Replies (46)

they buried the lead here, he was targetted and should have never given them any PIN code "Tunick’s legal team is now trying to have the evidence thrown out. It argues that he was questioned without being read his Miranda rights, that agents repeatedly refused his requests to speak with a lawyer, and that the phone search was an unreasonable seizure. His lawyers also say questions about child sexual abuse material were used as a pretext to investigate his alleged links to the movement opposing Atlanta’s police training center, commonly known as Cop City."
It is better to display information when confirming the pin, because then it is clear. "This input has been used voluntarily; if they are a stranger, they have used threats of violence to blackmail someone around the pin, this act is documented by a lawyer receiving the last speech recordings." Pin has caused them to destroy someone else's property. Maybe such a process is better.
I'm wondering if the smarter move is to use an obvious duress password, like 1111 and just give it to them. Graphene is pretty secure if you have the USB set up properly, and you have the right to remain silent. Problem is with borders is they can just really F with you, make you miss connections, etc.
"For example, would it be considered destruction of evidence if a defendant had written it on the back of the phone and the officers assumed it was the correct PIN?" Yeah, great, wife and daughter would wipe my phone on day 1 and randos on day 4.
Nice reminder to just wipe it ahead of time and store your backups on a server you can access remotely once you get where you're going. Phones are an awful place to store data anyway. Though admittedly I'm not sure of the fastest way to restore said backups -- seems like convenience is the big thing that drives people to just take their luck at the border. There's probably an app solution to be made here...
Sounds to me like having pixel as your phone is a reason for suspecting & searching ?
Actually the better duress pin is fully deniable encryption: you set certain policies on data, you insert a pin and only the data tied to that pin are visible. Those who see can't tell if there is something else hidden. This way you're compliant and yet still private.
alt_smij's avatar
alt_smij 15 hours ago
too bad it couldn't have dual boot based on the pass code. use one code, get one os, use another get a different one. hmmm
You could go for more plausibility to make them really ignore you if you want. Depends how involved you wanna get. But yea, "it's a new phone" is at least plausible, if not necessarily believed...
The app solution may already exist for rooted phones anyway (and be impossible on unrooted phones). OrangeFox Recovery looks like it will do this, to an extent that a restored recovery file brings you back to a point where logged in account sessions are still live. Not quite the same as Norton Ghost for phones but does look nearly as good.
> The charge treats the alleged wipe as destruction of property intended to prevent a government seizure. This does not seem like it fits the situation. The phone did not get destroyed. He just deleted data. Is data considered property? If yes, is not the burden of proof on them to show what he destroyed? But how can they prove it, if they do not know what was in there?
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G Force G 6 hours ago
I guess they can declare their own actions "reasonable"
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G Force G 6 hours ago
I kinda like that idea. Just have an automated nightly backup so you only lose the last 24 hours of memes.
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G Force G 6 hours ago
So what happens if you wipe your phone before the border search? Is it probable cause because you have a suspiciously fresh os and no contacts etc...?
This case reads a lot like they were already investigating him for sex crimes. It's standard operating procedure to trap pedos by getting them to cross borders.
The the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution also states that “No person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself…”. He shouldn't be compelled to give the correct PIN which could incriminate himself. Doesn't he have the presumption of innocence? The burden should be on the part of the investigators to prove they have reasonable cause and also to prove guilt. I'm no lawyer, but amirite?
Yea...there's a spectrum, as with most things. Arguably having a dummy cell phone is less likely to draw as much scrutiny than showing up without one. 'I don't have a cell phone' said nobody under the age of 70 honestly. But anything you have at the border is a lot more out in the open than anywhere else you have it. And data goes over borders without needing to be subject to this state of affairs, if only you avoid physically bringing it with you.
Anarchy Edu's avatar
Anarchy Edu 4 hours ago
Sounds a lot like “she should have wore less promiscuous clothing and maybe she wouldn’t have gotten rap*#!” …blame the victim much, Mr Freedom??
Anarchy Edu's avatar
Anarchy Edu 3 hours ago
“We own your property” — U.S. Thugs …Anyone who supports this is a proud slave.
If data is property then people who isn't using GrapheneOS and other freedom tech are being stolen
It's not that he was silent and refused to provide the password. It's that he gave a command to the device to destroy the evidence, so even if they had a fancy zero-day, it was not there to decrypt.
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ihsotas 1 hour ago
Sounds like the state eased his phone. Sounds like it’s their problem.
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ihsotas 58 mins ago
Sure but the government had no fucking right so it’s good this happened and we can get this out in the open .