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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

> On GrapheneOS, for privacy and convenience, it's best to use a long random passphrase

Why do you call out just one OS? It's a good idea for any OS.

This seems specific to GrapheneOS (unique as far as I know though I'd be happy to learn otherwise) where you could set a very long first unlock passphrase and have a shorter less cumbersome fingerprint plus pin option for subsequent unlocks. I wouldn't want to have to enter a long passphrase every time I unlock but once a day isn't so bad.

I don't run GrapheneOS, but I have an >15 character passphrase that must be used before biometrics can be used after reboot. I haven't used a 4-digit pin since the option to not use it was available.

The specific extra that grapheneOS adds is that you can have a required Fingerprint + PIN with a shorter easier to enter pin while also having a long first unlock passcode. Only a first unlock passcode then biometrics is not secure in the US if your device is in the AFU/biometric-only (after first unlock) state because you can be easily and legally compelled to provide a biometric unlock.

https://threecats.au/two-factor-pin-fingerprint-unlock-graph...

The option was there in Cyanogenmod back during the OnePlus One days. It was such a step backwards when it was removed. You almost had to wonder if it was deliberately done at the request of some TLA to prevent users from using too strong of a password for decryption.

I doubt it, mostly because phones were a lot easier to crack back in those days already so I doubt a TLA needed to push for it to be removed.

Yes, in fact on GrapheneOS it's less necessary and it's only necessary if you don't want to rely on the secure element rate limiting.

GrapheneOS allows using a passphrase with more convenience because of the fingerprint plus second factor pin (I don't think you can just have a pin as a secondary unlock). You don't need to enter the passphrase every time you unlock with this setup, only when first starting up.

The official opinion: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Because apart of the IOS, according to GrayKey and Cellebrite, GrapheneOS on Pixels is the only phone where it even makes sense (realistically).

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