Do not use biometrics.
Period.
Full stop.
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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Use biometrics - just know the tools at your disposal to lockdown your phone.
I use tasker to put my phone in lockdown mode whenever it senses a sharp tap (acceleration change) or Bluetooth disconnects. I figure that if I get pulled from my car or slammed to the ground, I'm going to want to require a PIN, password, or pattern to unlock. A quick tap on my pocket or just setting it down too aggressively does the same.
Tasker is great for that. I also love the "send a keyword and tasker will text back with current GPS location" feature.
Mine is send a key word and tasker sets an alarm one minute from now. Although I have a whole list of keywords I can use, including for GPS location, that one is far and away the one I use the most.
Mostly because if my phone is on silent the alarm will still ring
Genius. That's such a good idea to find your phone.
Bails me out so hard
Biometrics are ease of access, not security. They make it easy for you (and low skilled strong arm attackers, skilled hackers, nation state actors, and neo-Nazi police state border and police thugs) to unlock your phone. As long as you're good with making it easy for them to unlock your phone by all means, use biometrics.
Using biometrics to provide access to personal data is asinine.
Using biometrics to provide access to any amount of sensitive data is criminally negligent.
Biometrics cannot be changed. Once you've given your palm biometrics, or facial biometrics, or fingerprints, or iris or retinal scans, or facial biometrics to any company or government they are no longer useful.
Just as the 5.6 million people whose fingerprints were lost in the OPM hack in 2015.
But whatever...you do you. If you want to make it easy for people to access your device, go ahead and use biometrics.
It takes one button press and one tap to disable biometrics on my phone at which point it reverts to a strong password.
*Getting handcuffed*
"Hey officer can I press a couple buttons on my phone first? :)"
Lol if it takes until there's literal handcuffs on you, you're a little physically challenged. Not to mention the phone will auto lockdown after 24hrs. There's also nothing stopping you from initiating the lockdown if they were at the point of forcing you to open it.
So… show your PIN to everybody around you? Or should everybody type in a full blown password to just unlock their phone?
GrapheneOS has PIN scrambling where the number layout is different each time.
Along with the ability to disable the PIN button press visual feedback. Stock Android makes it super obvious what you’re typing in.
Draw a pattern with the dots? There's several ways to protect your privacy and thumbprints are by far one of the laziest and easiest to exploit options available
Biometrics are ease of access, not security. They make it easy for you (and low skilled strong arm attackers, skilled hackers, nation state actors, and neo-Nazi police state border and police thugs) to unlock your phone. As long as you're good with making it easy for them to unlock your phone by all means, use biometrics.
Using biometrics to provide access to personal data is asinine.
Using biometrics to provide access to any amount of sensitive data is criminally negligent.
Biometrics cannot be changed. Once you've given your palm biometrics, or facial biometrics, or fingerprints, or iris or retinal scans, or facial biometrics to any company or government they are no longer useful.
Just as the 5.6 million people whose fingerprints were lost in the OPM hack in 2015.
But whatever...you do you. If you want to make it easy for people to access your device, go ahead and use biometrics.
This is no different than them trying to say that any time you're arrested, you have to unlock the front door to your house and let them search the place without cause, reason, or warrant. We know this. They know this. But since both political parties want a surveillance police State, that's what we'll get. It's not like we ever get to vote on this stuff. We can only vote for a couple of people that share the exact same viewpoint on these matters, and then those people can do whatever tf they want.
US court can go fuck a duck cuz I'm putting my phone in lockdown mode and will not be opening it. If the gangsters want the data on the device, they're going to have to crack it themselves.
It's like that except fo the fact that ut us not at all like that.
It is forcing someone to grant access to information that requires a search warrant.
They know this. They don't care. They decided to treat digital life as its own separate thing 20 years ago, a thing that they can violate all laws on, despite clear analogous real life equivalents from which to form precedent.
Wish I could set one specific finger -like the ring finger - assigned to load a empty/fake partition for the OS. Kinda like a briefcase with a secret compartment when you open it a certain way.
Edit: looks like some one in the comments already had the same idea:)
There's an option on Oneplus. If you put one fingerprint it'll open owner and you can set another fingerprint to open another user
Cool! I hadn't heard of this, thank you.
Which version/model? I don't see that option on my 9 pro.
8T, I don't have the official software anymore but I remember it clearly. You probably gotta dig up through settings more
Opens to a picture of their wife...
And parents
The solution is so obvious that I suspect a conspiracy. Just allow OTHER actions to be performed based on the finger used. Maybe it's unlock, maybe it's power-off, maybe siren, maybe factory-reset.
I've been looking forever for an android ROM that does this. Base it on fingerprints and pins.
Surprised no one has used it to streamline multiple profiles for shared devices either.
They've already captured you, which means they've captured your brain, which means they've captured your passwords and location of any keys. Therefore they can force you to unlock anything they want. /S
That's the thing. You don't have to give the password, but under this you will be forced to give the "fingerprint" or face consequences.
I understood. I was using satire to apply the same justifications to passwords and keys, which currently are protected, afaict.
Exactly why I refuse to use biometrics. I like exercising my constitutional rights, especially in this age when they're constantly trying to restrict our rights.
On iPhones, if you have Face ID enabled, pressing the power button 5 times puts in lockdown mode. This disables the usb port, Face ID, contactless payments, and requires the 6-digit pin to unlock everything. I don’t know if android phones have something similar.
It’s a neat trick for when you think you might get into a “situation”. Also, the cameras still work.
Restarting the device does this on Android. The PIN is required to enable any functionality.
It's only helpful where investigation is not worth the time/cost. Unless you use Lockdown mode, they can do full extraction of iPhones via Cellebrite.
That’s the thing about lockdown mode— it’s super-quick to enable of you get into a situation, and you can still use your device with it turned on to, for example, video record an incident that will live-stream or sync to the cloud for later remote retrieval.
And with the usb port disabled, the cops won’t be extracting anything.
It's not fast, but I think we're talking about different things. You are probably talking about SOS mode. The Lockdown Mode requires navigating through a bunch of settings and entering your passcode to enable it.
And port is just one way Cellbrite works. It has many modes which exploit different weaknesses to gain access. Apple finally fixed the biggest one, by finally encrypting the iCloud backup. Before that, all the security measures were defeated by Apple itself, by making a copy of the whole device and leaving it unencrypted...
P.S. Apple only recently were forced to use Universal Serial Bus (USB). So most people are still using Lightning port (Proprietary Serial Bus).
Oh, you’re right, I was confusing what it’s called with something else. But 5x clicking the power button locks the phone down in a basic way, enough to block Cellbrite from breaking in with a usb tool. And having iCloud advanced encryption enabled keeps them out of there, too.
Android also requires the pin after a few attempts and even when changing your location far enough.
Yes, you can enable a similar option on Android, which can be activated when holding down the power button.
Power + volume up is usually how you do it I believe. Holding power down usually just activates an assistant.
nope. default android 12-13 is the screen above posted. Hold power for a few seconds and it'll pop up unless you've changed settings.
Default android is not what most people run. Samsung and Google defaults are assistant.
nope. wife's Pixel 5a and my work pixel 3xl both do this on long power button.
Interesting. It's definitely a Samsung default and I thought it was Google default too.
You can obviously disable it by turning off Assistant but if that's not what you've done then there's more to it than I thought.
How do you shut down your phone? :)
Power + Volume Up?
They mean to press and hold the power button. Which reveals this menu
