326
US prosecutors charge Atlanta man after GrapheneOS phone wipes itself during airport search
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
326 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
86682 readers
3492 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
A duress PIN should load a normal looking phone so the dumb cops think you complied. Hide the wipe behind texts from your mom and emails from work.
That is more or less what the old TrueCrypt (and also VeraCrypt) systems did. One password gets you the real data, the other opens a different partition that could be stuffed with dummy data.
True privacy/security night involve a hybrid, where it opens the device to the fake partition+profile but also kills off internal keys to the real data when the duress is used
@GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social everyone seems to be clamouring for the same thing: add "duress profile" to the roadmap. Keep up the good work.
Hell, an OS that gave me separate profiles for different pins could be useful for a bunch of things.
gOS already has separate profiles with different passwords, how about setup a profile with a few pictures of gaping anuses to match the energy of nosy warrantless searching federals and install a couple apps with some activity I'm guessing is going to be better than an obvious wipe, even though a wipe is legal as it's your property and not evidence of a crime to destroy your own stuff.
OOOOOHHHH!!!! I like that. I have nefarious ideas with that. MWA HA HA HA HA!!! They'll never know I dislike cheesecake!!! Oh! Shit! I've said too much!!!
runs away
hi every1 im new!!!!!!! holds up spork my name is katy but u can call me t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m!!!!!!!! lol…as u can see im very random!!!! thats why i came here, 2 meet random ppl like me ^^… im 13 years old (im mature 4 my age tho!!) i like 2 watch invader zim w/ my girlfreind (im bi if u dont like it deal w/it) its our favorite tv show!!! bcuz its SOOOO random!!!! shes random 2 of course but i want 2 meet more random ppl =) like they say the more the merrier!!!! lol…neways i hope 2 make alot of freinds here so give me lots of commentses!!!! DOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <--- me bein random again ^^ hehe…toodles!!!!!
love and waffles,
~t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m~
@modem_down @beep @Semi_Hemi_Demigod It would be trivially detected by widely distributed standard forensic software including the non-Premium variant of Cellebrite able to run on a laptop.
The point isn't to make it forensically undetectable, but to prevent the room temperature IQ cop from noticing what happened. If they "unlock" the phone and don't see anything that looks out of the ordinary they won't make a big deal out of it and there's a chance they'll let you go.
@orclev Standard operating procedure is increasingly to extract data with standard forensics software. If it doesn't go smoothly then they'll likely detain people and get experts to deal with it.
The room temperature IQ cop is going to plug the phone into a system that will do that forensic detection. Using commercial or special software.
Room temperature IQ cop knows how to plug the cord into the phone and the cord into the laptop.
@GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
By "duress profile", I mean that if user has enabled a "duress profile" feature in Settings, then entering the duress PIN would:
So, how would forensic software detect that the unlocked profile is a duress profile?
@modem_down @beep @Semi_Hemi_Demigod The software walks the person using it through enabling Android Debug Bridge and extracting data with it. It's either not going to work or will be able to see many signs of what happened. GrapheneOS is well known to the forensic data companies and they make a point of trying to support it. They haven't had much success with locked GrapheneOS devices but they can certainly handle detecting it and detecting if a feature like this was used via ADB.
Lol I wouldn't hold your breath, these devs won't even give you inverted navbar buttons so unless it's something they themselves want, you won't see it.
wait there's really no inverted navbar in grapheneos?
Nope, and in the support threads the devs were all "Tough, we don't want it, use gestures".
Inverted navbar and long press back button to force close an app are essential for me. Meanwhile diva devs are a massive turn off.
Love some of what they've done, hate their attitude. Bit like the lemmy devs, except the GOS devs won't allow anyone to fork or incorporate their stuff.
But what about the spam emails your wife accidentally signed you up for ????
And a bunch of random apps for restaurants that you installed to get a discount
Reading this comment with the assumption my wife will find it some day: Right, she doesn’t give out my number instead of hers as a contact point every time she visits a shop that asks, and certainly not because she has it memorised and it’s too much of a bother to give out her own, not at all.
All the WhatsApp group invitations for clothing and grocery places that happen after she goes shopping are completely unrelated.