[seba_dos1]

You don't have to lock things down to solve that either - see the measured boot process with Librem Key for an example.

(that said, this is a completely different threat vector that I doubt the common masses actually care about; and if I really had to choose between openness and evil-maid resistance, I'd choose the former)

[kuhsaft]

I think the common masses just expect it in the first place. If you told someone that leaving their phone unattended could lead them to getting their data stolen, they would probably be surprised. I know this isn't a surprise to the HN crowd, but it is for regular people.

I would also guess that the common masses would choose the opposite as shown by them choosing convenience over openness. It's convenient to not have a separate key to prevent evil-maid attacks.

[seba_dos1]

To be frank, I'm tired of this security theater. Yes, let's lock things down to prevent evil-maid attacks and bring in the technological dystopia in the process, who cares that the same evil maid could put your finger onto the fingerprint sensor and unlock the phone while you sleep without ever fiddling with the bootloader.

"The masses" used to use completely unencrypted devices for decades. That doesn't mean they don't deserve security, but it's up to us, the technologically savvy ones, to determine how to implement it and which trade-offs are worth making to provide it. The term "security" only ever has any meaning when paired with a threat model, and some threats are more plausible than others. Some people will absolutely require proper evil-maid resistance, some wouldn't care the slightest. The common masses would be equally surprised if you told them that they can't change the boot animation on their phone without preventing access to their bank app, so go figure.

[handedness]

I'm not terribly concerned about an evil maid entering my room at night and managing to authenticate my fingerprint without waking me.

I do, however, regularly have to check my phone in at [places] and am highly concerned about that.

I'm not interested in bringing about a tech dystopia to combat it, either, but I don't think those are our only two choices.

Threat modeling is important, and selectively false equivalences aren't helping matters, but only add to the theatrics.

[seba_dos1]

I'm pretty sure that most of the actual evil-maids out there are phone owner's partners that they tend to share their bed with at night.

And yes, I don't think those are the only two available choices either. I already mentioned not just one, but two other ones above. They have some tradeoffs, but so does anything. Personally I'd choose a slightly less convenient option over a tech dystopia without second thoughts, but not everyone is tech savvy enough to even recognize the tradeoffs being made, and ultimately in the vast majority of cases it's not the users who make that choice, but Google and Apple.