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Comment by nimbius | Hacker News Reader

for signal users this means the messages of course do exist on your phone, which will be the first thing these agencies seek to abscond with once youre detained as its infinitely more crackable in their hands.

as a casual reminder: The fifth amendment protects your speech, not your biometrics. do not use face or fingerprint to secure your phone. use a strong passphrase, and if in doubt, power down the phone (android) as this offers the greatest protection against offline bruteforce and sidechannel attacks used currently to exploit running processes in the phone.

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My advice if you’re not on the level where three letter agencies are actively interested in your comings and goings:

- Use a strong pass phrase

- Enable biometrics so you don’t need to type that pass phrase 100 times per day

- Learn the shortcut to have your phone disable biometrics and require the pass phrase so you can use it when police is coming for you, you’re entering the immigration line in the airport etc. - on iPhone this is mashing the side button 5 times

I just tried this an it does not work for iPhone is it only on a certain iOS? I am a bit behind on updates. Thanks

That's actually the old method for iPhone 7 and before. Now, you can activate emergency SOS by holding the power button and one of the volume buttons. Assuming you don't need to contact any emergency contacts or services, just cancel out of that and your passcode will be required to unlock.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076

Try: Hold "volume up" and "power" for 2 seconds

You'll feel a vibration, and biometric login will be disabled until you enter your passcode.

That did the trick thanks. But ultimately I’m behind on updates so my phone could probably be broken into trivial with the forensic tools available to most law enforcement. I’m going to update soon.

On recent iPhones, the way to disable biometrics is to hold the side button and either volume button until a prompt appears, then tap cancel. Mashing the side button 5 times does not work.

Not sure how recent you're talking but I have an iPhone 11 Pro and I just tested pressing the side button 5 times and it takes me to the power off screen and prompts me for my password the same way that side button + volume does.

Apple's docs also say that pressing the side button 5 times still works.

> If you use the Emergency SOS shortcut, you need to enter your passcode to re-enable Touch ID, even if you don't complete a call to emergency services.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076

Pressing it five times starts the emergency SOS countdown (and requires the passcode next time) on my iPhone XS. Maybe you have the auto-calling disabled?

It doesn't on my 2nd Gen iPhone SE (2020). That said, anything that causes the "swipe to power off" screen to appear has the same affect, so essentially holding down the button for 5 seconds does the trick.

Works fine on my 11, my wifes 12, her backup SE gen 2 and my backup SE gen1.

Just tested all of them

The side button 5 times thing is disabled by default, but can be enabled from Settings > Emergency SOS.

I just verified this on iOS 15.1 on an iPhone 12.

I’m on an iPhone 13 and the latest iOS and it does work here. But so does your method…

But I guess yours is the “official” way to do it indeed:

https://www.imore.com/how-quickly-disable-face-id

In most cases you are going to want to separately passphrase your messaging stuff so it is locked up when you are not using it. That makes every thing else a lot easier. For example, there is a Signal fork that supports such operation:

* https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android

So you're saying I should have to type a secure passcode every single time I want to read or send a message on my phone?

No thanks.

I think that it would stay unlocked for a time, possibly till you locked it. Possibly such an arraignment would be more practical for something offline like encrypted email.

A compromise would be to just save the messages to a passphrase. You could use a public key so that you would only need the passphrase to read the old messages. I haven't heard about anything that actually does this.

> Learn the shortcut to have your phone disable biometrics and require the pass phrase

On my Pixel (Android), it's hold the power button for ~2 seconds then select Lockdown.

In case anyone with an Android is confused because they don't see the option: I believe that you have to explicitly enable the Lockdown option in Android's system settings before it shows up.

There are a couple of apps that will also lock down with a tap instantly. I'm sorry I forget the names though, but handy if you have it in hand and "open". I have been using iphone too long now to remember the names of the apps though. you can put a shortcut on every "page" of your android and tap it, it enforces locking the phone by passcode. so on most phones it would be a swipe and a tap, probably less than a 200 milliseconds if you practiced it.

If you _are_ at the level where TLAs are interested in you they will not give you a chance to mash that button. You will have a loaded gun pointed at your head out of nowhere and you will freeze. From experience.

Is that a story you mind sharing?

He got popped for pedophilia if I remember correctly.

Not sure why this is downvoted; you are right.

I use this app on my phone

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.wesaphzt.privatelock/

It locks the phone when a movement threshold is broken, and then requires the password instead of biometrics to unlock the phone.

So the snatch the phone when it is unlocked vector gets harder.

Don't have any family or friends, either. If you refuse to talk and invoke your rights the government will just threaten to hurt those you love until you break and give up your passwords. From experience.

I liked it in Wrath of Man where one guy is acting tough as fuck until they bring his girl into the room.

Also, if you can, if you are encrypting data, use a hidden volume inside the first - that way you can give the government the outer password and they'll be happy thinking they have everything.

Signal recently added 'disappearing messages' which lets you specify how long a chat you initiate remains before being deleted.

And a screenshot, or another camera, or a rooted phone can easily defeat that.

The analog hole ALWAYS exists. Pretending it doesnt is ridiculous.

> And a screenshot, or another camera, or a rooted phone can easily defeat that.

Not if the message has already been deleted. Auto-deleting messages are so the recipient doesn't have to delete them manually, not so the recipient can't possibly keep a copy.

Exactly this. Even more: Auto-deleting messages are also that the sender doesn't have to delete them manually. Most people do not understand this. I even had a discussion with an open source chat app implementer who insisted on not implementing disappearing messages because they couldn't be really enforced.

What made you think I was pretending it doesn't?

That's a different threat model, no messaging app is trying to protect the sender from the receiver. Disappearing messages are meant to protect two parties communicating with each other against a 3rd party who would eventually gain access to the device and its data.

Wickr has a "screenshot notification to sender" feature (which of course, can be worked around by taking a pic of the screen without Wickr knowing you've done it).

Not "recently". Disappearing messages have been there for at least 5 or 5 years.

Almost _all_ my Signal chats are on 1 week or 1 day disappearing settings. It helps to remind everyone to grab useful info out of the chat (for example, stick dinner plan times/dates/locations into a calendar) rather than hoping everybody on the chat remembers to delete messages intended to be ephemeral.

The "$person set disappearing messages to 5 minutes" has become shorthand for "juicy tidbit that's not to be repeated" amongst quite a few of my circl3es of friends. Even in face to face discussion, someone will occasionally say something like "bigiain has set disappearing messages to five minutes" as a joke/gag way of saying what used to be expressed as "Don't tell anyone, but..."

(I just looked it up, https://signal.org/blog/disappearing-messages/ from Oct 2016.)

Maybe it was only added recently on the desktop client.

Keep in mind that any time a message is on flash storage there might be a hidden copy kept for flash technical reasons. It is hard to get to (particularly if the disk is encrypted) but might still be accessible in some cases.

I think encrypted messengers should have a "completely off the record" mode that can easily be switched on and off. Such a mode would guarantee that your messages are never stored anywhere that might become permanent. When you switch it off then everything is wiped from memory. That might be a good time to ensure any keys associated with a forward secrecy scheme are wiped as well.

Also IOS has a panic button. Hit the main/screen button (on the right) five times really fast and faceid/touchid is disabled and passcode is required

Your statement on the 5th amendment is no longer accurate broadly, but the matter still has some cross-jurisdictional disagreement: https://americanlegalnews.com/biometrics-covered-by-fifth-am...

District courts don't make law. Magistrates working for those district courts even less so. The case this news article cites has no precedential value anywhere - not even within N.D.Cal. - and should not be relied upon.

IAAL but IANYL

Agreed. That decision is unlikely to be repeated by any appellate court. IMO, all the rulings on biometrics not being testimonial are constitutionally correct, even if that sucks. A lot of constitutional rulings suck.

The real solution is for a federal statute to require warrants.

> do not use face or fingerprint to secure your phone

but can't they force you to put your password in that case, instead of your finger?

no. The 5th amendment has been read weirdly by the supreme court.

In general, no.

The contents of your mind are protected because you must take an active part of disclose them. Of course, they can still order you to give them the password and stick you in jail for Contempt of Court charges if you don't.

Check out Habeas Data. It's a fascinating/horrifying book detailing much of this.

To err on the side of caution, it's best to make all your passcodes themselves an admission to a crime.

"Your honor, the state agrees to not prosecute on any information inferrable from the text of the password."

"Understood. The defendant's Fifth Amendment right to protection from self-incrimination is secured. As per the prior ruling, the defendant will remain in custody for contempt of court until such time as they divulge the necessary password to comply with the warrant."

I don't know why you're being downvoted. For a start, if it was a third party that had the passcode and refused to divulge it they can be held in jail until they release it, e.g. if your wife knows it. (There are many cases where people have been sentenced to years or decades in prison for not testifying)

If it is you not divulging your own passcode, then legally the judge can't give you contempt, but in reality they could give you contempt until you fought it through the appellate court. Contempt is a special type of thing - certainly here in Illinois you have no right to a jury trial on contempt charges. You're just fucked.

I believe judges can, in fact, hold a defendant for refusing to give up their own passwords, and that the contempt could be indefinite. This is a point of law that is not settled at the federal level yet, and at the state level it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

In one case, the appellate court at the federal level simply refused to hear the case that had been decided at the sate supreme court level.

https://www.reuters.com/business/legal/us-supreme-court-nixe...

My passwords are so obscene it's a crime to write them down.

great, so they'll just be able to hit you with lewd charges on top of everything else they are filing.

They don't actually need your passphrase to unlock your phone - they just need somebody with the passphrase to unlock in for them. And if there's any doubt about who that is, then having that passphrase counts as testimonial; but if there's not - it might not count as testimonial.

Although there are apparently a whole bunch of legal details that matter here; courts have in some cases held that defendants can be forced to decrypt a device when the mere act of being able to decrypt it is itself a foregone conclusion.

(If you want to google a few of these cases, the all writs act is a decent keyword to include in the search).

The defendant never needs to divulge the passphrase - they simply need to provide a decrypted laptop.

We really should up our game on encryption, perhaps some kind of time-based crypto rotation that inherently self-destructs rendering the data unusable if you don't authenticate with it every so often. If you are physically unable to unlock a device you can't be compelled to do so.

I think a fingerprint is easier to get if you’re not willing to cooperate. However, I think if they really, I mean really want your password, they will probably find a way to get it out of you. I think it also depends if it’s the local sheriff asking for your password or someone from the FBI while you’re tied up in a bunker somewhere in Nevada.

Apple should allow for 2 PWs, one the real PW, the other triggers a "self-destruct" mode.

Knowing that is possible law enforcement would then hesitate to ask.

using such a self-destruct mode would be a certain way getting yourself charged with destroying evidence/contempt of court/... though.

i was under such duress that i was shaking so badly that i made typos in my 30 character password 10 times. the loss of evidence is not my fault as it is the people putting me under that duress. don't think it'll hold up though

This would be difficult to prove. They would have to know for certain the evidence was on there to begin with. I don't see the prosecutor easily meeting their burden of proof on this charge.

This is how the statute is worded here in Illinois:

"A person obstructs justice when, with intent to prevent the apprehension or obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he or she knowingly commits any of the following acts: (1) Destroys, alters, conceals or disguises physical evidence."

Ugh. It's a vague law. I don't even know how they would prosecute that for virtual evidence held on a device that they didn't already have a view inside of.

No 5th Amendment protection? If you spoke the command / "password", would it matter?

FaceID can already prevent a device from unlocking if someone is sleeping. In theory devices could detect if they were being unlocked "under duress" by using biometrics to look at facial expressions, heartbeat, etc, and then wipe themselves. I don't know how practical in reality but perhaps it could be a feature you turn on in a sensitive environment.

How? They can physically overpower you and place the sensor against your finger, or in front of your eye and pry it open without your consent and gain access with 0 input from you. How do they similarly force you to type something that requires deliberate, repeated concrete actions on your part?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/man-who-refused-...

In my case they threatened to harm my wife if I didn't stop refusing. After my case is over I'll happily release the video tapes so you can see how this shit works.

Please do. Very few people realize just how bad things can get with law enforcement.

The fifth amendment doesn't protect either speech or biometrics. Nor does it protect passwords.

You are wrong. It protects passwords as speech, as they are testimonial, per many court rulings. It does not protect biometrics based on law that basically says the police can force you to give up your fingerprints for their records, so they can sure as fuck force your finger onto a reader.

Can they force someone to LOOK at the phone? FaceID with attention check will need you to look before it opens.

Arguably, yes. That's why it's important to know the shortcut on iOS to render faceid inoperable until you give it the password - mash the power button five times fast!

> It protects passwords as speech, as they are testimonial, per many court rulings.

Not true.

https://www.reuters.com/business/legal/us-supreme-court-nixe... for example.

(Oh and by the way, as I mentioned in the comment you replied to, the fifth amendment DOES NOT PROTECT SPEECH. That's the FIRST amendment. The FIFTH amendment protects AGAINST SELF-INCRIMINATION.)

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