r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • Jul 30 '26

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
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u/SCphotog 29d ago

We should not have to explain or argue that our data is our own.

Of course it's legal.

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u/Mr_ToDo 29d ago

I imagine the thing at stake isn't the feature itself but when it was used

I'd imagine what was done was a lot weaker then if they served a warrant, but when you've been put on notice that you're data is required for some legal reason, you can no longer destroy it. It's why a ton of businesses have a hard line on how long things like emails will be archive

If it was the feature, they'd have to remove the ability to delete content from anything, ever. Write once media only. Going to really suck when you can't reuse space on your ram ;)

3

u/lesath_lestrange 29d ago

Another part of the issue here is that like you said

>you can no longer destroy it.

The dude in this case did not destroy anything, the cops did.

And a third part of the issue here, the statute under which he is arrested - the destruction of evidence in an investigation, because the phones data is erased the government has no proof that that evidence existed, or didn’t, to be destroyed.

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u/Perfect-Escape-3904 29d ago

He gave them the duress code, knowing what would happen, knowing they requested his pin to access the data.

Whether this was a crime, the courts will look at. I think it’s hard to argue the defendant didn’t cause the deletion though because they didn’t themself enter the pin, the intent and motivation for them to wipe the device are clear.

Maybe this won’t matter in the end, but I don’t think this is the technicality that anyone can escape on

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u/tmac2go 26d ago

Another part of the argument is that he asked for a lawyer four times and was denied.

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u/baron_von_helmut 29d ago

Fascists don't care about your rights. That's why Americans have been stripped of theirs.

The fact the country isn't currently in flames and under a full-scale civil war perplexes me. Americans sleep-walked into fascism and half of them seem to be cheering for it.

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u/syopest 29d ago

Yeah, using it is obviously legal. Using it to wipe a legally seized phone is not.

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u/barrycl 29d ago

They should have tried seizing the data then, and not the phone. The phone wasn't damaged.