GrapheneOS Defends Data-Wiping Function That Blocked US Border Search
pcmag.com
pcmag.com
Seems like so far it didn't create any problems, so public is ok with that.
which is a good reminder for anyone with reason to be concerned about this sort of thing to turn off biometric/face id/etc. access to their devices.
unless the phone itself is a suspicious good, there should never be any justification for a border officer to demand visibility of the contents of the phone, or the data that its permitted to access on other systems.
I presume the counter to this is that they must be able to examine the socials in order to see if you should 'death to america' on message boards. is that really an important vector? is the balance of that security concern versus speech rights (which are supposed to be 'universal') something we want individual field officers to decide?
Personally, I believe that there should be explicit laws protecting your personal devices, given the amount of sensitive private information they carry. I think an explicit law, or even amendment to the constitution, would be much better than relying on ever more arcane legal interpretations being invented by judges based on vague wording and vague principles.
There is no reason for anyone to ever try to smuggle digital data through a border crossing and so zero justification for ever conducting a digital search at the border.
See for example https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/your-phone-can-be-searched...
no judge thought there was sufficient evidence to grant a warrant in this case, so what you're saying is that any CBP agent can go fishing for anything they want. anyone can be detained for any reason that an individual CBP agent considers necessary.
See this article quoting a 7th circuit case on this matter: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/your-phone-can-be-searched...
From Chief Justice Roberts in Riley v. California: "One of the most notable distinguishing features of modern cell phones is their immense storage capacity. Before cell phones, a search of a person was limited by physical realities and tended as a general matter to constitute only a narrow intrusion on privacy."
That's a misconception. Border/immigration agents can operate inside this zone, including making stops with reasonable suspicion or running checkpoints where everyone is stopped with no suspicion. The checkpoints are limited in scope, and do not provide authority for searching electronic devices. Some people, including a couple dissenting supreme court justices do feel the checkpoint part violates the constitution.
That's distinct from the border search exemption, which allows inspection of everyone and everything crossing the border. It only exists when someone is actually crossing the border and does not allow CBP to stop or search people who are not crossing the border.
Fun fact. Lack of parking is not a legitimate reason to attempt to drive past this region. I was once flagged crossing into canada on a day they were interviewing a lot of travelers. I spotted parking in what looked to me like an overflow lot on the other side of a fence, and when I slowly drove that direction sirens blasted and guns were drawn. Nothing gives you clarity like a gun pointed at you.
If there was a strip of land where you are not in a country then how can CBP assert any authority? No, you must be in America. There is no "no man's land," and there is no such thing as "international land" at America's borders where no law exists.
Because they had direct experience with tyranny and exploitation, and documented their response to that in the US founding documents. We care because if you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it. Which is pretty much what's happening right now.
Anyway, you don't have to look back to the founding fathers. Go back to 1930's Germany and you can see all the parallels you want, much closer to today's situation and in a much more modern and relevant context.
Sure, but usually when someone raises that, they're doing so because they think it is the correct perspective, and that the founding fathers had a good rationale for their position. It's shorthand for going into the entire history.
Even though I might agree, it's the primary legal perspective used by the highest court.
We should consider using that process! Surely things have changed enough in the last half a century to justify a new amendment or three.
The problem has become acute now that the SCOTUS majority has arrogated power to itself in shameless and corrupt fashion.
That is actually not so good. First, all constitutions that I know of have a process of change, e.g. 2/3 majority in parliament, or in 2 houses or something. And note that I wrote "change", not "amend". The idea that one can only add things to a constitution is weird one --- but then again, I'm european and don't know the US constitution correctly, maybe the amendments delete outdated paragraphs?
But still, a process of change junk you wrote earlier is hardly "thoughtful", it's just natural.
However, in reality the US constitution sucked, and continues to suck. US people claim they are the epitome of freedom, but yet they were for hundreds of years the epitome of slavery. Or of genocide to native tribe (look up "Trail of Tears").
They claim they are the epitome of democracy, and yet they basically have only a 2-party system cemented in stone, with no fresh air ever. But even worse: there are so many cases of gerrymandering in the US --- a clear anti-democratic way of organizing elections --- and yet the oh-so-democratic constitution hasn't an answer to this. No way to give back real election power to the people.
The the US, elected people with stamina can hinder a democratic process by filibustering, nothing that we know of sane countries.
Apropos sane: have you heard about "government shutdown" of e.g. France, Sweden or Poland? That doesn't exist there. It's a laughing stock to some of us. Seems like a hefty wart in the US system, I personally wouldn't like to be some government employed person with the insecurity of "Do I get my money next month?". Not 100% sure, but perhaps this shutdown is a function of the US constitution?
The rest of the US justice system isn't particular good either. That's not exactly constitution, but usually the constitution sets the basis on how and where the laws work. The US congress these days creates massive 2000 pages long laws no can read or understand. The US has the highest incarceration rate of the western world and STILL one of the highest crime rates. The US police forces alone kills more people each year than the total number of people killed by guns in Germany by police and criminals combined. Before court, not all people are equal, the people with deep pockets are equaller. Or look how a drug company and medical doctors made lots of US citizens drug addicts. And it took many, many years to reduce the issue ... and the law system had no answer for this. Which CEO or CFO went to jail, for example? Which GP went to jail for addicting his patients, lost his license?
These days, even the balance of power is in jeopardy, and the US constitution again has no answer to this.
To me, I'd say the situation in the US justifies a rewrite of the constitution to something modern, and than a general election on this new constitution. Get rid of the old rubbish, it showed that it has many, very many, grave problems.
But again, I'm from europe and am therefore not so deep into your things ...
You can’t “delete” language because the original is a physical document, but this works the same in practice.
A rewrite is possible but it requires a constitutional convention (similar process to an amendment) or a revolution. IMHO a rewrite is a bad idea because corporate, and military, and intelligence influences are too strong right now compared to the people. They would dominate the process.
We certainly have our problems, but so does everybody. Nearly all democracies are falling to corruption, institutional capture, and domestic repression. We’re not alone in this.
What are you even talking about?
Obviously grafeneOS has no liability. But the owner of the device didn’t take the action to remove the data, the CBP officer entered it. We already have some precedent around being forced to give up your password.
How does that change if you are forced to give up a password that is destructive? What if the password works fine at home and the same password does a wipe based on location? Either way, the user complied, and did not take action to wipe their device.
wiping the device before carrying it across the border seems essentially identical to me. like, saying "you can't wipe it when searched" would also imply "you can't have an empty device when crossing because it may have been wiped before the search to avoid having your data searched" since people can (and often do) do that for exactly that reason.
that may very well be what they want / what they are trying to legally allow during searches, but it also seems like it'd raise a hell of a lot more outrage. it's essentially claiming all citizens are under full legal hold all the time, if they ever intend to leave the country for any length of time.
Beyond this, “I dropped my phone in the ocean” is always a perfectly valid reason.
If you’re a foreigner and they already suspect you of something, they can deny you entry for any reason. It may be better to be denied than arrested!
if someone is accused of something (possibly retroactively), any of those may be illegal (under specific details etc). if not, then... am I going to be required to never delete anything just in case?
On the contrary, there is a huge gulf between these. Providing a fake password that wipes a device while under active questioning is a clear case of providing false testimony. Lying to the police while under investigation is simply illegal, regardless of the thing you're lying about.
By contrast, entering the country with a clear device is not a crime under any possible interpretation that I can see. Now, if you are wiping evidence while you know there is an active investigation against you, that may be a crime as well, but it's a completely separate crime and can't be easily judged by an officer that simply finds you with a clean phone.
False testimony of what? Can you be compelled to provide testimony that allows a police officer access to your private data? Can a police officer demand I log into my online medical chart so they can complete their investigation?
> Lying to the police while under investigation is simply illegal, regardless of the thing you're lying about.
Perhaps for certain definitions of police, investigation, illegal, and lie. But as a blanket statement, not even remotely. Otherwise every person found guilty of any crime they said they didn't commit would also be found guilty of lying to the police officers who interrogated them.
False testimony of what your password is.
> Can you be compelled to provide testimony that allows a police officer access to your private data?
When under police investigation, you are only allowed to do one of two things: explicitly invoke your 5th amendment right not to provide testimony, or provide truthful testimony of anything the police ask you. Anything else is technically illegal.
> Can a police officer demand I log into my online medical chart so they can complete their investigation?
Yes, though you can refuse their demand by explicitly invoking your 5th ammendemnt right to stay silent. They can legally lie to you about your obligations, though.
> Otherwise every person found guilty of any crime they said they didn't commit would also be found guilty of lying to the police officers who interrogated them.
Indeed, people who proclaim their innocence to police can face additional charges if later found guilty. It's quite rare for this to be pursued in criminal cases, as the additional punishment would not be worth the effort of proving you knowingly lied about this. But it is actually sometimes pursued in misdemeanor cases, as lying to the police is a crime and can actually carry a steeper sentence than the misdemeanor itself, so it can be a powerful incentive to convince you to admit guilt for the lesser charge.
Note: I'm using legal terms rather loosely, and I am probably wrong on some of the details. Perhaps a statement such as "I'm innocent, officer" is too vague to constitute a material falsehood and be prosecutable, even in principle. But something like "I couldn't have killed that man, I was not there that night, I was at this other location" would almost certainly qualify you for additional liability if it can be clearly established that you were in fact at the location the victim was.
Exactly. This is important, because even accidental lies can be prosecuted or used as evidence. Imagine yourself panicking under duress with someone asking you rapid fire questions that seem to contradict each other. It’s likely that you will get the facts mixed up.
This is why you need to invoke the 5th and retain an attorney in any situation where someone appears to be asking you questions about a serious crime. For all you know, they may suspect you of some heinous act that you aren’t even aware of.
> wiping the device before carrying it across the border seems essentially identical to me.
And this policy is already accepted in practice.
i pray that sense doesnt erode
> US citizens have been shipped to foreign prisons
Since 4th ammendemnt protections are significantly curtailed at border crossings, they can actually declare on the spot that your data is now their data. The only thing they can't do is force you to tell them how to access it - but, if they can hack your password, they actually have the right to search your phone just as much as they have the right to search you luggage.
The only consideration then is that they can't force you to help them access it. The fact that it's your data is irrelevant. This matters a lot if, for example, you have a copy of your password written down with you - as they are very much allowed to use that to acces your phone. Or, even more plausibly, if your phone is protected only by a biometrics, in which case they can compel you to provide those biometrics and access the phone that way.
Fed: "give us your PIN or else"
me: "528491"
Fed: <types 528491, presses OK>
me: "no! 528419, I meant 528419!!"
Fed: <watches phone wipe...>
>"ok are you sure that's your pin?"
>they exit the room and come back 5 min later
>"that pin didn't work, can you write it again?"
You're going to have a hard time convincing the judge that you "accidentally" gave the wrong pin in this case.
Counter-example: muscle memory.
My OH has - more than once - attempted to tell me her PIN code. On more than one occasion two of the digits have been transposed. Happily I know that it's the middle two digets that get transposed... :)
The owner of the phone doesn't know that. They have no control over or insight into the officer's brain to know what they'll do. The officer might suspect the phone-wiping functionality exists and decide not to enter the password. If we start talking about ultimate causes then judicial matters become infinitely complex. What immediately caused the phone being wiped is the wrong password being entered by the officer.
The user claimed to offer a password to access the contents of the device, and instead offered a password that deleted the device. That is false testimony / lying to an investigation, and is almost certainly punishable in itself.
The fact that the feds are using an obscure law to argue that he destroyed property to prevent it from being seized shows that they're reaching here.
This doesn't pass the sniff test. Consider the following:
Cops: "where were you on the night of the murder?"
Suspect: "at work"
Cops: "You're lying, we found surveillance footage of you near your girlfriend's apartment"
Suspect: "ah-ha, what I actually meant by 'at work', was that I was mentally at work!"
Of course, there's some grey area where the suspect gives cagey or vague answers, but in this case by giving a duress pin, it's pretty obvious the intention was to deceive the CBP officer.
I don't see why this would be any different.
Could you be charged with destruction of evidence?
IANAL but I expect it depends on whether someone thinks they can prove your intent was specifically to disrupt a (legitimate) search.
To recycle a comment from 2 days ago, regarding why one might reasonably have the duress code written on 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.
I know everyone's situation is different, but it is regardless good to keep in mind one is writing a code on their device which will wipe said device, while also intentionally looking similar to a code that would unlock it instead.
On the other hand, I'm worried that the publicity will only make explicit targets out of GrapheneOS users, and that you would only be using it "if you have something to hide".
With this publicity and the coming Motorola phones, there's reason to be at least a little optimistic.
Your original post:
>Maybe digital forensics shouldn't be handled by barely highschool graduates at a busy border crossing
Sounds like you're moving the goalposts from "haha CBP agents are dumb" to "they should get warrants".
1. They do field tests before sending to a lab
2. They're sending it to a lab to ensure the results are accurate, not to guard against an off chance something is boobytrapped.
A duress password isn't a booby trap. Nothing was damaged except for the fragile egos of the man-children who weren't able to bully someone into giving up their wrong-think.
>During the fall of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Enron's accounting firm, instructed its employees to destroy documents relating to Enron after Andersen officials learned they would soon be investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen_LLP_v._United_...
The conviction was overturned, but only on procedural grounds
But, let’s say somebody unknowingly has evidence to a case, then in the time it takes for law enforcement to retrieve it, accidentally or otherwise destroys it, but necessarily not knowing that it was any sort of evidence. Would a case hold up in that situation if law decides to pin it on the person in question? Personally, I think situationally, it should not, but I don’t know how much faith I have that that would be the case.
Anyways, pertaining to the topic - in the same spirit of case-by-case, I’m not surprised by the outcome even if I’m glad the functionality worked here.
"Give us the PIN for your phone"
"I don't want you to search my phone, and I want to talk to my lawyer"
"If you don't comply, you're going to be in a lot of trouble"
"Can I please just go, I don't want to answer questions or be searched"
"If you don't comply we will seize your phone and detain you indefinitely until we can unlock your phone!"
"I want my lawyer."
"Just tell us the PIN and you'll be on your way. Otherwise it's gonna be bad."
"Look if I have no choice my PIN is 1234, but I don't want you searching my phone without my lawyer present."
...
"Hey! We tried to search your phone and the phone wiped itself! You're going to prison for destruction of evidence!"
It's a pity Americans must learn empirically rather than from history books how fascism operates.
What's happening in the US is something completely new, different, and totally worth seeing what it can accomplish this time. Think of all those sci-fi "dystopias" with a privileged ruling class living lives of comfort and luxury, and not having to think about the filthy underclass. Good vibes are what I'm here for.
Per American Heritage Dictionary 5th Edition:
> A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
Looking at this case so far; - we have not observed any dictatorial behavior, - this is unrelated to economics, - we have not observed any violent suppression, - we have not observed any actions based on nationalism/race,
given these facts, at least by this definition of fascism, there appears to be none yet present in this case.
What history books or definition should Americans learn from that would lead them to view what transpired as fascism, and how should that inform their beliefs/decisions differently than how they are currently informed about the situation?
So the main thing tying your comment together is that you have not been observing? This does not seem particularly "good faith", nor does it make for an interesting or productive conversation.
I stated 'we' not 'I'. And I did not imply that we haven't been observing, I was stating historically that, with all we have observed about this duress pin case, we have yet to observe any of the listed things happening.
If one believes we have, in fact, observed any of the above things taking place - rather than complaining about an uninteresting or unproductive conversation - one should contribute evidence to the contrary, which would be productive by informing everyone here.
There are well-known examples of every single one of the bullet points you "have not observed". So either you have not been paying much attention, which can be fixed with some simple web searches. Or you are being willfully ignorant of the widespread criticism, which is a disingenuous framing if you are truly interested in "good faith" discussion.
However, did that evidence really exist? And if it did, was it for something else? Perhaps, the guy just worried about something far more mundane being discovered? We shall never know.
Think Schrodinger's password.
Courts have been fairly tolerant of law enforcement using pretexts like that to expand their powers.
That seems to be along the lines of what they're arguing here - they wanted to perform an ostensibly legal search, and he destroyed everything that might have been evidence either way. It would be like a corporation getting an e-mail from the SEC saying "Give us all the communications your company has had about these three stocks" and the company saying "Oops someone erased our e-mail server so I guess we don't have any communications about that."
If you're this paranoid about being searched, or you have something to hide (even if that 'something' is a sense of morality and a desire for a free and just society), wipe your phone before you cross the border and not during. Put some basic apps on (reddit, twitter, etc), leave them logged out or put them on some empty account and tell them you're not a big social media guy or you're on a digital cleanse or something. Wiping your phone when you're being detained by law enforcement is a bad look one way or the other.
I agree that it's legally irrelevant, but we've seen many court rulings lately where legally relevant things are ignored (e.g. 'the president is immune to any legal repercussions from committing crimes') so given the current political climate I think 'bad look' is still relevant in practice.
forensics will reveal the other partition(s), and then you're in the exact same position having to answer "what's the other partition, provide the password"
I'm not taking sides here, I just wanted to make that clear.
And you should understand that they can lie to you. That's OK and legal, but you cannot lie to them.
But if an officer gets a confession by saying, "They just passed an amendment, and you don't have the right to a lawyer anymore, so you have to answer my question or I'll send you to a torture dungeon", that is a lie that can harm anyone, regardless of guilt.
In Belarus, such "search" means plugging a USB cable and downloading everything from your phone AND connected clouds (Google Photos, iCloud etc). Then their software (bought for millions of dollars from a foreign security company) compares every single face in your photos/videos with every single face gov has in their database. And you don't have control of the downloaded data.
And ongoing publicity as the trial happens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Secure#Law_enforcement...
US Government targets Cop City protester over phone operating system
When I was designing my secure vault app for iOS[0], my approach was to make one of the “folders” (I call them vaults), to trigger the wipe out without any sign of doing so while retaining the data in the opened vault. It technically only deletes the index and the keys, and obfuscates them by replacing them with random bytes.
I already heard from a person that was forced to open their app but was let go, because they complied.
Not clear on anything else regarding the duress PIN but I don’t think a 5th defense would apply.
Note that you apparently have to explicitly invoke your right to remain silent or your silence could be implied as an admission of guilt (thanks to Salinas v. Texas). I imagine you’d have to repeat your assertion multiple times, and the person demanding the PIN will tell you that you can’t use the 5th, will threaten you with arrest and additional charges, etc. Consult a lawyer and get training if you’re doing critical work where you may need this defense.
As I mentioned earlier, this is part of why my own plans for international travel are to only go with a notebook/sheet with contact numbers and buy throwaway devices on the other side. I don't think I'd travel internationally with a phone or laptop at this point, and that's kind of been my thoughts for a while. Especially given the direction that many countries, not just the US have taken. For that matter, I don't think I'd ever even risk travelling to the UK or China at this point. Not that I like the surveillance state here in the US, at least I still have some rights preserved.
Compelling a PIN, even with a warrant, is legally questionable. Courts have held that it is a form of 'testimony' because it's compelling you to disclose something you know, while some state courts have ruled the opposite way.
In all likelihood the government wouldn't push it in this instance, to avoid creating any sort of precedent.
As such in a case like the Salinas one, being silent or "pleading the fifth" would be moot as both would just indicate "deafening silence" to the judges since the defendant had been cooperative up until that point.
(the Swedish judicial system has no juries, instead there's a professionally learned judge and 2 "laymen judges" appointed from political parties acting as the peoples representatives, if that triumvirate fucks up, higher courts can and often will kick rulings back down for retrials).
Then when in travel, and about to pass a border, you enter that selective mode. You can enter a different password as the proxy to unlock the phone in this bare minimal data mode. The agents can access it, etc but wont have all the data. That data shouldn't even be visible in the OS, and if they try to copy the hard drive they will get encrypted data in the other blocks.
You still legally comply with orders and unlock the phone but the other partitions don't unlock/decrypt unless you specifically unlock them.
Or I suppose we would program something to make this. Just saying, doesn't exist today it seems but would be valuable for us.
duress password to shutdown instead of wipe could be an option.
duress password to restore to snapshot, effectively wiping all data after snapshot, is another option, as it would be hard to know what happened. all the now "free space" gets overwritten with prng.
when entering the duress password, maybe grapheneos needs to put some UI theatre, like saying battery low, shutting down... so the agents think the phone is just shutting down due to low battery.
another theatre could be a fake shutdown, that appears to not startup again... just wipe and kexec a fake kernel that just mimics a dead phone, till the batter actually dies. any attempts by the agents to charge the phone , is met with a fake boot and a charging error. This is just a phone with a bad battery, nothing to see here.
Duress hidden profiles viability statement:
https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/2082153517234676150#m
Regular defenses statement:
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/40700-grapheneos-protection...
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49055169
TBF, similar mindset if I ever attend defcon, etc. as well.
I currently fly to the USA through Canada and if CBP ever insists on seeing my phone I will revoke my application to enter and accept that Im most likely banned from entry for a while.
We published a technical overview of how GrapheneOS protects against data extraction covering the major protections it adds:
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/40700-grapheneos-protection...
Now, is this what's at stake here? Evidence of what? Surely at some point, clear allegations need to me made for which the content of the phone is evidence for.
There's alot of speculation of what the indicted person was involved in, or motives of the border agents. Or the insinuation that the tooling that allowed the alleged destruction of evidence is (or should be) ilegal or indications of nefarious intent by those who use such tools. This is all BS.
Am I missing something?