android.
grapheneos 21 minutes ago [-]
GrapheneOS includes an encrypted backup system covering far more data than Google cloud backups. It backs up data for apps opting out of cloud backups with allowBackup="false" since it operates in the device-to-device transfer mode. the backup system supports arbitrary sync services with a compatible API. Backups are per-profile so you can test it by restoring to a secondary user.
We plan to entirely overhaul the backup system but it already works fine. We're in the process of overhauling the other apps first but we'll get to it.
> the project has been taken over by another group of people not sharing our goals or approach
> Seedvault which was originally written for use in GrapheneOS by a GrapheneOS user is a consequence of the 2018 takeover attempt on the project, which the people currently in defacto control of Seedvault were heavily involved in.
Seedvault is currently maintained by the CalyxOS team but I've never heard about this stuff. Does anybody know what happened?
flexagoon 7 hours ago [-]
There has been a lot of conflict between Calyx and GrapheneOS a while ago.
bornfreddy 5 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
subscribed 4 hours ago [-]
Yeah, it's planned for years and years at this point.
Sure I know there are more urgent priorities but at the moment there is no backup for GOS phones. It only works for some people in some situations. For me it never reliably worked, ever.
prmoustache 7 hours ago [-]
Neat, I didn't realize it was still included. I thought it had been abandonned.
So basically one needs a webdav server somewhere or an usb flash drive.
gruez 4 hours ago [-]
The problem is that most apps opt out of backup, so it's effectively useless.
grapheneos 24 minutes ago [-]
Android 12 changed the meaning of allowBackup="false" to opting out of cloud backups. GrapheneOS encrypted backups use the device-to-device transfer mode which includes apps opted out of cloud backups. It's similar to the Google Play data transfer feature, not Google's backup system.
gruez 49 seconds ago [-]
That still doesn't prevent other means that developers have to thwart backups. Chrome and vanadium has a custom backup agent that only dumps out settings, so browsing history and bookmarks aren't backed up at all. I believe firefox is similar unless they changed something recently. Same goes for other apps like signal.
prmoustache 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah I don't even understand why this is even a thing. It should be user's choice, not app vendor/developer's choice.
grapheneos 24 minutes ago [-]
Android 12 changed the meaning of allowBackup="false" to opting out of cloud backups. GrapheneOS encrypted backups use the device-to-device transfer mode which includes apps opted out of cloud backups. It's similar to the Google Play data transfer feature, not Google's backup system.
flexagoon 5 hours ago [-]
I use Seedvault to create a backup locally on my phone, and then sync it to my backup server with Syncthing
Helmut10001 7 hours ago [-]
I use local seedvault backup and then sync via round sync daily trigger to my Nextcloud WebDav Server (native seedvault was not able to use this, for some reason).
SuperShibe 5 hours ago [-]
It's been planned for years...
microtonal 4 hours ago [-]
TTS has also been planned for a while and they released it recently. Donating or helping out is going to do more than complaining on HN.
yjftsjthsd-h 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
sfdlkj3jk342a 2 hours ago [-]
A complete backup is solution that can be stored on my own encrypted servers and restored with a click of a button is really needed.
I always dread the possibility of my GrapheneOS phone being damaged or stolen and having to spend hours reinstalling and reconfiguring everything that Seedvault missed, as well as losing access to accounts that are locked by the secure element keys.
cromka 7 hours ago [-]
I think more useful would be to be able to boot into another data partition with a different password, which, in turn, would hide the other "daily" partition. I believe LUKS is capable of that. The storage dump looks like a random set of data and only a valid password can find and decrypt a matching hidden partition.
Ideally this should also work on lock screen, e.g. if you type in a non-standard PIN, it would boot from the "dummy" partition in the background, with a slight delay perhaps.
This way you don't have backup anything (I mean you should, but for normal purposes) and have a plausible deniability whenever you get randomly inspected, not just at border crossings that you anticipate.
gruez 4 hours ago [-]
>I believe LUKS is capable of that
Booting into a 30 GB partition on a 128GB phone is going to be mega suspicious, even if the remaining data is random.
inigyou 35 minutes ago [-]
Right, it would have to be 64/64 for everyone.
Cider9986 3 hours ago [-]
Not possible to have a robust implementation with the current tech unfortunately.
Having different data partition forces you to hide stuff, which can be unlawful in some juridictions.
Not having the data in the first place in some specific contexts (like crossing borders) is easier.
drnick1 28 minutes ago [-]
> I am wary that I could be targeted at a border just for having a google pixel with grapheneOS.
Is that likely to happen at all in a civilized (Western) country?
DeluluDon 5 hours ago [-]
Remind us what happened when you do cross.
hahn-kev 8 hours ago [-]
Honestly, I feel like I'd be more suspicious of someone who had little to nothing installed on their phone.
prmoustache 8 hours ago [-]
A lot of people are still using their smartphone pretty much as a dumbphone with a web browser.
skitsofrandom 7 hours ago [-]
Yeah but if you're a normal guy strolling through every time with a phone that has nothing- no pictures, no signed in email, no history of messages, 4 contacts. That's abnormal, no way of spinning it as "but I just don't use my phone much" will make that seem normal. The average person has their phone glued to their body 24/7 now. Implying that you don't is abnormal.
hamper653 7 hours ago [-]
"I only ever cross borders with a blank phone because I don’t want you invading my privacy" is a perfectly valid answer. You can also add that it is your employer’s policy and/or your government official recommendation.
Terr_ 7 hours ago [-]
You can also point out that other countries want to search phones too.
"I have to do this because of country X, you know that they're like, amirite?"
stef25 3 hours ago [-]
> a perfectly valid answer
Makes no difference at all in the real world. You don't have to give valid answers, you need to get the guy across from you to not find you suspicious. That phrase is going to put a red flag on you, valid or not.
hamper653 1 hours ago [-]
> you need to get the guy across from you to not find you suspicious.
What? No, who cares about that? Let him find you suspicious, what matters is that he doesn’t access your data. And it is not suspicious to cross borders (esp. US borders) with burner phones. As others have said, it is standard practice.
inigyou 34 minutes ago [-]
He doesn't access your data. He confiscates your phone, then still doesn't access your data, then denies you entry, then still doesn't access your data, then holds you in immigration detention for a week while he tries to access your data, which he can't. Is that a success? Maybe, if your data really is that valuable and a successful border crossing isn't.
hamper653 18 minutes ago [-]
> Is that a success?
Definitely.
> Maybe, if your data really is that valuable and a successful border crossing isn't.
Even if my data consisted entirely of cat pictures, it would be more valuable than successfuly crossing the border into a country that actively tries to invade my privacy.
inigyou 5 minutes ago [-]
Well why are you presenting yourself to that border then
inigyou 6 hours ago [-]
It's one that will get you denied entry, or detained indefinitely.
microtonal 6 hours ago [-]
I have worked for employers that required taking a burner phone to certain countries without any accounts logged in, etc. (so mostly for calls, maps, and web browsing) and nobody has ever been detained or denied entry. Some countries know that this is just standard procedure when they are visited for business trips. Probably different for the US though.
(Not legal advise of course, just observation. Always check with the legal department of your employer, etc.)
hamper653 5 hours ago [-]
> Probably different for the US though.
After cornering themselves into being labeled an unsafe destination (long overdue imho), the US are gonna have to learn being treated as such.
inigyou 2 hours ago [-]
"I'm here for business and my employer requires it" is an acceptable excuse. "I don't like government surveillance" is not.
hamper653 5 hours ago [-]
Denied entry, why not. But detained?
inigyou 2 hours ago [-]
In the USA border they detain people they think are lying until they think they are not lying.
hamper653 1 hours ago [-]
Lying about what? "I only bring a burner phone to border checks because I don’t want people like you to access my data“ is not a lie, and I fail to see how it could be interpreted as such.
3 hours ago [-]
Dusseldorf 4 hours ago [-]
"I got on pickpocketed on my last vacation, so now I travel with an old backup phone instead"
skitsofrandom 3 hours ago [-]
This may feel like a good idea as a “gotcha” justification but it just doesn’t matter. It’s still extremely abnormal and you will stick out. The only way to protect yourself is by blending in, not sticking out.
inigyou 33 minutes ago [-]
I think it would work. It's plausible enough. It doesn't have to be the most common answer to be accepted.
stef25 3 hours ago [-]
Like how many ?
progbits 6 hours ago [-]
Even more of a reason for good and easy backup and restore.
Before travel back up the real contents and restore a dummy travel backup with random games, stock photos etc. Then restore back to real contents.
K3V1N_FLYNN 4 hours ago [-]
This is never going to happen for the same reason Apple and Google won’t let you use different backup/restore methods.
prmoustache 3 hours ago [-]
I looked at snapseed a few hours ago and backup must be done per profile.
So you can totally have different profiles with different backup servers/credentials and decide to nuke one before flying or crossing a border.
Obviously you can't expect having 2 whatsapp or signal accounts on same number but you can always have several SIMs.
The good thing is with profiles you can totally seed a profile for a few weeks before travelling.
XorNot 7 hours ago [-]
Sure but there'd be nothing there.
If the regime is going to just start taking people then nothing will stop that, but the goal is to stop the usefulness of this sort of thing as an intimidation measure - or at least drag it to the forefront and overthrow the regime.
izacus 7 hours ago [-]
The easiest way to avoid suspicion is to have a phone filled with cat and family pictures, dumb apps and games.
You don't avoid scrutiny by being wierd and hiding things, but by hiding in plain sight by being ultra boring.
microtonal 4 hours ago [-]
The easiest way to avoid suspicion is to have a phone filled with cat and family pictures, dumb apps and games.
Presumably they know quite a lot about you already outside your phone (yay, Palantir). I mean, the guy the recent post was about was an activist. An empty phone vs. a phone with just cat pictures and dumb games wouldn't really make a difference. They went on a fishing expedition, so anything that does not have contact information/messages of other activists or any information that they could use against the phone owner would be a win.
(F-you Palantir for reading this message and adding it to my online record.)
inigyou 32 minutes ago [-]
> (F-you Palantir for reading this message and adding it to my online record.)
Hello Palantir. I orchestrated 9/11. Please come and arrest me.
bloak 5 hours ago [-]
On the other hand, if everything about you is boring, that in itself may begin to seem suspicious. "I borrowed this old phone from my stepson because my own phone got run over by a steamroller at a vintage vehicle show" is the sort of thing an actual spy or criminal would never say.
stef25 3 hours ago [-]
Add some dickpicks because who doesn't have something on their phone that they don't want others to see.
inigyou 31 minutes ago [-]
Multiple duress accounts, heh. First one: cat pics. Second one: dick pics. Third one: conversations with an imaginary mistress. Fourth one: porn that's illegal in Korea. Fifth one: ....
completely impractical obviously
ButlerianJihad 8 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
prmoustache 8 hours ago [-]
> So you plan to (1) actively/proactively conceal your data/evidence
I am not concealing data/evidence as it doesn't exists. I don't know of any law in any country that force you to hand out the key of your home to a remote state so that they can enter your country and do a search.
> and then (3) constantly restore from cloud backups?
Why constantly? Only and only if I need to access specific data (that may be available remotely without restore anyway). Full restore only when going back in my own country.
Hikikomori 7 hours ago [-]
It's been normal operating procedure for many employees that travel to the US. You think they're all criminals?
cyberax 8 hours ago [-]
Border officials don't have the right to search all of your data.
You are also not under any obligation to have it on your phone at all times.
K3V1N_FLYNN 4 hours ago [-]
Just like a regular cop, all they need is probable cause.
ButlerianJihad 8 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
prmoustache 8 hours ago [-]
> Correct! Furthermore, border officials have no requirements to allow you into their country either, unless you’re a citizen there,
I'd rather have them tell me to turn back and go home than being jailed there only because I don't want them to fap at the picture of my daughters.
Being prosecuted because your smartphone has been setup yesterday is not the same as being prosecuted because you gave a password that wipe your phone in front of law enforcement.
In the past I have had my smartphone die a couple of days before travelling and quickly buying a smartphone so I could have a mobile line in case of emergency while travelling. This is not a totally uncommon case to have a smartphone with very little data. A lot of people never setup any cloud backup and lose all their data every so many years.
microtonal 8 hours ago [-]
Yeah, the lesson is: do not travel to countries that treat people such in a shitty way. This has always been true. Unfortunately, for many foreigners this also applies to the US nowadays.
I guess that you are out of luck if you are a US citizen and need to return to your own country.
prmoustache 7 hours ago [-]
Do the requirement to put your social account public when applying for a US Visa still applies? I guess the USA do not have that many non US visitors these days because I don't know a lot of women who would agree to that. Almost all my female friends have been experiencing stalking from jealous ex, former colleagues/clients/patients so putting their social media account public would be a complete no-go for them.
How is the tourism industry going?
muyuu 6 hours ago [-]
There was some comment here somewhere arguing that 16 characters for a password is too little, but that he used the pattern lock. Looks like it was deleted.
Anyway. The pattern lock in Android provides Log2(389112) =~ 18.57 bits of entropy. This is less than 3 random characters, or 4 lowercase letters, or a decimal PIN digit password of 6 characters.
Granted, you could use mnemonics for long passwords, but how convenient is to input those long passwords?
I wonder why don't they just allow for longer passwords and just use a hash digest when it's too long, rather than just disallowing people from using strong passwords that they will remember. This pushes people to reuse passwords, send them to themselves, and other bad practices.
grapheneos 38 minutes ago [-]
GrapheneOS supports up to 128 character passwords to support using diceware passphrases. Using a strong passphrase avoids depending on the secure element. A random 6 digit PIN is secure due to the secure element rate limiting. Only a total of 20 attempts are permitted so even a random 4 digit PIN would be fine.
GrapheneOS adds the option to set a 2nd factor PIN for fingerprint unlock to make using a strong passphrase convenient without the downsides of biometric-only unlock.
Pattern lock strongly encouraging using only a tiny subset of the possibilities so it's much worse than your analysis shows. It was removed from GrapheneOS years ago because it's far worse than simply generating and using a random 6 digit PIN despite appearing to be similar. It gives a false sense of security and we didn't want to add support for a duress pattern or random pattern generating alongside those planned features. Built-in random PIN and passphrase generation is still in progress but has been started and will be shipped.
inigyou 30 minutes ago [-]
Thank you for your service.
jeroenhd 2 hours ago [-]
Modern Pixel phones have a TPM-like device that protects against brute-force attacks. Assuming the pattern is non-obvious, an attacker has 20 attempts before the supplementary key material is wiped and the encryption key is lost.
It's theorerically possible to use side channel attacks against the security chip to bypass this, of course, but that requires opening the device and some very precise, damaging operations, assuming the attacker has a known-working side channel attack in the first place.
Cider9986 4 hours ago [-]
>>To make a strong passphrase convenient to use without ruining it with biometric unlock, GrapheneOS adds an optional 2nd factor fingerprint PIN. We reduce the allowed fingerprint attempts from 20 to 5 and failure to enter the correct 2nd factor PIN counts towards it. This enables using 6-8 random diceware words as the main unlock method required in Before First Unlock and fingerprint+PIN using a short PIN for convenience. Using a valid fingerprint prompts to enter the 2nd factor PIN which is needed to complete unlocking the screen and hardware keystore.
Pattern lock isn't exposed to the user afaik because it's insecure.
>I wonder why don't they just allow for longer passwords
They allow up to 128 digit passwords which they changed from AOSP.
I use a long passphrase for primary unlock and it's convenient because you only enter it when you restart.
If you rely on the secure element than 6 digits is fine. A long passphrase ensures you're protected even if the secure element is exploited.
brendyn 5 hours ago [-]
Maybe because it was mistaken. I just set my grapheneos to a 35 character password to test it and it didnt seem to have any issue.
muyuu 5 hours ago [-]
nope it was arguing that this is a difference with stock android and that it is 16 chars there, idk about that though
b112 5 hours ago [-]
Did ypu test using random characters after 30 chars?
usern20260720 6 hours ago [-]
although it is wonderful to know that there exists a piece of hardware in the world that is not conspiring against its users, the outcome of entering a duress password should be indistinguishable to the user that grabs hold of the mobile phone. The duress password should wipe off the real user account information but present the kidnappers with a full-fledged operating system populated with real-looking content to entertain the police officers with polite meaningless e-mails saying things like
> > On Apr 11, 2015, at 5:45 PM, Jim Steyer Hey John, > > > > We know you're a true master of cuisine and we have appreciated that for > years ... > > > > But walnut sauce for the pasta? Mary, plz tell us the straight story, > was the sauce actually very tasty? > > > > > Jim
inigyou 29 minutes ago [-]
That's called a decoy password rather than a duress password, btw
DeluluDon 5 hours ago [-]
That email chain sounds exactly like the TV show Severance
imkac 4 hours ago [-]
From GrapheneOS official account:
Our duress PIN/password feature doesn't pretend that it can stealthily wipe the device. It properly implements what people expect it to do and does it safely. It isn't our role to choose how to use the feature including how to use it in a situation where there are potential consequences to it. We haven't implemented any features which are in any way specific to situations involving law enforcement. We aren't going to give people any legal advice on how to handle situations involving law enforcement. It isn't our role and does not make sense particularly since laws vary so much based on jurisdiction, context and how they're interpreted on a case-by-case basis. If people want legal advice, they should ask a lawyer for it.
It's not possible to provide anything close to plausible deniability for wiping profiles. A deleted profile leaves behind metadata proving it existed in the device encrypted and Owner profile encrypted storage. There are a whole bunch of different ways it can be shown that it existed. ADB can be easily used to identify a wipe occurred and when it occurred. The standard approach used by forensic tools is connecting via ADB and they can easily add support for detecting this. It would be easy for non-experts to figure out how to do it especially with the guidance of a decent LLM. It would put users at risk who believe they can perform a stealthy wipe despite it not being possible. We do not want to provide a feature which cannot come close to working properly.
Android's Private Space has a half-baked feature for hiding that the Private Space is enabled in the user interface for someone without access to the relevant unlock methods or ADB. There are multiple publicly known ways to identify a Private Space is enabled. These aren't treated as significant security vulnerabilities and fixes for it aren't backported to older releases. It isn't practical to cover all possible ways of detecting it even with the limited scope of only attempting to hide it in the user interface and not ADB. We don't plan to remove the feature but don't think it should have been implemented and wouldn't have done it ourselves.
If we implemented a half-baked deniable wiping feature then the flaws would be discussed in this forum, our issue tracker and elsewhere on the internet. It would quickly become known to LLM models, which would be able to assist with detecting it. It would be incorporated into standard forensic tools and guides. This is not an approach we want to take with GrapheneOS.
Our features need to work against adversaries aware those features exist. An adversary aware of the duress PIN/password existing doesn't have a way to tell it apart from a real PIN/password. They'll have to consider if a PIN/password provided to them could be a duress PIN/password even for users who don't use the feature. The feature is now going to be widely known about due to the news coverage and it's still going to work.
On future devices, we want to add duress PIN/password support to the secure element as part of the Weaver rate limiting so it can't even be bypassed with an OS exploit.
ddtaylor 4 hours ago [-]
Does anyone know if the Motorola partnership is still on with GrapheneOS or how long until a phone is made available from them?
Not from someone employed by the project but a frequent contributor.
t1234s 4 hours ago [-]
I always leave my phone and laptop off when going through TSA or Passport Control. I don't think in the US you an be compelled into giving up your password. They are free to confiscate the device but with it powered down good luck trying to break the password.
Cider9986 2 hours ago [-]
Powering down or restarting is ideal because BFU is much more secure.
Although, based on the latest Cellubrite leaks, GrapheneOS can't be exploited in AFU either.
There's also the reboot timer which brings the device to a BFU state. GrapheneOS implemented it and then Google and apple implemented their own version with fixed timers. GrapheneOS's is configurable down to 10 minutes, the default is 18 hours. On iPhones and Androids it's fixed at 72 hours.
One thing I wish they had in GrapheneOS was a faster shortcut to shutdown. Afaik currently you need to press physical button and then confirm on screen.
The point is to at least make them resort to hitting you with the $5 wrench, at which point they're probably committing a more serious offence than what you're up for (dependent on country).
Aachen 3 hours ago [-]
Doesn't have to be a literal wrench right? A government can trivially and legally make you miss the itinerary that made your holiday possible that you've saved up for the rest of the year with no restitution that I'm aware of in any jurisdiction. They can confiscate 'evidence' (any computer and (backup) storage media in your house) for years. They can do a heck of a lot that's more annoying than medium amounts of wrench swinging
And as for street thugs, sure it won't be a wrench, more likely they'll flash a knife and unkindly suggest you remove the lock screen
Taken as a metaphor rather than a literal wrench, you don't think it's accurate?
iamnothere 51 minutes ago [-]
> A government can trivially and legally make you miss the itinerary that made your holiday possible that you've saved up for the rest of the year with no restitution that I'm aware of in any jurisdiction. They can confiscate 'evidence' (any computer and (backup) storage media in your house) for years.
This could be preferable to handing over private data about contacts, communications, sources, client information, etc. Especially if it has life-changing implications for yourself or other people!
inigyou 28 minutes ago [-]
Missing a holiday is usually not such a bad price to save you from whatever the government is considering doing to you.
jeroenhd 2 hours ago [-]
The United States has famously shot and killed protesters in the Vietnam war era. They have dedicated torture facilities for people suspected, not even convicted, of terrorism. Police officers use lethal violence for no reason every month and rarely get more than a talking to.
In a perfect society, your point makes sense, but I don't see why the authorities in the real world would need to care about committing a worse crime.
upofadown 4 hours ago [-]
The point of the comic is pretty obviously to make fun of the expectations of cryptography geeks; you know, the sort of people who use 4096 bit RSA keys for the coolness factor. It is a stretch to imply it is suggesting that encryption is somehow futile.
moffkalast 8 hours ago [-]
You end up getting hit by a wrench though, that doesn't sound like it ends well for you.
iamnothere 2 hours ago [-]
Sounds like something a coward would say, honestly.
XorNot 7 hours ago [-]
Liberty is given up in inches, not miles.
The offenses of a regime at its apex would've led to it being stopped had they started out that way, but they didn't.
What you've hit on is the basic problem of treating privacy as a means to an end though: no level of it protects you from fascism, but it is a means by which fascism can be opposed - in many cases at personal cost to yourself.
In theory I have no secrets, and the contents of my phone or life if public would be of no consequence to me. In practice, when the regime starts flustering itself that I have no secrets for them to reveal the hopefully people will oppose it - or I get a decent warning that it's time to bail.
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 8 hours ago [-]
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 5 hours ago [-]
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:
The alleged charges seem nonsense - destruction of property to prevent seizure? First no property was destroyed, and second they could still seize it. But US courts are a coin toss so it may still work for the government.
riedel 8 hours ago [-]
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_ 7 hours ago [-]
> 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.
cryo32 8 hours ago [-]
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.
microtonal 8 hours ago [-]
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 7 hours ago [-]
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 6 hours ago [-]
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 6 hours ago [-]
It might be a real legal distinction, but probably not.
jcul 6 hours ago [-]
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.
ludicrousdispla 5 hours ago [-]
So, technically, the border agents wiped the phone. I wonder how specific their request was of Tunick when they asked for the password.
dqv 5 hours ago [-]
Yes, it would be interesting if the question was formulated like "we're gonna need a password" and this ends up being a lawyerdog situation. https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/574827
imkac 8 hours ago [-]
Backup is useless without security chip.
CommanderData 3 hours ago [-]
Here's an idea: soft duress PIN that wipes a list of apps of your choice however doesn't make it obvious it's done so.
Or restores app data to a restore point of your choosing making it seem like everything is fine.
Make it untraceable you had it setup and it'll help deal with any potential legal issues.
Cider9986 2 hours ago [-]
Not possible to be forensically safe. They aren't gonna implement a plausible deniability solution that isn't robust because it will give people a false sense of security and put them in danger.
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jdsfijfdsifs 2 hours ago [-]
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saidnooneever 4 hours ago [-]
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Cider9986 4 hours ago [-]
He was put on a watchlist for protesting. I don't think the OS is what caused the unconstitutional detainment.
ksbd-pls-finish 4 hours ago [-]
>it was already pretty much impossible to get an encrypted device past US Customs more than 15 years ago
B-but I did it many times? Or do you mean that it's impossible to refuse providing the decryption key and still pass? That's pretty obvious.
arkhiver 35 minutes ago [-]
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londons_explore 6 hours ago [-]
It's fairly easy to open up a phone and probe inner circuitry.
I suspect that'll be the next step for malicious actors. I doubt very much the phone is fully resistant to having malicious data injected onto various busses.
grapheneos 28 minutes ago [-]
Rate limiting is implemented by a high quality secure element hardened against physical tampering. It isn't implemented by the regular SoC, RAM or the OS. It's not simple to bypass the throttling making a random 6 digit PIN secure.
GrapheneOS adds support for a strong passphrase to avoid depending on the secure element. It also adds the option to set a 2nd factor PIN for fingerprint unlock to make using a strong passphrase convenient via fingerprint+PIN secondary unlock while in After First Unlock state. Only 5 fingerprint unlock attempts are permitting and an incorrect 2nd factor PIN counts towards it so it's hardly a making the device protection weaker. Our PIN scrambling and the duress PIN features can also both be used with the 2nd factor PIN.
iamnothere 2 hours ago [-]
You don’t seem to know much about modern electronics or forensics. “Probing” the “circuitry” isn’t going to get you anything. The devices supported by GrapheneOS keep their encryption secrets in tiny, sealed chips that are strongly tamper-resistant and will erase themselves if you attempt to get to the actual memory cells without specialty equipment. The only labs that can extract information from chips like this are very rare, expensive, and slow, and success still isn’t guaranteed. Plus these labs are going to have a backlog of espionage and military cases; they aren’t going to be working on some random dude’s phone unless he’s a cartel boss.
inigyou 25 minutes ago [-]
This could be your PhD project or get you a job at the NSA. It's possible in principle but much harder than you assume. For instance, all the relevant circuitry is inside a single chip designed to be tamper-proof.
libroot 5 hours ago [-]
This is also relevant if you get the phone back. There could be some nasty hw modifications that could leak data out of the phone in AFU state. Hopefully people in these kinds of situations take this into account. IMO all phones and computers should be treated as unsafe to unlock after they've been seized.
KJs6ZxELzQM37O 3 hours ago [-]
I would not think it is fairly easy. The only real physical attack I can think of is to somehow to remove the delay throttles and brute force unlocking the device. This would be feasible for digits PIN, but not if you include characters.
I am curious if you had something else in mind.
grapheneos 28 minutes ago [-]
Rate limiting is implemented by a high quality secure element hardened against physical tampering. It isn't implemented by the regular SoC, RAM or the OS. It's not simple to bypass the throttling making a random 6 digit PIN secure.
GrapheneOS adds support for a strong passphrase to avoid depending on the secure element. It also adds the option to set a 2nd factor PIN for fingerprint unlock to make using a strong passphrase convenient via fingerprint+PIN secondary unlock while in After First Unlock state. Only 5 fingerprint unlock attempts are permitting and an incorrect 2nd factor PIN counts towards it so it's hardly a making the device protection weaker. Our PIN scrambling and the duress PIN features can also both be used with the 2nd factor PIN.
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Aachen 4 hours ago [-]
If it was that easy, we'd just do that to get access to our own data on these devices. The OEM unlock toggle is a much-desired feature for a reason
On a related note, a recent article [2] also describes how GrapheneOS helped a journalist protect his work and his confidential sources citing the 18-hour auto-reboot feature that returns the device to Before First Unlock (BFU) mode, where keys cannot be extracted.
[1] A US man is being prosecuted after allegedly using a GrapheneOS duress PIN to wipe his Pixel during a border search – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/23/cop-city-pro...
[2] A Journalist had his mobile phone seized. Did using GrapheneOS protect his data? – https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Journalist-Richard-Me...
Secondly, it is important to get as many people to use GrapheneOS as possible, including non-tech people. The more widespread it becomes, the harder it will become to paint this picture.
The recent Darksword exploit should give everyone pause in asserting that iOS is secure:
https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/mobile/2026/03/a-darksword...
I trust iOS with my banking and financial apps in a way that I would never trust Google, but I am under no illusion that any architecture can be completely secure.
On the Linux side, I have found SELinux maddening at times in forcing me to the syslog to enable and permit what I need the machine to do.
I have never seen anything this obstreperous in a BSD, but perhaps I have not looked with sufficient depth.
In any case, the Trust / SELinux / Enforcing status is a sizable advantage against iOS.
It might have to do with e.g. Apple having rolled out MIE at a broader scale than Google rolling out MTE on PixelOS, where AFAIK it is still largely opt-in (not 100% sure, I always wipe a Pixel immediately).
iPhones are probably the most secure off the shelf phones you can buy, but based on leaked documents it's clearly inferior real-world security compared to a Pixel running GrapheneOS. Apple and Google have copied many security features from GrapheneOS like the reboot timer.
GrapheneOS is built from the ground up with a primary priority placed on security. GrapheneOS has much more robust USB port hardening. You can see the full list of features added on their website. Apple bolts on some additional security features in lockdown mode but they are mostly fixes to Apple's services which have large attack surface like iMessage. Additionally they are all built together and not on by default which makes the users willing to use it way lower.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
Probably the latest models. Cop told me they have problems cracking those. Older models not so much, that's pretty common knowledge.
When your job depends on not understanding and all that.
Also worth mentioning that you can set auto-reboot to a shorter period (down to 10 minutes). So if you anticipate situations where your phone can be seized (border crossings, demonstrations), it's worth temporarily setting this to a short time period (or rebooting your phone yourself to get to BFU).
It's called "online advertising"
With associated data collection and surveillance
Imagine if using the network for advertising was prohibited
This was the case when I first used the internet
Once this prohibition is lifted, after Silicon Valley adopts "advertising services" as a "business model" out of desperation and "adtech" companies appear, then there is new motivation and capability to use the network for performing data collection and surveillance
Delete the contact book? Clear calendars?
Where exactly should one stop?
Just as the border guard can’t require you to fetch something from your house before entry, they can’t require you to restore from a remote backup that they don’t even know about.
Self-hosting is the way obviously
Also, you could set up a system where the phone cannot restore the backup on reentry. Perhaps a single use restore key that you use at your original destination, so the restore cannot be performed again until you return home and generate a new code. This evades the (flimsy) charges that were applied in this case.
The best option, however, is to bring a blank disposable device, restore from backup at your destination, then discard the device before you cross the border again.
Not even kidding here, it's time to bring out thin client computing to cellphones. Let the spicy stuff sit somewhere else. I could bootstrap a Tailscale or Netbird signin remotely, install the access client, and remote back into the 'normal phone'.
Would be then funny to map that to lockscreen PINs - enter a PIN to unlock the device, be remoted into "phone A", enter another pin and be remoted into "phone B", enter another PIN and you're on the 'local device' session. (Or duress-PIN kill "phone A" if someone attempts to bruteforce PINs, etc, etc...)
You can use TeamViewer for that. Or maybe scrcpy could be coerced into working in a similar way.
You can't even make them different sizes because that gives away which one is duress. You could have more partitions with a static split like 32+32+32+32+32+32+32+32 but then you have to manage so many independent partitions it isn't practical.
https://veracrypt.io/en/Wear-Leveling.html
Sure that doesn't protect your data from any other attack vector but it allows you to travel with less risk of getting detained by law enforcement of a country you are visiting. You get asked your password, you can give it, and they see a phone that is used like a dumbphone. If you get questioned for that a simple "my phone died yesterday, a friend just gave me his old pixel". If you need more stuff/information during your travel you would basically only need to remember the passphrase to access a password manager or a remote ssh server but you can restore only the stuff you need when travelling and and wipe again at any moment.
Having said that maybe it is better to set this up some way but not have it builtin so that law enforcement doesn't expect that any grapheneos user would have his data on an sftp server somewhere by default. Otherwise we are back to point 0 where they would ask to connect to it and restore to a phone they own. Oh and have a dummy google account you only used to purchase a couple of silly stuff on amazon, aliexpress and shein and random subscription of various "non risky subjects" on youtube. The gmail address would quickly be filled with enough spam to look genuine.
I am travelling abroad in 3 weeks for a month and I am seriously considering wiping up my grapheneOS phone before flying. I am wary that I could be targeted at a border just for having a google pixel with grapheneOS. Or maybe I should just leave my main phone at home and only travel with a new empty 150€ phone with only my main family emergency contacts. I don't remember ever being asked to show my smartphone at a border but you never know when it will happen. Thanksfully until you reboot it there is nothing that shows from the lockscreen that it is not running the regular google pixel android.
We plan to entirely overhaul the backup system but it already works fine. We're in the process of overhauling the other apps first but we'll get to it.
https://grapheneos.org/features#encrypted-backups
https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/4687#i...
> Seedvault which was originally written for use in GrapheneOS by a GrapheneOS user is a consequence of the 2018 takeover attempt on the project, which the people currently in defacto control of Seedvault were heavily involved in.
Seedvault is currently maintained by the CalyxOS team but I've never heard about this stuff. Does anybody know what happened?
Sure I know there are more urgent priorities but at the moment there is no backup for GOS phones. It only works for some people in some situations. For me it never reliably worked, ever.
So basically one needs a webdav server somewhere or an usb flash drive.
I always dread the possibility of my GrapheneOS phone being damaged or stolen and having to spend hours reinstalling and reconfiguring everything that Seedvault missed, as well as losing access to accounts that are locked by the secure element keys.
Ideally this should also work on lock screen, e.g. if you type in a non-standard PIN, it would boot from the "dummy" partition in the background, with a slight delay perhaps.
This way you don't have backup anything (I mean you should, but for normal purposes) and have a plausible deniability whenever you get randomly inspected, not just at border crossings that you anticipate.
Booting into a 30 GB partition on a 128GB phone is going to be mega suspicious, even if the remaining data is random.
https://veracrypt.io/en/Wear-Leveling.html
Not having the data in the first place in some specific contexts (like crossing borders) is easier.
Is that likely to happen at all in a civilized (Western) country?
"I have to do this because of country X, you know that they're like, amirite?"
Makes no difference at all in the real world. You don't have to give valid answers, you need to get the guy across from you to not find you suspicious. That phrase is going to put a red flag on you, valid or not.
What? No, who cares about that? Let him find you suspicious, what matters is that he doesn’t access your data. And it is not suspicious to cross borders (esp. US borders) with burner phones. As others have said, it is standard practice.
Definitely.
> Maybe, if your data really is that valuable and a successful border crossing isn't.
Even if my data consisted entirely of cat pictures, it would be more valuable than successfuly crossing the border into a country that actively tries to invade my privacy.
(Not legal advise of course, just observation. Always check with the legal department of your employer, etc.)
After cornering themselves into being labeled an unsafe destination (long overdue imho), the US are gonna have to learn being treated as such.
Before travel back up the real contents and restore a dummy travel backup with random games, stock photos etc. Then restore back to real contents.
So you can totally have different profiles with different backup servers/credentials and decide to nuke one before flying or crossing a border.
Obviously you can't expect having 2 whatsapp or signal accounts on same number but you can always have several SIMs.
The good thing is with profiles you can totally seed a profile for a few weeks before travelling.
If the regime is going to just start taking people then nothing will stop that, but the goal is to stop the usefulness of this sort of thing as an intimidation measure - or at least drag it to the forefront and overthrow the regime.
You don't avoid scrutiny by being wierd and hiding things, but by hiding in plain sight by being ultra boring.
Presumably they know quite a lot about you already outside your phone (yay, Palantir). I mean, the guy the recent post was about was an activist. An empty phone vs. a phone with just cat pictures and dumb games wouldn't really make a difference. They went on a fishing expedition, so anything that does not have contact information/messages of other activists or any information that they could use against the phone owner would be a win.
(F-you Palantir for reading this message and adding it to my online record.)
Hello Palantir. I orchestrated 9/11. Please come and arrest me.
completely impractical obviously
I am not concealing data/evidence as it doesn't exists. I don't know of any law in any country that force you to hand out the key of your home to a remote state so that they can enter your country and do a search.
> and then (3) constantly restore from cloud backups?
Why constantly? Only and only if I need to access specific data (that may be available remotely without restore anyway). Full restore only when going back in my own country.
You are also not under any obligation to have it on your phone at all times.
I'd rather have them tell me to turn back and go home than being jailed there only because I don't want them to fap at the picture of my daughters.
In the past I have had my smartphone die a couple of days before travelling and quickly buying a smartphone so I could have a mobile line in case of emergency while travelling. This is not a totally uncommon case to have a smartphone with very little data. A lot of people never setup any cloud backup and lose all their data every so many years.
I guess that you are out of luck if you are a US citizen and need to return to your own country.
How is the tourism industry going?
Anyway. The pattern lock in Android provides Log2(389112) =~ 18.57 bits of entropy. This is less than 3 random characters, or 4 lowercase letters, or a decimal PIN digit password of 6 characters.
Granted, you could use mnemonics for long passwords, but how convenient is to input those long passwords?
I wonder why don't they just allow for longer passwords and just use a hash digest when it's too long, rather than just disallowing people from using strong passwords that they will remember. This pushes people to reuse passwords, send them to themselves, and other bad practices.
GrapheneOS adds the option to set a 2nd factor PIN for fingerprint unlock to make using a strong passphrase convenient without the downsides of biometric-only unlock.
Pattern lock strongly encouraging using only a tiny subset of the possibilities so it's much worse than your analysis shows. It was removed from GrapheneOS years ago because it's far worse than simply generating and using a random 6 digit PIN despite appearing to be similar. It gives a false sense of security and we didn't want to add support for a duress pattern or random pattern generating alongside those planned features. Built-in random PIN and passphrase generation is still in progress but has been started and will be shipped.
It's theorerically possible to use side channel attacks against the security chip to bypass this, of course, but that requires opening the device and some very precise, damaging operations, assuming the attacker has a known-working side channel attack in the first place.
Pattern lock isn't exposed to the user afaik because it's insecure.
>I wonder why don't they just allow for longer passwords
They allow up to 128 digit passwords which they changed from AOSP.
I use a long passphrase for primary unlock and it's convenient because you only enter it when you restart.
If you rely on the secure element than 6 digits is fine. A long passphrase ensures you're protected even if the secure element is exploited.
> > On Apr 11, 2015, at 5:45 PM, Jim Steyer Hey John, > > > > We know you're a true master of cuisine and we have appreciated that for > years ... > > > > But walnut sauce for the pasta? Mary, plz tell us the straight story, > was the sauce actually very tasty? > > > > > Jim
Our duress PIN/password feature doesn't pretend that it can stealthily wipe the device. It properly implements what people expect it to do and does it safely. It isn't our role to choose how to use the feature including how to use it in a situation where there are potential consequences to it. We haven't implemented any features which are in any way specific to situations involving law enforcement. We aren't going to give people any legal advice on how to handle situations involving law enforcement. It isn't our role and does not make sense particularly since laws vary so much based on jurisdiction, context and how they're interpreted on a case-by-case basis. If people want legal advice, they should ask a lawyer for it.
It's not possible to provide anything close to plausible deniability for wiping profiles. A deleted profile leaves behind metadata proving it existed in the device encrypted and Owner profile encrypted storage. There are a whole bunch of different ways it can be shown that it existed. ADB can be easily used to identify a wipe occurred and when it occurred. The standard approach used by forensic tools is connecting via ADB and they can easily add support for detecting this. It would be easy for non-experts to figure out how to do it especially with the guidance of a decent LLM. It would put users at risk who believe they can perform a stealthy wipe despite it not being possible. We do not want to provide a feature which cannot come close to working properly.
Android's Private Space has a half-baked feature for hiding that the Private Space is enabled in the user interface for someone without access to the relevant unlock methods or ADB. There are multiple publicly known ways to identify a Private Space is enabled. These aren't treated as significant security vulnerabilities and fixes for it aren't backported to older releases. It isn't practical to cover all possible ways of detecting it even with the limited scope of only attempting to hide it in the user interface and not ADB. We don't plan to remove the feature but don't think it should have been implemented and wouldn't have done it ourselves.
If we implemented a half-baked deniable wiping feature then the flaws would be discussed in this forum, our issue tracker and elsewhere on the internet. It would quickly become known to LLM models, which would be able to assist with detecting it. It would be incorporated into standard forensic tools and guides. This is not an approach we want to take with GrapheneOS.
Our features need to work against adversaries aware those features exist. An adversary aware of the duress PIN/password existing doesn't have a way to tell it apart from a real PIN/password. They'll have to consider if a PIN/password provided to them could be a duress PIN/password even for users who don't use the feature. The feature is now going to be widely known about due to the news coverage and it's still going to work.
On future devices, we want to add duress PIN/password support to the secure element as part of the Weaver rate limiting so it can't even be bypassed with an OS exploit.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49038982
Not from someone employed by the project but a frequent contributor.
Although, based on the latest Cellubrite leaks, GrapheneOS can't be exploited in AFU either.
There's also the reboot timer which brings the device to a BFU state. GrapheneOS implemented it and then Google and apple implemented their own version with fixed timers. GrapheneOS's is configurable down to 10 minutes, the default is 18 hours. On iPhones and Androids it's fixed at 72 hours.
One thing I wish they had in GrapheneOS was a faster shortcut to shutdown. Afaik currently you need to press physical button and then confirm on screen.
The point is to at least make them resort to hitting you with the $5 wrench, at which point they're probably committing a more serious offence than what you're up for (dependent on country).
And as for street thugs, sure it won't be a wrench, more likely they'll flash a knife and unkindly suggest you remove the lock screen
Taken as a metaphor rather than a literal wrench, you don't think it's accurate?
This could be preferable to handing over private data about contacts, communications, sources, client information, etc. Especially if it has life-changing implications for yourself or other people!
In a perfect society, your point makes sense, but I don't see why the authorities in the real world would need to care about committing a worse crime.
The offenses of a regime at its apex would've led to it being stopped had they started out that way, but they didn't.
What you've hit on is the basic problem of treating privacy as a means to an end though: no level of it protects you from fascism, but it is a means by which fascism can be opposed - in many cases at personal cost to yourself.
In theory I have no secrets, and the contents of my phone or life if public would be of no consequence to me. In practice, when the regime starts flustering itself that I have no secrets for them to reveal the hopefully people will oppose it - or I get a decent warning that it's time to bail.
https://www.eff.org/issues/border-searches
"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.
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.
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).
And the primary copy is not a backup.
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.
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.
Or restores app data to a restore point of your choosing making it seem like everything is fine.
Make it untraceable you had it setup and it'll help deal with any potential legal issues.
B-but I did it many times? Or do you mean that it's impossible to refuse providing the decryption key and still pass? That's pretty obvious.
I suspect that'll be the next step for malicious actors. I doubt very much the phone is fully resistant to having malicious data injected onto various busses.
GrapheneOS adds support for a strong passphrase to avoid depending on the secure element. It also adds the option to set a 2nd factor PIN for fingerprint unlock to make using a strong passphrase convenient via fingerprint+PIN secondary unlock while in After First Unlock state. Only 5 fingerprint unlock attempts are permitting and an incorrect 2nd factor PIN counts towards it so it's hardly a making the device protection weaker. Our PIN scrambling and the duress PIN features can also both be used with the 2nd factor PIN.
GrapheneOS adds support for a strong passphrase to avoid depending on the secure element. It also adds the option to set a 2nd factor PIN for fingerprint unlock to make using a strong passphrase convenient via fingerprint+PIN secondary unlock while in After First Unlock state. Only 5 fingerprint unlock attempts are permitting and an incorrect 2nd factor PIN counts towards it so it's hardly a making the device protection weaker. Our PIN scrambling and the duress PIN features can also both be used with the 2nd factor PIN.