If he hadn't given the authorities the duress pin, and presumably they had seized it, would the encryption/protection GrapheneOS provides have been enough to keep them from accessing it's contents? I've never used Graphene so I'm unfamiliar with all it's features.
My Samsung phone has a feature to automatically format the device if the wrong code is entered X number of times, and I have security software that would let me wipe it remotely (if it still had internet access) so this whole situation brings up a lot of questions about features like this.
EDIT More discussion about it here, but it's quite technical. I was a bit confused about the rate limiting stuff and etc.
Providing a duress PIN to wipe your phone when they ask for the passcode? Any realistic person can predict that could have major legal repercussions. Cypherpunks have pondered the legal consequences of blatantly doing things like that for decades.
Props to the defendant for volunteering as a test case. He should've powered off his phone before he went through customs, or better yet traveled with a burner phone.
It doesn't matter if the feds are doing something wrong... if you interfere or destroy potential evidence, rather than simply recite your 5th and 6th amendment rights, you've put yourself in a whole new ball game.
He probably would've been fine if he'd maintained his refusal contingent on talking to a lawyer first. They might not have even attempted to crack the phone, and if they had, he'd have a better chance of getting the contents thrown out than he has now of fighting the destruction of evidence charge. The two issues are largely separate, unless a court decides the detention and attempted search were so egregious that they negate his separate, intentional act of wiping his phone when he was being detained.
We might wish for a mobile device to be a mobile castle immune from any [request for] search or seizure without a warrant, but that hasn't been established in case law, and everything else crossing the border (except what's diplomatically immune) is subject to some warrantless scrutiny.
My Samsung phone has a feature to automatically format the device if the wrong code is entered X number of times, and I have security software that would let me wipe it remotely (if it still had internet access) so this whole situation brings up a lot of questions about features like this.
EDIT More discussion about it here, but it's quite technical. I was a bit confused about the rate limiting stuff and etc.
GrapheneOS protections against data extraction from locked devices - HN Post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49055169
Props to the defendant for volunteering as a test case. He should've powered off his phone before he went through customs, or better yet traveled with a burner phone.
It doesn't matter if the feds are doing something wrong... if you interfere or destroy potential evidence, rather than simply recite your 5th and 6th amendment rights, you've put yourself in a whole new ball game.
He probably would've been fine if he'd maintained his refusal contingent on talking to a lawyer first. They might not have even attempted to crack the phone, and if they had, he'd have a better chance of getting the contents thrown out than he has now of fighting the destruction of evidence charge. The two issues are largely separate, unless a court decides the detention and attempted search were so egregious that they negate his separate, intentional act of wiping his phone when he was being detained.
We might wish for a mobile device to be a mobile castle immune from any [request for] search or seizure without a warrant, but that hasn't been established in case law, and everything else crossing the border (except what's diplomatically immune) is subject to some warrantless scrutiny.