Burying the lede on what? The individual in question was being targeted in part because he was exercising his First Amendment right to protest environmental destruction and the militarization of police. I think if anything this makes it more disturbing. The US government has a long history of criminalizing movements they don't like as "terrorism".
You're agreeing with the person you responded to (bdcravens). Burying the lede means that bdcravens thinks the true headline should have been about being put on a terrorist watch list for protesting a police training camp, not about the phone.
It's sad how much everyone saw this coming. We've been warned since the very beginning that this arbitrary expansion of punishments you can do to anyone labelled a "terrorist" (previous "communist") will inevitably come back to bite us. We saw it with the Red Scares and now we have the Black Scare. FFS, even citizens are getting arrested for moving zines around
Btw, here's a list of the zines for which people got charged as terrorists and sentenced for decades in prison for https://pnppl.cc/prairieland/
This whole thing highlights how insane US border law is.
Sam was physically in the US, but because he was on an international flight, he was arrested in a manner that would be unconstitutional anywhere else in the US. He was denied a lawyer, questioned for I presume hours, had his phone stolen without a warrant, and then was released because there was no crime CBP could figure out how to charge him with then and there.
Months later, he gets charged by a federal statute even though where he committed the crime was a place that federal law does? doesn't? extend. Apparently it's a very convenient place where the constitution is void but federal laws still matter.
Cops can't arrest or detain you without some articulable suspicion of a crime being committed. They can't steal your stuff to try and find a crime you committed. They can't search your phone without a warrant in which they provide a judge with enough evidence to reasonably suspect a crime has been committed.
Yet Sam apparently had no rights because he was put on a watchlist for exercising first amendment rights.
Very despicable behavior by the government and the federal prosecutors pursuing this case.
I don’t think a judge would be impressed by this. If anything it actually makes the legal case easier: there’s a legitimate use for a wiping feature on a phone (e.g. for theft or tampering), but actively producing false information demonstrates an intent to deceive or mislead.
That would be a bad idea. GrapheneOS operates under the assumption that every attacker has encyclopedic knowledge of GOS at all times. This is by far not an unreasonable assumption. GrapheneOS does not add features relying on ignorance that they exist.
The duress wipe feature shuts the device down to let RAM discharge, this is an important step to remove any components of decryption before they can be lifted.
What about a duress timer working as the reboot timer but it wipes if you don't unlock within the time period. Would that have any advantages for destruction of evidence or deniability?
Or turn your phone off while transiting airports. Not a catch-all solution in life, but considering the extra-lack of rights we have there, it makes sense. No need for them if you write down your confirmation number before arriving for departure, in order to get your ticket printed. On landing, have it off until you clear TSA and Customs.
Quick reminder to my fellows that if you discuss this story here, it will end up immutable and available to law enforcement and, e.g., H1B eligibility deciders.
Some of us are on visa and have our online presence routinely scanned these days. Asymmetric vuln. If that's not you, why are you upset when it is acknowledged?
The technical problem here seems to be that GrapheneOS apparently doesn't support logging in to a partitioned empty OS for scanning purposes, also that it doesn't support such partitions at all, only one of which would be the real one.
It's not possible to create that feature because GrapheneOS operates under the assumption that an adversary has encyclopedic knowledge of the OS. Currently your suggestion would leave forensic traces so it wouldn't achieve the goal of deniability.
I find that line of thought to be hilarious and absurd, since even simple encrypted containers on mass-market Android devices work to shield the user. The forensic trace doesn't grant access to the container.
This is a good article, and it brings much-needed attention to this case, which so far has not received the level of public awareness that is consummate with seriousness with which the federal government intends to weaken or undermine the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights of every American in prosecuting these bogus charges against Sam.
However, it makes an erroneous equivocation that, I believe, has profound technical and legal implications. In the article's first paragraph, it claims that GrapheneOS "enables users to enter a passcode and wipe a phone clean". What the author of the article is referring to is GrapheneOS's duress password/PIN feature[1], which does not (contrary to what it may seem on first glance) delete or modify the data on the persistent flash storage phone in any way. What it does is zero the key slots in the phone's Secure Element, which stores the disk encryption keys necessary to decrypt the data on persistent storage (technically, these disk encryption keys are not themselves stored in the secure element, but are first encrypted with a key encryption key/KEK derived from a user-entered passcode/PIN and then stored in the secure element[2]. If an adversary were able to break the secure element and extract the contents of the key slots, they would still need to brute-force the KEK in order to obtain the actual disk encryption keys).
To my knowledge, US law does not explicitly say whether deleting the key necessary to decrypt a given ciphertext is equivalent to deleting the ciphertext itself. Technically speaking, they are not equivalent, even if it would take an exorbitant amount of time to recover a deleted key using a brute-force search or some forensic method. If the federal government wants to claim, using this case to set a legal precedent, that it is equivalent, then I would argue that this in effect makes encryption as a concept illegal (as encryption is nothing without the ability of the person using encryption to control access to the encryption key(s)). Reading about the recent Prairieland trial, in which (among other blatant injustices) an activist was convicted by a kangaroo court of "destroying evidence" because they merely removed someone from a Signal group[3], it's clear to me that Prairieland along with Sam's case is part of a coordinated strategy under the NSPM-7 "Antifa Memorandum"[4]: the federal government is using lawfare to establish that it has a right to arbitrarily access the data of its citizens in order to crush political dissent.
I don’t think courts care about technicality here. They’re going to simply ask “why didn’t it unlock like a normal phone does” -> aka you’re deliberately hiding evidence from us.
I’m sure this case will be dropped because it will open bigger can of worms and may jeopardize the current practice of warrantless invasive searches at the entry points. Secretly I hope this goes to Supreme Court and once and for all they clarify on “constitution doesn’t apply at the border” piece of thinking
Yeah I saw that. What do you mean 30 years in prison solely for the so called
"Corrupting and concealing documents, interfering with their ability to be used in grand jury and criminal proceedings;
Conspiracy to conceal documents that would implicate Maricela Rueda"
Sounds like a good reason to use alternatives like GrapheneOS. It doesn't take a big % of users to let the "using it is suspicious by itself" nonsense wear off.
Not to worry, but big tech and government are slowly crafting laws that make non-big-tech operating systems illegal in the name of protecting children.
It looks like there are a lot of issues here on the government side, but it also appears like the protestor intentionally gave them a password that, when used, wipes the phone? That seems like a clear example of destruction of evidence.
I don't think the crime of destroying evidence / tampering with evidence depends on what your status in custody is. If the police knock on your front door and you start shredding documents, that's still a crime.
Now, could that get tossed about because they denied him access to a lawyer? Maybe, I don't know about that part.
Under Georgia law (16-10-94) you do not have to be under arrest.
> A person commits the offense of tampering with evidence when, with the intent to prevent the apprehension or cause the wrongful apprehension of any person or to obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he knowingly destroys, alters, conceals, or disguises physical evidence or makes, devises, prepares, or plants false evidence
That is not how the law works. Under Georgia law (GA Code § 16-2-20) it says
> (a) Every person concerned in the commission of a crime is a party thereto and may be charged with and convicted of commission of the crime
>(b) A person is concerned in the commission of a crime only if he:
(1) Directly commits the crime;
(2) Intentionally causes some other person to commit the crime under such circumstances that the other person is not guilty of any crime either in fact or because of legal incapacity;
(3) Intentionally aids or abets in the commission of the crime; or
(4) Intentionally advises, encourages, hires, counsels, or procures another to commit the crime
You do not have to give them your pin, by law. They can use biometrics to open your device, which is why you should not use biometrics for device unlocking.
GraphenOS has a couple of settings, a distress pin that wipes the device, and a number of failed attempts that will wipe the device. If the person handed over their "pin", they didn't need to
It doesn't wipe after a certain number of failed attempts but rather the secure element only permits a total of 20 attempts and heavily throttles the rate those can be done. That's a standard feature for Android 16 QPR2 and later for devices implementing the recommendations. The list of devices with it likely currently only includes Pixels but we'll make sure to have it on the upcoming Motorola Mobility devices.
It can't because it runs on phones which only have SSDs which leave forensic traces. They would like to improve deniability but it must be robust, whatever they implement.
"federal authorities had put him on a terrorism watchlist because of his alleged association with the movement against Cop City"
Talk about burying the lede
Burying the lede on what? The individual in question was being targeted in part because he was exercising his First Amendment right to protest environmental destruction and the militarization of police. I think if anything this makes it more disturbing. The US government has a long history of criminalizing movements they don't like as "terrorism".
You're agreeing with the person you responded to (bdcravens). Burying the lede means that bdcravens thinks the true headline should have been about being put on a terrorist watch list for protesting a police training camp, not about the phone.
Note that "antifa" is now recognized as a terrorist organization by the current federal government. It will get much worse if they aren't stopped.
which they are you referring to? Antifa or the gov't?
2 replies →
It's sad how much everyone saw this coming. We've been warned since the very beginning that this arbitrary expansion of punishments you can do to anyone labelled a "terrorist" (previous "communist") will inevitably come back to bite us. We saw it with the Red Scares and now we have the Black Scare. FFS, even citizens are getting arrested for moving zines around
Btw, here's a list of the zines for which people got charged as terrorists and sentenced for decades in prison for https://pnppl.cc/prairieland/
This whole thing highlights how insane US border law is.
Sam was physically in the US, but because he was on an international flight, he was arrested in a manner that would be unconstitutional anywhere else in the US. He was denied a lawyer, questioned for I presume hours, had his phone stolen without a warrant, and then was released because there was no crime CBP could figure out how to charge him with then and there.
Months later, he gets charged by a federal statute even though where he committed the crime was a place that federal law does? doesn't? extend. Apparently it's a very convenient place where the constitution is void but federal laws still matter.
Cops can't arrest or detain you without some articulable suspicion of a crime being committed. They can't steal your stuff to try and find a crime you committed. They can't search your phone without a warrant in which they provide a judge with enough evidence to reasonably suspect a crime has been committed.
Yet Sam apparently had no rights because he was put on a watchlist for exercising first amendment rights.
Very despicable behavior by the government and the federal prosecutors pursuing this case.
Indeed. Hopefully the next administration will hold current officials accountable for such abuses of power.
This problem pre-dates the current administration. Safe to say it has bipartisan support.
https://www.aclu.org/documents/constitution-100-mile-border-...
Yeah, and then they’ll give everyone a pony
1 reply →
This is a technical problem.
Instead of wiping and rebooting, it should wipe while showing a lame spreadsheet application, or possibly a grocery list.
I don’t think a judge would be impressed by this. If anything it actually makes the legal case easier: there’s a legitimate use for a wiping feature on a phone (e.g. for theft or tampering), but actively producing false information demonstrates an intent to deceive or mislead.
Easier solution: phone wipes itself if passcode is not entered every X hours
11 replies →
Deceiving a kidnapper into thinking you complied with their order to unlock your phone would be a legitimate use.
4 replies →
> This is a technical problem.
Government overreach cannot be solved with technical solutions.
That would be a bad idea. GrapheneOS operates under the assumption that every attacker has encyclopedic knowledge of GOS at all times. This is by far not an unreasonable assumption. GrapheneOS does not add features relying on ignorance that they exist.
The duress wipe feature shuts the device down to let RAM discharge, this is an important step to remove any components of decryption before they can be lifted.
What about a duress timer working as the reboot timer but it wipes if you don't unlock within the time period. Would that have any advantages for destruction of evidence or deniability?
1 reply →
Or just don't wipe your phone and let the reboot timer do its work and bring your phone to BFU state, effectively uncrackable.
The issue here is CBP was (illegally) demanding he give them his passcode (5th amendment violation).
Doesn't really matter if the reboot timer is triggered if the thugs have beaten your code out of you.
1 reply →
Or turn your phone off while transiting airports. Not a catch-all solution in life, but considering the extra-lack of rights we have there, it makes sense. No need for them if you write down your confirmation number before arriving for departure, in order to get your ticket printed. On landing, have it off until you clear TSA and Customs.
It shouldn't be this way, but oh well.
3 replies →
Quick reminder to my fellows that if you discuss this story here, it will end up immutable and available to law enforcement and, e.g., H1B eligibility deciders.
Dark forest
Better to die on ones feet than live on ones knees.
Some of us are on visa and have our online presence routinely scanned these days. Asymmetric vuln. If that's not you, why are you upset when it is acknowledged?
4 replies →
You have it backwards.
It is better to live on one's feet, than to die on one's knees.
2 replies →
The technical problem here seems to be that GrapheneOS apparently doesn't support logging in to a partitioned empty OS for scanning purposes, also that it doesn't support such partitions at all, only one of which would be the real one.
It's not possible to create that feature because GrapheneOS operates under the assumption that an adversary has encyclopedic knowledge of the OS. Currently your suggestion would leave forensic traces so it wouldn't achieve the goal of deniability.
I find that line of thought to be hilarious and absurd, since even simple encrypted containers on mass-market Android devices work to shield the user. The forensic trace doesn't grant access to the container.
3 replies →
This is a good article, and it brings much-needed attention to this case, which so far has not received the level of public awareness that is consummate with seriousness with which the federal government intends to weaken or undermine the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights of every American in prosecuting these bogus charges against Sam.
However, it makes an erroneous equivocation that, I believe, has profound technical and legal implications. In the article's first paragraph, it claims that GrapheneOS "enables users to enter a passcode and wipe a phone clean". What the author of the article is referring to is GrapheneOS's duress password/PIN feature[1], which does not (contrary to what it may seem on first glance) delete or modify the data on the persistent flash storage phone in any way. What it does is zero the key slots in the phone's Secure Element, which stores the disk encryption keys necessary to decrypt the data on persistent storage (technically, these disk encryption keys are not themselves stored in the secure element, but are first encrypted with a key encryption key/KEK derived from a user-entered passcode/PIN and then stored in the secure element[2]. If an adversary were able to break the secure element and extract the contents of the key slots, they would still need to brute-force the KEK in order to obtain the actual disk encryption keys).
To my knowledge, US law does not explicitly say whether deleting the key necessary to decrypt a given ciphertext is equivalent to deleting the ciphertext itself. Technically speaking, they are not equivalent, even if it would take an exorbitant amount of time to recover a deleted key using a brute-force search or some forensic method. If the federal government wants to claim, using this case to set a legal precedent, that it is equivalent, then I would argue that this in effect makes encryption as a concept illegal (as encryption is nothing without the ability of the person using encryption to control access to the encryption key(s)). Reading about the recent Prairieland trial, in which (among other blatant injustices) an activist was convicted by a kangaroo court of "destroying evidence" because they merely removed someone from a Signal group[3], it's clear to me that Prairieland along with Sam's case is part of a coordinated strategy under the NSPM-7 "Antifa Memorandum"[4]: the federal government is using lawfare to establish that it has a right to arbitrarily access the data of its citizens in order to crush political dissent.
[1] https://grapheneos.org/features#duress
[2] https://grapheneos.org/faq#encryption
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jun/...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSPM-7
I don’t think courts care about technicality here. They’re going to simply ask “why didn’t it unlock like a normal phone does” -> aka you’re deliberately hiding evidence from us.
I’m sure this case will be dropped because it will open bigger can of worms and may jeopardize the current practice of warrantless invasive searches at the entry points. Secretly I hope this goes to Supreme Court and once and for all they clarify on “constitution doesn’t apply at the border” piece of thinking
I wish I shared your optimism. For the sake of the accused, I hope you're right, but I could see them really doubling down on this.
Yeah I saw that. What do you mean 30 years in prison solely for the so called
"Corrupting and concealing documents, interfering with their ability to be used in grand jury and criminal proceedings; Conspiracy to conceal documents that would implicate Maricela Rueda"
By removing people from the Signal group?
Sounds like a good reason to use alternatives like GrapheneOS. It doesn't take a big % of users to let the "using it is suspicious by itself" nonsense wear off.
It's already supported by Roblox:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48994716
2 days ago 87 comments
Not to worry, but big tech and government are slowly crafting laws that make non-big-tech operating systems illegal in the name of protecting children.
It looks like there are a lot of issues here on the government side, but it also appears like the protestor intentionally gave them a password that, when used, wipes the phone? That seems like a clear example of destruction of evidence.
Evidence of what?
> That seems like a clear example of destruction of evidence
If he was under arrest, sure. The cops claiming this was a routine airport inspection would seem to muddy the waters, at least.
I don't think the crime of destroying evidence / tampering with evidence depends on what your status in custody is. If the police knock on your front door and you start shredding documents, that's still a crime.
Now, could that get tossed about because they denied him access to a lawyer? Maybe, I don't know about that part.
7 replies →
Under Georgia law (16-10-94) you do not have to be under arrest.
> A person commits the offense of tampering with evidence when, with the intent to prevent the apprehension or cause the wrongful apprehension of any person or to obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he knowingly destroys, alters, conceals, or disguises physical evidence or makes, devises, prepares, or plants false evidence
6 replies →
Technically that means the cops destroyed the evidence. Their investigatory department should be savvy enough to avoid destroying evidence.
That is not how the law works. Under Georgia law (GA Code § 16-2-20) it says
> (a) Every person concerned in the commission of a crime is a party thereto and may be charged with and convicted of commission of the crime
>(b) A person is concerned in the commission of a crime only if he: (1) Directly commits the crime; (2) Intentionally causes some other person to commit the crime under such circumstances that the other person is not guilty of any crime either in fact or because of legal incapacity; (3) Intentionally aids or abets in the commission of the crime; or (4) Intentionally advises, encourages, hires, counsels, or procures another to commit the crime
Seems like this is a clear case to me.
1 reply →
You do not have to give them your pin, by law. They can use biometrics to open your device, which is why you should not use biometrics for device unlocking.
GraphenOS has a couple of settings, a distress pin that wipes the device, and a number of failed attempts that will wipe the device. If the person handed over their "pin", they didn't need to
It doesn't wipe after a certain number of failed attempts but rather the secure element only permits a total of 20 attempts and heavily throttles the rate those can be done. That's a standard feature for Android 16 QPR2 and later for devices implementing the recommendations. The list of devices with it likely currently only includes Pixels but we'll make sure to have it on the upcoming Motorola Mobility devices.
We wrote an overview of the features we provide:
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/40700-grapheneos-protection...
GrapheneOS does not offer a feature to wipe the device based on failed attempts.
1 reply →
Why do you think reporters would rather eat a contempt charge vs throwing their sources to the wolves?
It's too bad GrapheneOS doesn't support hidden volumes.
It can't because it runs on phones which only have SSDs which leave forensic traces. They would like to improve deniability but it must be robust, whatever they implement.
Evidence of what?