333

The foundation behind the ultra-secure Android-based OS is speaking out after an activist was indicted for using a 'duress password' to prevent federal agents from searching his phone.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone 157 points 5 days ago

So puzzled why it even needs defending in a country that is constantly screaming about free speech and rights, it is your data and no one has the right to it but you

[-] ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 100 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

The US thinks it's a lot of things it isn't, and really has never been. A democracy for example.

[-] joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone 35 points 5 days ago

Yes unfortunately with each passing year another piece of the facade that holds this noodle house together falls and reveals it's wobbly spineless innards

[-] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 27 points 5 days ago

All societies are flimsy

Held up one generation at a time by the educational and cultural matrix in which the new generation form their reality

[-] joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone 11 points 5 days ago

Mmm I was just talking about this, when people are so wrapped up in their own lives and don't care about each other or look out for each other, what's the point any more, society is gone. It's like people don't see it? I know it's not that bad all over but it's not a good trend and it doesn't seem to be fading

[-] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 10 points 5 days ago

You do realize that as recently as the 1800's the average household had at least one member infected with tapeworm at any given time?

Science and technology have brought such riches

Fuck MAGA, religion, and Trump-Orban

[-] joeljoelle@piefed.blahaj.zone 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

We can have advanced medicine without all this bullshit surveillance machinery technology, it is possible, people just have to set aside their greed but they are not willing to

I have no idea how my lament of the lack of socialism inspired your technology rant

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[-] Zorque@lemmy.world 21 points 5 days ago

Im not puzzled, theyre hypocrites. They want for themselves but not for others. Its the entire core of their beliefs.

[-] slickgoat@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago

Came here to say this. It's like taking a note out of your own pocket and ripping it up. What's actually the criminal offence?

The police just want to go on a fishing expedition on your data. Just try kicking in the doors of their house to do the same thing.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[-] newton@feddit.online 51 points 5 days ago

Hello people, you realize THAT this is the best free advertising that our dear graphene organization can get.

[-] MrRandom@lemmy.zip 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

yup, already tried to find phones with GrapheneOS installed.

  • I don't want a from Google, so no pixel
  • Motorola made plans
  • only a compatibility list :(
[-] VitoRobles@lemmy.today 15 points 4 days ago

Pixel phones are actually really good. You can buy them used/not directly from Google. Then reformat it to GrapheneOS.

Kinda like buying a Windows laptop to install Linux on it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] eleitl@lemmy.zip 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

If you reject the only supported hardware platform your priorities clearly lie elsewhere.

[-] ximtor@lemmy.zip 11 points 5 days ago
  • I want to avoid Google!
  • Graphene: here you go
  • Nice, now what phone?
  • Obviously a Google phone!

Come on, there gotta be many people who want to avoid buying a fucking pixel, even if second hand.

[-] illi@sh.itjust.works 14 points 4 days ago

Afaik Pixels come with the least bloat to work around amd also have some security features the GOS people like. Buying used or refurbished Pixel is currently the best you can do, so Google doesn't get any more money.

[-] ximtor@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I get it, there are reasons, but the point stands that I(and apparently others) preferably would have nothing to do with a Google product, how is that an unreasonable opinon?

I'm currently stuck on a phone that I can't even root (afaik), but I am also not eager to buy a new one while this one works perfectly (and isn't ginormous like most newer phones). I might be more willing to swich to a new non-G phone but how it is now I try to sandbox as much shit as i can (or know of) or use alternatives where possible.

It also feels like an incredibly complicated topic on what you could and should do. And I consider myself at least somewhat tech literate. It feels frustrating and some of the elitism around it doesnt help.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] rainbowbunny@slrpnk.net 5 points 4 days ago

I'm so hopeful for the Motorola. I really hope it turns out to be great

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] eleitl@lemmy.zip 30 points 5 days ago

Why do you have to defend against what is advertized as a feature and is working as advertized? The fascists can stuff it right up their arse.

[-] ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 62 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

This is what happens when you try to maintain your rights in a fascist country: you risk five years in the slammer.

I wonder why GrapheneOS makes a big flashy rebooty show when using the duress password instead of quietly unlocking to an empty phone though...

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 24 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Not sure there's a realistic way they don't notice. It takes time to wipe things and then the phone is empty. I feel like they'll figure it out.

[-] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 26 points 5 days ago

Less than a second to make a new partition, unmount the old one, and have a background process start wiping

[-] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 15 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I just realized there are ways you could do plausible deniability.

What if we keep a decoy partition ready to go? Pre-populate it with some AI-generated slop Facebook account, photos, etc. Keep A small random sample of music files. etc. Something that looks as plausible and bland as possible.

This is a feature that could get better & better over time. Don't just wipe my old data; make my adversary unaware that there was anything worth wiping.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] usrtrv@sh.itjust.works 18 points 5 days ago

Android supports multiple user profiles. They could have a duress code login to a more sanitary profile while data get wiped in the background. This has been discussed on the forums I believe.

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] LytiaNP@lemmy.today 11 points 5 days ago

This is a very common complaint, and the main reason is that it's way more complicated than it sounds. The duress feature is designed to immediately erase any chance to recover the unencrypted data from the phone by destroying part of the data used to derive the decryption keys (the other part being your pin/password, which can't be destroyed for obvious reasons). Any attempt to boot into a fake OS would be obvious to anyone familiar with the OS, thus making it effectively security theater. Not to mention the waste of space maintaining a fake OS, which would require fully featured apps and settings, all of which would have to be designed to pass verified boot, which means you can't actually destroy the original OS the way they do.

There's currently no known way to extract data from a locked GrapheneOS device, especially once it's in BFU, unless you've heavily reduced the default security measures, so the duress pin/password is likely unnecessary unless the danger of someone accessing the data is greater than the punishment for destruction of the data.

Also, the "big flashy rebooty show" is less of a feature and more of an unintended happenstance caused by the device immediately losing critical data and being forced to restart. The articles make it sound flashier than it is. It looks more like the device is powering on but the screen keeps disconnecting for a second, before going black.

[-] veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

This is a very common complaint, and the main reason is that it’s way more complicated than it sounds. The duress feature is designed to immediately erase any chance to recover the unencrypted data from the phone by destroying part of the data used to derive the decryption keys

Sure, but IIRC that does not help if the attacker can retain the device or clone it, yes? Once they have a copy of the raw data they can just throw a datacenter at it, for any future amount of time.

[-] LytiaNP@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

Let's assume they successfully extract all the remaining data after you enter the duress pin. Which, while not impossible, extracting the data on most GrapheneOS devices would require physically desoldering the SSD from the phone and dumping the data.

With the data extracted, assuming they attempt brute force, they're not brute forcing your password, they're brute forcing the entire decryption key, which is a mix of your password and a key generated when you first set up the OS (the latter of which was destroyed when the duress pin was entered). At that point, the phone owner, their entire lineage, and realistically the entirety of the universe itself will be long dead unless some breakthrough in cryptanalysis weakens AES256 such that it can be brute forced before all of humanity dies. That is to say, after the duress pin is entered, no one on Earth, even the device owner, can decrypt the data on the device.

[-] frongt@lemmy.zip 10 points 5 days ago

It probably wipes the encryption key and reboots to clear anything lingering in memory.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] RandomStranger@piefed.social 25 points 5 days ago

Why is the phone owner being accused? It was the border guard that put in the code and wiped the device. He should be the one prosecuted, if anyone.

[-] Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago

IKR - if there were genuine concerns that this guy might have something nefarious on his phone, surely they should confiscate it and pass it on to their tech guys to try to backdoor or whatever. Instead, this shit finger just types in whatever he's told and oops, he deleted any potential evidence.

[-] HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world 42 points 5 days ago

Those fascist fucks didn't have a right to confiscate his phone, nor any probable cause.

He was well within his rights to do with his property as he saw fit.

[-] EggInDisguise 25 points 5 days ago

The whole thing is just for show, I don't believe they expect to win this, it's a message to anyone who wants to try on the future "we will try to destroy your life if you resist even slightly"

They are claiming he destroyed evidence.

Evidence of what? What crime did he commit that you are searching the phone for evidence? If you don't believe a crime occurred, not only do you not have a reason to search the phone, but it doesn't matter if he took out a hammer and smashed it to little bits, it's his own property and he's free to do with it what he likes. He wanted to wipe it, and he got it wiped. What you wanted in that moment didn't matter in the slightest since you have no probable cause to search, no crime committed, no reason to baselessly charge someone for destroying something that doesn't exist.

It sounds exactly as ridiculous as someone being charge only with resisting arrest. If the person had provably done a crime worth arresting, that charge would be there as well.

[-] Juice@midwest.social 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Boy this story sure is getting a lot of publicity. Makes you wonder why. I forgot about this feature on Graphene phones, I'm gonna turn it on right now

[-] Robert_White@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago

The reboot isn't cosmetic, it's structural. The duress PIN nukes the key derivation material, and a device with no keys has nothing left to boot into. There's no quiet version of that.

But your instinct is right and worth pushing one step further. An empty phone has the same problem as a rebooting one. Nobody owns a phone with four apps and two weeks of messages, so it just takes them a bit longer to notice.

What you actually want is to quietly unlock into a phone that's full. Real apps, real photos, real history, and the sensitive half behind a second PIN stored so it reads as random noise, same as any unused encrypted space. Nothing gets destroyed, so there's nothing to reboot from and nothing to argue about afterwards.

Catch is the decoy has to be believable, and keeping one believable is a chore most people drop after a month.

(I work on DeniableOS, which does this, so grain of salt. Graphene's own statement this week made roughly your point, that wiping can carry physical or legal consequences.)

[-] Dionysus@leminal.space 6 points 4 days ago

That's actually a good use of onboard LLMs imo

Give it a short innocent history, have it generate stuff.

Do what their president does, fill the air with so much shit that you can't tell what's real anymore.

[-] Mossheart@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago

Your first two paragraphs read like they were LLM output in tone and language. I need to know if that's true or are you just was your writing style the source training material?

[-] Robert_White@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

No, it was me. I use ai to make corrections to my english because i'm not native speaker

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] E_coli42@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

God, the new motorola can't come out soon enough

[-] veniasilente@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 4 days ago

Ya know, all this can be avoided by simply not flying in with a phone in the first place. Or just not even going to the US.

Any plane ticket to the US is money given to an airline company that deals in abetting fascism by providing victims.

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 9 points 4 days ago

That person was literally an American though. I suspect they don't have another country they can legally stay in long term.

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 27 points 5 days ago

i mean they should it's a good feature and the person accused of using it didn't do a single thing wrong.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
333 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy

5940 readers
30 users here now

Welcome! This is a community for all those who are interested in protecting their privacy.

Rules

PS: Don't be a smartass and try to game the system, we'll know if you're breaking the rules when we see it!

  1. Be civil and no prejudice
  2. Don't promote big-tech software
  3. No apathy and defeatism for privacy (i.e. "They already have my data, why bother?")
  4. No reposting of news that was already posted
  5. No crypto, blockchain, NFTs
  6. No Xitter links (if absolutely necessary, use xcancel)

Related communities:

Some of these are only vaguely related, but great communities.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS