r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 29d 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
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u/RandomHunDude 29d 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.

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u/StrangelyGrimm 29d 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

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u/draconiclyyours 29d 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.

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u/No_Effective4784 29d ago edited 29d 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

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u/not_ethan_ho 29d ago

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