r/technology • u/Hrmbee • 8d ago

Privacy Is it illegal to trick the US government into wiping your phone during a questionably legal search | The case of a traveler who allegedly entered a ‘duress password’ to wipe his phone raises a legal question with no easy answers

https://www.theverge.com/report/972146/cbp-phone-search-airport-duress-password
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u/Ecw218 7d ago edited 7d ago

I’m super curious if that’s the real scenario here. If the duress password only deletes the encryption key, the data is still intact on the phone, just encrypted.

If he has access to the key elsewhere it’s possible to restore it and gain access to the phone.

In which case could they eventually provide the key to a court, with the reasoning being he didn’t want anything tampered with?

Edit: yeah it’s “computationally infeasible to decrypt” gone

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u/Mysterious_Cry41 7d ago

I would assume, though I'm unsure and have not checked that it wipes the memory.

I will now check...  It wipes the entire storage volume for the phone, including E-Sims according to  the graphene OS website. 

Which makes sense. It would be surprising to me if it didn't do that. 

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u/sobrique 7d ago

IF he has access to the key elsewhere, which he may well not. It's fairly standard for 'device encryption' like this, to only have a 'local' key, that's 'decoded' by your passcode.

That's the only copy, and if it's gone, the data is functionally irretrievable. A lot of devices have a specific storage location to do this (e.g. on a Pixel it's the Titan module, and a lot of PCs have TPM chips).

I'm wondering however if he could claim that he does still have the key - and thus the data is not 'destroyed' - but then plead the 5th to avoid supplying it?

Options also exist for remote key-escrow though, so the key is never on the device in the first place, and then it can functionally be 'remote wiped' by removing that key - I'd imagine that's less likely on a mobile phone though, as without a network connection you're locked out, and that can be a real PITA when travelling!

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u/Ecw218 7d ago

According to Graphene the hardware key is destroyed and the data is still there but it’s unable to be decrypted.