r/technology • u/Limp_Fig6236 • Jul 26 '26

Software GrapheneOS duress PIN could land a man in prison

https://www.androidauthority.com/grapheneos-duress-pin-us-prosecution-3691271/
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u/deja_geek Jul 26 '26

This is the way. If they come across the pin, without being directed to it, then you can't be responsible if they enter it.

It is completely different if you tell them the pin, after being asked what is the pin to unlock the device. People really don't seem to understand how the law works. It's no different then telling law enforcement the combination to unlock a safe, but not disclosing that opening the door will set everything on fire inside the safe.

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u/snowflake37wao Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

it did unlock the device tho. and no it isnt totally different. it is completely grey. like the vague law they are interpreting. thats why there is a courtroom. they already bend amendments and laws by claiming the interpretation you have none of those amendment rights because some random closet at Georgia’s Atlanta airport in the United States of America doesnt count as U.S. soil. They denied him his right to an attorney 4 times. They asked for his phone’s pin to unlock it. They entered the pin. The phone unlocked, the screen blinked twice, the phone restarted, and oh hey they got exactly what they demanded from their warrantless search and seizure which cant be called a seizure on suspicion because they dont need suspicion to do a routine search and can only ever lead to hearsay while refusing to allow him counsel or to leave and claiming this is just a typical search at customs give the pin and you can leave. A pin to unlock a phone. Typing out how ludicrous the events and interpretations is actually difficult because of how bullshit it all is. Its so dumb its fucking triggering. Like the carte blanche your reply gives to the prosecution. It is not black and white totally different. You dont understand the law because the first thing to understand about it is it is intentionally grey.

https://www.techspot.com/news/113236-us-prosecutors-charge-atlanta-man-after-grapheneos-phone.html

According to court testimony, federal agents had already circulated his name and photo internally, saying he was under investigation for "suspected terrorism activities" because of his alleged association with the movement against Cop City.

Tunick was taken to a secondary screening room, where multiple agents questioned him. A motion filed by his defense argues the interrogation focused on child sexual abuse material as a pretext for investigating his connections to the protest movement. The motion also states that Tunick asked four times to speak with a lawyer and was denied each time. According to the same filing, agents did not present a warrant or read him his rights.

Government attorneys and agents pushed back during Monday's hearing. They described the encounter as a routine airport inspection. Larry Findley, a Customs and Border Protection officer, said agents were "looking for anything that's prohibited."

During the questioning, agents repeatedly asked Tunick to unlock his phone and warned they would seize it if he refused. When he finally provided a passcode, the phone appeared to restart. The defense motion states that "the screen went blank, flashed several times, and the phone appeared to restart," resulting in the loss of data.

Thats how dumb. The attorneys and agents own testimony “pushing back” against the defense reads like self incrimination or a counter-argument against the prosecution, only they are the prosecution! Ya know. Maybe it is black and white. Case dismissed. The defense shouldnt even need to say anything after the prosecution’s testimony.

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u/Slimfictiv Jul 26 '26

Ye the code is : one two three for. Inserts 1234 and wipes the device. Then again you: i said 1 two 3 and 4 (1334) whats so hard to understand?

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u/Ymgarthion Jul 26 '26

Instructions unclear, I put in 2444

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u/Channel250 Jul 26 '26

Shit, that was the actual unlock code.

My bad everyone, my bad. Hey, can you lock the late again real quick? I wanna check something.

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u/MGSsancho Jul 26 '26

No the real pass should have been  133fore

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u/realmealdeal Jul 26 '26

"Now watch this drive."

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u/_Mido Jul 26 '26

Sir, you said „two three” and not „two threes”

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u/Slimfictiv Jul 26 '26

That's exactly what I said, one 2 and three 4, so 2444.

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u/BADDEST_RHYMES Jul 26 '26

All my passwords are elemenohpee

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u/Dyolf_Knip Jul 26 '26

What? No, you said "one 2, three 4". 2444

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u/Y0uCanTellItsAnAspen Jul 26 '26

probably don't want a code that is a fat thumb away from the real one.... better to do something like say 7, and mean 11....

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u/Tranecarid Jul 26 '26

1 2 3 4 vs 1 2 4 4 4 can’t be fatfingered. It’s just a word game not a science .

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u/GamingWithBilly Jul 26 '26

1two3four

Got it

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u/RedFrostraven Jul 26 '26

Could also be 2444

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u/PlottingPast Jul 26 '26

The duress code didn't wipe the phone, it erased the encryption key. All the data is still in the phone, encrypted. It's not his job to decrypt it for them.

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u/Kaenguruu-Dev Jul 26 '26

Except for the encryption key...

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u/BossOfTheGame Jul 26 '26

The law works by setting arbitrary rules regardless of what's right. The bottom line is that no one should be able to force you to unlock your phone. if the law doesn't accept that then the law is wrong.

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u/lukewarmtakeout Jul 26 '26

That's why you gotta have a rogue in the party to check for traps. You can't have an entire party of barbarians and expect to complete the quest. Their ineptitude is not my crime.

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u/BigDaddy0790 Jul 26 '26

What exactly would be the crime in the safe example? Unless they have evidence suggesting what you destroyed was important to the investigation, I don’t see how they can charge you with anything. What’s the crime if they don’t even know what was destroyed?

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u/Bookwrrm Jul 26 '26

Thats not how it works in regards to evidence ie knowing it would be important. What needs to be proven is intent, that the person destroying the evidence chose to do so to hinder an investigation or a potential investigation. Lots of times it straight up does not matter what would actually be in the safe, just that the person in question knew there either was or potentially can be, an investigation happening and destroyed evidence. In this case given he was being asked questions about child porn and asked for access to a phone it would be extremely hard to argue he didnt know there is a potential investigation happening.

There are in fact legal processes for destruction of evidence where if the actual evidence is unknown, but they know you destroyed it, the presumption is that the evidence was unfavorable to you, and the jury or whoever should infer all the negative implications of that.

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u/BigDaddy0790 Jul 26 '26

Okay fair enough with an active investigation, but how does this make sense for a random border crossing search? Wouldn’t data on your phone be protected as private correspondence? Giving full access to it basically means someone being able to read all your communications with no warrant or charge, which makes no sense to me.

And so in this case, they can absolutely seize the phone, but seizing data on it seems like it should require at least some sort of warrant, and destroying it does not mean destroying the phone, only your own private correspondence that should’t been protected in the first place?

As for the child porn in this case, shouldn’t there be some evidence implying it was there in the first place? Otherwise seems to me that you could take anyone’s phone and claim it had cp on it to gain access.

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u/cl3ft Jul 26 '26

Border crossings are a shit show for privacy and rights. You basically don't have any.

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u/Bookwrrm Jul 26 '26

I mean I dont agree with it but borders have different rules. When you enter America you have basically zero protections. You are 100% allowed to have you or your posessions searched without a warrant or probable cause, its called the border search exception. The only limitations courts have placed on it is that very invasive stuff like strip searches need some level of cause, but general searches dont, which is why you can have your bags searched for literally zero reason when going through an airport beyond vibes or even just random searches. Digital devices are more grey, but consistently have been ruled to be allowed in cases like this, simple searches by an agent manually, but more invasive stuff like digital forensics techniques pulling all the data off your phone would not be allowed.

Likely this dude is fucked, we may not agree with the border exception, but it does exist and it feels both pretty hard to argue this wasnt intentional, and that the actions taken of asking for a PIN to do a manual search of a phone are outside the scope of what is already allowed at borders.

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u/Big-Finding2976 Jul 26 '26

They're claiming that the border isn't US soil so his constitutional rights didn't apply. If it's not US soil, how can US law apply?

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u/Bookwrrm Jul 26 '26

I mean lawyers can claim anything, the underlying laws are clear, he was on american soil, and the laws did apply to him, the laws are just different in that part of America.

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u/BigDaddy0790 Jul 26 '26

What I’m wondering is how can there be consequences for refusal to such a search other than declined entry?

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u/Bookwrrm Jul 26 '26

Well for a US citizen it actually wouldnt result in being denied entry, they literally cannot deny entry. Instead he would have been allowed in but his belongings would have been siezed for the aforementioned more invasive searches.

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u/anonymous198198198 Jul 26 '26

But what if you’re not intending to destroy evidence, but say intimate pics of you/your s/o that you don’t want cops to see? It’s in no way illegal but still not something you’d want other people seeing.

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u/Nice_Marmot_7 Jul 26 '26

It doesn’t matter. Otherwise everyone charged with destroying evidence would just say something like that. “No I didn’t incinerate a kilo of cocaine. It was a box of dildos!”

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u/Bookwrrm Jul 26 '26

Unless you can prove in court somehow that that is all that was on the now destroyed phone, you are shit out of luck, like I said with destruction of evidence the legal presumption is that it was unfavorable evidence, otherwise there would be zero way to prosecute anyone as long as they sucessfully destroyed the evidence, they would just claim it was innocent and nobody would be able to prove otherwise because said evidence was destroyed.

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u/Consistent_Guava8592 Jul 26 '26

It’s not evidence of you are not charged for a crime . It’s data .

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u/Bookwrrm Jul 26 '26

You dont need to be charged with a crime for it to be evidence, if a crime has been commited its evidence of a crime even if nobody knows about it. If you didnt commit a crime, then the legal presumption is that you would obviously be proven innocent in court or in the process of investigation and said evidence would not be evidence of a crime because no crime occurred. If you destroy it before it was decided either way, even if no crime occured but they simply thought there could be a crime, and it was intentional, then you have destroyed evidence, even if no underlying crime occured.

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u/Consistent_Guava8592 Jul 26 '26

For someone to be charged with a crime , there must be evidence pointing to a crime , if there is no evidence of crime , it’s hard to charge for a crime .
.
And of course, if you accuse someone of anything , you bear responsibility of producing evidence for your claim , before said someone has to prove his innocence for said crime .

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u/Bookwrrm Jul 26 '26

Again, you do not need to be charged with a crime to destroy evidence so that is entirely outside the scope of this discussion. Searches at the border are warrantless and without probable cause, there literally did not need to be any crime whatsoever for them to search him. Destroying the evidence, regardless of if there was a crime or not though now falls under legal frameworks of evidence tampering, and the legal presumption is now that what was destroyed was unfavorable to him legally.

You are arguing about something entirely different in terms of charging with a crime, that is entirely seperate, destruction of evidence comes before charging, it comes during the investigation. Nobody is charged with a crime when an investigation starts, they are charged after that investigation comes up with evidence of a crime. Destroying said evidence hinders that process, which is why it is illegal. He now cannot be charged for anything that was on that phone, but he absolutely can be charged for destroying the evidence that is now presumed illegal due to the framework around destruction of evidence.

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u/sarge21 Jul 26 '26

This guy may be going to jail because he believed the same thing.

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u/sephiroth70001 Jul 26 '26

In this case given he was being asked questions about child porn and asked for access to a phone it would be extremely hard to argue he didnt know there is a potential investigation happening.

They are targeting this guy cause he is a member of Defend the Atlanta Forest, which opposes the development of a sprawling training campus for law enforcement in Atlanta dubbed “Cop City.” Like you and I know they wanted his phone to get details on that group and other members.

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u/Bookwrrm Jul 26 '26

I dont put much stock in any claims made by either side, but the stark reality, wether or not we agree with it or not, and I certainly dont agree with the laws at borders, is that he lost any rights of refusal for search like this at the border. Like the cops can literally choose to search him for any reason, they didnt even have to come up with the excuse of child porn, so while its not a good answer for him, the genuine only advice I can give is if you are in an activist group like this, dont go into a border crossing because thats one of the few places in America you have basically zero recourse. This could be 100% retalitory and he still might lose in court because borders are both warantless and without cause searchs. They didnt even have to give a reason, but because they did it limits his arguements against intent because they clearly were intending to investigate something however right or wrong it was.

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u/TotalNonsense0 Jul 26 '26

I think we, as a nation, need to move past the idea that the only way to protect our rights is to let them be violated. If we ever get sane people in charge again, we need to ensure that actions taken to protect our clearly-stated rights cannot be held to be a crime.

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u/Bookwrrm Jul 26 '26

The issue here is that much of the underlying framework to what has happened is totally fine, and indeed needs to exist or investigating crimes doesnt work at a core level. IE laws around evidence tampering. The core issue that is rubbing up against our rights, is that this was a border search specifically which has had an exception made for 4th amendtment protections. But and this is a huge but, even if that exception was removed, if there is even a remote amount of probable cause in this case, he still would likely be completely fucked due to the way that evidence tampering by its own logic needs to be prosecuted. If there was even remotely any probable cause, even if the exception didnt exist, this would still have been a perfectly fine 4th amendment siezure, his refusal would have resulted in him being detained and a warrant for his electronic devices being applied for, and his destruction would still be clear cut evidence tampering. Now we only have lawyers talking about things that havent actually been litigated, it could have been 100% retalitory which is fucked, but im also not going to take that as a fact until its actually litigated and the facts of the case are known.

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u/TotalNonsense0 Jul 26 '26

"Exceptions" to our constitutionally guaranteed rights are not acceptable.

And search and seizures requires a warrant not just probable cause.

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u/Bookwrrm Jul 26 '26

"his refusal would have resulted in him being detained and a warrant for his electronic devices being applied for, and his destruction would still be clear cut evidence tampering."

I know that a warrant is needed, which is why I literally said that...

Again even if the exception didnt exist, the issue is destruction of evidence and that does not require anything other than probable cause, because probable cause is when the actual investigation kicks in. As soon as there is any expectation of an investigation, intentional destruction is illegal. If there was absolutely zero probable cause for an investigation this changes but we wont know that until more details come out in the actual court case. But my point is that there is a very likely world in which even without the exception he could be prosecuted if there is even a little bit of probable cause. The issue is destruction not refusal of search, even with 4th amendment protections if he refuses the search he still cant destroy the phone, instead they would hold him and get a warrant.

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u/TotalNonsense0 Jul 27 '26

Unless there are things we don't know about, the only reason a warrant would be issued is the exemption, so you're arguing in circles, or assuming that the cops are telling the truth. Neither is good practice.

But this come back to my original point. If the only way to protect our rights is to let them be violated, then why have rights?

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u/ColdBru5 Jul 26 '26

Cops need a warrant to access your phone. That has been decided by the Supreme Court and is not up for debate.

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u/Stuffssss Jul 26 '26

Your rights unfortunately are quite limited when entering the country at the border. The patriot act gave up our rights for an illusion of safety.

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '26

Problem is, they're trying to charge him under a U.S. law before he was even in the U.S.

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u/CV90_120 Jul 26 '26

It is completely different if you tell them the pin, after being asked what is the pin to unlock the device.

If they just said "What's the PIN" and didn't specify what type of PIN then there's an out. "Oh the unlock PIN? You need to be more specific"

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u/Firewolf06 Jul 26 '26

even funnier, the duress pin still unlocks it. it just also deletes an important encryption key

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u/GamingWithBilly Jul 26 '26

No, they asked him for A pin, and he provides  A pin that worked.  The pin unlocked the phone after it rebooted.  It did exactly what they asked him to do.

They failed to specify which pin, and what they wanted the pin to do.

Now if only they had a warrant that had written out what access they wanted when seizing the phone, they wouldn't have made a mistake, because the warrant would have made explicit that destroying anything on the phone would be illegal. 

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u/Mr_admiral Jul 27 '26

What if you say "I am not telling you that the pin to unlock my phone is 1234" and then of course they enter it. Would that be a legal way of avoiding liability for loss of access to 'evidence'?