Replies (41)

Here is footage of the brand new #GrapheneOS duress password in action from a user, here on Nostr.
mrecheese πŸ§€'s avatar mrecheese πŸ§€
#GrapheneOS duress password in action. This is on a sacrificial Pixel 6a. I did it a few times, and let me tell you, DO NOT screw around with this. You get no second chance. It's gone. Instantly. And it's beautiful. @final [GrapheneOS] πŸ“±πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ @sommerfeld
View quoted note →
BTW we never recommended those apps that used device admin APIs for resetting the device since you could deactivate them and interrupt the erasure. XRY had tutorial videos explaining how to bypass Duress and others by holding the buttons that would boot into Fastboot mode. Law Enforcement knew for long time. We also had criminal sellers using our work unlawfully and bundling those apps trying to lie, sell it and say whatever they sold was better than GrapheneOS at extortionate prices. Duress feature took as long as it did because we needed a unique way to wipe the device without reboot, that couldn't be interrupted and was also as fast as possible. We had our own wipe-without-reboot then Google designed one for future Android after our reports so GrapheneOS backported that as part of the infrastructure for the Duress feature. Hopefully those apps are redundant for GrapheneOS users now.
After the wipe it will boot to recovery as it can't access any data and then reset OS. After that it boots into the GrapheneOS setup wizard. To flash to another OS or stock OS, make sure to enable OEM unlocking on the fresh GrapheneOS install after the duress happens.
I back up to a couple of USB sticks. That works well enough to get back from something like this. It'd be inconvenient, but better than giving them everything on your device.
The encryption keys are deleted, yes the data is still written on the device but if the keys are shredded there is no way to read that data.
OT's avatar
OT 2 years ago
It’s interesting… I’ll have to think more deeply about ever using this though
↑