this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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Privacy

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GrapheneOS provides users with the ability to set a duress PIN/Password that will irreversibly wipe the device (along with any installed eSIMs) once entered anywhere where the device credentials are requested (on the lockscreen, along with any such prompt in the OS).

The wipe does not require a reboot and cannot be interrupted. It can be set up at Settings > Security > Duress Password in the owner profile. Both a duress PIN and password will need to be set to account for different profiles that may have different unlock methods.

Note that if the duress PIN/Password is the same as the actual unlock method, the actual unlock method always takes precedence, and therefore no wipe will occur.

Source: https://grapheneos.org/features#duress

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Mhm i can imagine that GrapheneOS will be marked as an illegal OS once Interpol and others get wind of this kill switch.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

The people Interpool is after don't need Duress. They simply refuse to give out their password. Current Pixel and iPhones phones cannt be cracked with forensic tools. https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/12848-claims-made-by-forensics-companies-their-capabilities-and-how-grapheneos-fares

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Doubt it, wouldn't they just clone the flash first?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (2 children)

irreversibly wipe the device

And for anyone to actually go through the trouble of cloning a flash chip, you'd have to be an extremely high profile target.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Who the fuck do you think interpol are targeting? Lmao

[–] mypasswordis1234 31 points 5 months ago

That may be useful

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Wonder if this say a big "WIPING..." and shows a blank profile then.

Because it would be much more useful if this would erase real profile and then quickly switch to some fake profile looking real.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

It doesn't say anything. It shuts the device down almost instantly, and simulnateously wipes the encryption keys from the secure element, ensuring that the data stored on the SSD can't be decrypted.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Why didn't you contribute this feature sooner then?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm maxed out on open source contributions myself right now as maintainer of a large project

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

... and I've been told I'm demanding and entitled, but here's some jackass who downvoted one(@ryannathans) who is doing the work. You or I can never do enough to be worthy to request certain features or bug-fixes be given higher priority.

These people need to go back to Spez's, Musk's, or Zuck's playground, since they love having no say so much.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Cool feature, I wonder if a duress fingerprint will be introduced in the future?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I feel like that would be a lot easier to accidentally trigger.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You're not wrong, but like the duress pin, it would be a nice feature to have. Not everyone would have to set a duress fingerprint, just the people who find value in it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You would not believe how much I have lost from being obsessed with high-threat modeling for my low-threat life. $10k and family videos for a start.

Sometimes it's a good idea to protect the community from itself lol.

[–] laughterlaughter 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Don't leave us hanging. How did it happen?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Writing down a crypto wallet key in a self hosted password manager on a highly encrypted self hosted drive which degraded. Pretty much the same with the photos, if I didn't encrypt my backups I would have been able to recover more files.

[–] laughterlaughter 1 points 5 months ago

Oh yikes.

I got out of crypto stuff long ago. But I was so paranoid with losing wallet keys that I'd put them everywhere in chunks, like a medieval quartered body spread all over Scotland.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (3 children)

something something destruction of evidence

[–] autonomoususer 19 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

What evidence?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Alternately, it could unlock the phone while also erasing specific parts of it, like message history and call logs, potentially replacing them with something you'd set up previously.

Edit: and obviously it would disable the duress pin and set the unlocking pin to it.

[–] DetectiveSanity 3 points 5 months ago

Depends on what you did! Say for example they're using Graphene to harass/paedophilia then they already have a copious amount of evidence on hand since they are there.

For organising peaceful protests that seems less of an issue and the other end of the chats is the weak link.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago