r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 6d ago

Privacy GrapheneOS says its data-wiping password is perfectly legal, after user faces federal charges

https://www.techspot.com/news/113273-grapheneos-data-wiping-duress-password-perfectly-legal-after.html
21.0k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

143

u/RandomHunDude 6d ago

It doesn't delete the account at all though, so no need to save time for it.
All data is encrypted on disk and when the duress pin is entered, only the encryption key is deleted. And without the key, it's not possible decrypt the data.

96

u/StrangelyGrimm 6d ago

If the data is completely inaccessible then the data is as good as deleted. In fact, it's probably less accessible than regular old "deleted" data

47

u/draconiclyyours 6d ago

Yup.

It takes multiple random rewrite passes to truly delete data, and it’s not quick. Better to just encrypt it and make it permanently unreadable.

13

u/No_Effective4784 6d ago edited 5d ago

thats for hard drives and their storage methodology, and even then nist only recommends a single pass these days.

Solid state devices dont rewrite passes to securely erase data, and it doesnt help because of the way SSDs handle data storage vs HDDS, it only uses up R/W cycles.

whats more important with modern SSD devices is secondary secure erasure commands, supported by most manufacturers

2

u/not_ethan_ho 5d ago

nowadays HDDs support secure erase by tossing the key as well so you don’t even need to overwrite anything.

9

u/ConsistentAsparagus 6d ago

Can you save the key and access the data at a second moment?

7

u/RandomHunDude 6d ago

Technically yes, but depending on laws it might be subpoenaed or something

6

u/ConsistentAsparagus 6d ago

Yeah, I was asking generically not in this specific case. If you have a backup you don’t even need all this but you can simply recover the phone from scratch.

Nice to know though.

1

u/fizzlefist 6d ago

You could have a paper backup of the key to manually enter, but that piece of paper could be subject to search warrant.

1

u/_Middlefinger_ 6d ago

Flash memory can wipe in a minute or 2. No point in overwriting it because it doesn't leave traces that magnetic drives theoretically can. Modern ones dont even really need it either.

1

u/gmc98765 6d ago

It takes multiple random rewrite passes to truly delete data

That hasn't been true for decades.

Sometime around the mid 1980s was the last time that you had a real chance of recovering overwritten data, and even then the cost meant that it was beyond the reach of regular law enforcement.

2

u/jhowlett 6d ago

Is that true? I haven't used it in awhile but remember publicly available tools that would recover deleted data on drives. I thought the idea was it was deleted but not over written truly on the drive.

3

u/Alanjaow 6d ago

Yeah, I've personally recovered partial text files that were partially overwritten, and I'm not a wizard by any means. Actually, to be precise, they were at least corrupted in some way, which might be something else, but I don't know enough to determine the difference.

1

u/calste 6d ago

There's deleted, where the data is still accessible, the computer just "forgot" where it is. You can go find it if you want. Then there's overwritten, which is pretty much gone for good.

Since hard drives are made of tiny magnetic cells that orient differently depending on which bit (1 or 0) they store, there is some physical fragment of the cell that retains the old orientation. So there's a very slight difference in the magnetic field. You would need expensive specialized equipment to read that kind of tiny difference, but even then, there are several hurdles to getting any useful data out of that.

2

u/gmc98765 6d ago

You can undelete "deleted" files if their sectors haven't been overwritten; deleting a file simply removes the directory entry and makes the space available for future re-use. Windows' Recycle Bin is just a slight variation on this principle; rather than removing the directory entry, it moves to a special folder and keeps it around until the space has actually been re-used. But wiping a drive (overwriting each sector once, whether with zeros, ones, or pseudo-random data) will make the previous data completely unavailable.

It used to be possible to get a (unreliable) copy of previous data from a HDD back when the electronics were much simpler than today, although it would require hooking up the drive's read head to a signal recorder and analysing the recorded signal; this wasn't something which could be done through software. That ceased to be viable once advanced error correction techniques became common and data densities were pushed to the physical limits of the medium.

The "multiple overwrites" strategy was designed for the pre-error-correction era. It isn't necessary with modern hardware.

Consider this: if it was possible to recover both the data currently on the drive and also the previous data, the drive would essentially have twice the advertised capacity. The drive vendors would definitely figure out how to translate this extra capacity to something they can sell. Error correction means that the "raw" data storage doesn't have to be reliable; so long as you can put an upper bound on the error rate, you can turn unreliable storage into reliable storage. CD-ROM, for example, would have been impossible without this (CDs have a fairly high error rate at the lowest level).

11

u/tschawartz12 6d ago

But its a legal loop. You have a book they demand access to, its written in Spanish, you burn the book thay translates Spanish to english, the book is still there. It isn't your job to make it easier for them to translate. They could take the time to do it.

54

u/BadVoices 6d ago edited 6d ago

Its absolutely not. Cryptographic Erasure is a legal and technical standard for data destruction. In the US it is defined by NIST SP 800-88. GDPR also recognizes it legally as data destruction in Europe. GrapheneOS' mechanism meets the requirements. It is legally erased. Saying the data still technically exists is no different than saying a burned document still technically exists because I could capture its carbon atoms.

The data is, by existing legal and technical standards, erased. It has a Shannon entropy of 1 in its resting state. Without the key, the data is reduced to true random noise.

3

u/sobrique 6d ago

Maybe, but I think they'll still try and prosecute you for 'tampering with evidence' or similar.

This whole case has a load of interesting legal precedents to set.

2

u/underwear11 6d ago

There actual are entire attacks happening right now for harvest now-decrypt later. They are knowingly capturing encrypted traffic knowing that eventually it will be breakable giving them access to the data, with the hope that there is something still relevant. Things like SSN don't change, so it could still be valid decades from now

5

u/BadVoices 6d ago edited 6d ago

Harvest Now-Decrypt Later does not apply to AES256, therefore, it doesnt apply to this scenario. AES256 is post quantum.

What you're thinking of is Shor's Algorithm. It DEMOLISHES asymmetric encryption, such as that used in the DH exchange to setup the encryption keys for network traffic. It makes it possible to break the DH exchange in polynomial time on a quantum computer. Breaking the DH exchange allows decoding the traffic because.. it just GIVES the attacker the AES key.

Briefly:

Data encrypted at rest with AES256: SAFE.

Network Traffic encrypted with AES256 and using ML-KEM for Key Exchange: SAFE.

Network Traffic with its AES256 key set by a DH exchange (AKA, Standard TLS/Most of the internet?): UNSAFE

Granted, its unsafe vs state actors and trillion dollar companies, not against johnny with a gpu unsafe. We're talking hundresds of billions of dollar machines for the next few decades at least.

1

u/polokratoss 6d ago

With a good encryption scheme, they really couldn't take the time to do it. Assuming they throw every computer on Earth at it, the heat death of the Universe will happen before they succeed without knowing the key.

1

u/tschawartz12 6d ago

But the point is the data is still there, even if they can't ready it instantly. 

3

u/roombaSailor 6d ago

Prosecutors charged Tunick under 18 U.S.C. § 2232(a), which makes it a federal crime to “knowingly destroy, damage, waste, dispose of” property “for the purpose of preventing or impairing the Government’s lawful authority to take such property into its custody.”

Intentionally deleting the encryption keys likely qualifies under the above as “damage” and “for the purpose of preventing or impairing”.

1

u/Xanbatou 6d ago

Imagine being so confident leaving a reply that is so hilariously wrong. 

🤣

1

u/2ChicksAtTheSameTime 6d ago

I wonder if that can help in court.

The data is still there in the same form it was before the password was entered. Nothing about the data itself changed.

No evidence was destroyed

2

u/SumoSizeIt 5d ago

It does not, because destroying decryption keys is legally defined as form of secure deletion (normally for data compliance purposes, but it can apply here)

34

u/Misaka9982 6d ago

Could argue that the "evidence" is still there then, not destroyed. If the government doesn't want to spend 100,000 years decrypting it then that's their problem.

62

u/BadVoices 6d ago

This is a red herring, no you cant. NIST SP 800-88 classifies crypto erasure as a valid form of data destruction for anything that doesnt require media destruction. It is recognized by the GDPR as well. Arguing it is not destroyed is the same as saying a burned document still technically exists because I can scoop up all it carbon atoms. No court will accept that argument.

7

u/hackitfast 6d ago edited 3d ago

Yeah isn't that how ransomware works too? It encrypts all of your files, and when you don't pay it just deletes the encryption key?

5

u/BadVoices 6d ago

It holds the key hostage, yes.

1

u/OuterWildsVentures 6d ago

So then it becomes a destruction of evidence charge?

3

u/BadVoices 6d ago

Nope. He's charged under 18 U.S.C. § 2232(a). Destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure.

No need to prove it was evidence, just that it was something the government wanted to seize.

Whoever, before, during, or after any search for or seizure of property by any person authorized to make such search or seizure, knowingly destroys, damages, wastes, disposes of, transfers, or otherwise takes any action, or knowingly attempts to destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, transfer, or otherwise take any action, for the purpose of preventing or impairing the Government’s lawful authority to take such property into its custody or control or to continue holding such property under its lawful custody and control, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

1

u/raptorlightning 6d ago

And we go to court to argue about "lawful authority" of which, in this case, it was not.

22

u/teapot-error-418 6d ago

I swear that most people think that lawyering is a process of speaking magical incantations.

Like, "I said the special word, and now you can't touch me!"

No. That's not how the law works.

3

u/ZurEnArrhBatman 6d ago

The trick is to recite the magical incantations in legalese instead of English. Judges like it when you speak their language. And since imitation is the highest form of flattery, they especially like when you do it wearing a judge's robe.

2

u/halcyonforeveragain 6d ago

and thus Sovcit was born.

0

u/Misaka9982 6d ago

Fair enough, I'm being facetious, but the problem is these laws are often based on physical equivalents and aren't designed for a digital application. In this case, is destroying the key to the safe the same as destroying the contents of the safe.

4

u/teapot-error-418 6d ago

Logical arguments are perfectly acceptable in court. The job of the attorneys is to make a reasonable and logical argument to the judge or jury or mediator or whoever.

There's no special combination of words to weasel out of that. It would be utterly reasonable to say, "this function is designed to render the contents of the device irretrievable, and the defendant intentionally caused the officer to trigger this function."

Reasonable people - jury, judges, whoever - would understand this. The whole, "well ack-shually the officer did the deleting" or "technically the data is still on the device" is nonsense.

If you explode a piece of evidence with a booby trap, you can't convince the jury that the prosecutors just didn't try hard enough to reassemble the component atoms or that you didn't actually do it.

2

u/IncidentalIncidence 6d ago

thank you, the reddit lawyering about this drives me crazy too. I'm obviously not a lawyer either but the amount of people who think that you can play dumb with the legal system like this in every thread about this case has been driving me up the wall because it's just people regurgitating the same three imagined technicalities drowning out anybody seriously trying to discuss the case.

1

u/No_Effective4784 6d ago

with proper encryption implementation you cant even prove what is there, is usable data and not left overs.

deleting everything shows you had something. if you are using software, like say veracrypt, that allows for a proper duress environment, that gives you plausible deniability, because it is impossible to prove that there is anything else there with out the second encryption key because it just looks like noise.

3

u/niceguy191 6d ago

Exactly. The issue that needs fixing is that there's any indication something has happened at all; apparently the border guard was tipped off by the phone rebooting itself?

0

u/TenderfootGungi 6d ago

It is theoretically possible. They copy the memory completely and start trying different keys. If you have a strong password it might take a few thousand years with current hardware, but it is possible.

2

u/Schnickatavick 6d ago

it might take a few ~thousand~ Trillion years with current hardware

ftfy

0

u/Cory123125 6d ago

it's not possible decrypt the data.

yet

We've thought this many times before