[rzk]

I think this has been posted in response to this news story [1] to clarify that GrapheneOS has strong protection against data being extracted even without a duress PIN/password.

On a related note, a recent article [2] also describes how GrapheneOS helped a journalist protect his work and his confidential sources citing the 18-hour auto-reboot feature that returns the device to Before First Unlock (BFU) mode, where keys cannot be extracted.

[1] A US man is being prosecuted after allegedly using a GrapheneOS duress PIN to wipe his Pixel during a border search – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/23/cop-city-pro...

[2] A Journalist had his mobile phone seized. Did using GrapheneOS protect his data? – https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Journalist-Richard-Me...

[Tanoc]

In regards to your first link, the quote "'It’s concerning – and sends the message that [GrapheneOS] is criminal by default,' said Christophe Boutry, a cybersecurity and surveillance expert." really is leading language. It's stating that protection is criminal and that vulnerability is law-abiding.

[microtonal]

This is why it is important to continue iterating everywhere that device security is important for everyone. iPhone has nearly the same level of protection and we also do not see it as 'criminal by default'.

Secondly, it is important to get as many people to use GrapheneOS as possible, including non-tech people. The more widespread it becomes, the harder it will become to paint this picture.

[matheusmoreira]

GrapheneOS is good enough to have an entire column dedicated to it in Cellebrite's support matrix, and if I remember correctly the device could break into iPhones but not phones running GrapheneOS.

[one33seven]

AFAIK iPhones in lockdown mode are meant when comparing iPhone to GrapheneOS

[chasil]

I'm not sure that I agree that iOS devices have equal protection.

The recent Darksword exploit should give everyone pause in asserting that iOS is secure:

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/mobile/2026/03/a-darksword...

I trust iOS with my banking and financial apps in a way that I would never trust Google, but I am under no illusion that any architecture can be completely secure.

On the Linux side, I have found SELinux maddening at times in forcing me to the syslog to enable and permit what I need the machine to do.

I have never seen anything this obstreperous in a BSD, but perhaps I have not looked with sufficient depth.

In any case, the Trust / SELinux / Enforcing status is a sizable advantage against iOS.

[kungito]

sounds to me like iphone isnt actually that safe otherwise it wouldnt make sense. maybe we are missing some critical information

[Cider9986]

GrapheneOS seems to be consistently the hardest to exploit AFU based on various Cellubrite leaks. iPhones have better protection than all other Androids except Pixels.

[microtonal]

I might be wrong, but I get the impression that the GrapheneOS folks generally recommend GrapheneOS > iOS > Pixel >> everything else.

It might have to do with e.g. Apple having rolled out MIE at a broader scale than Google rolling out MTE on PixelOS, where AFAIK it is still largely opt-in (not 100% sure, I always wipe a Pixel immediately).

[Cider9986]

Agree. I didn't mean to say stock pixels are better than iPhones.

[inigyou]

IIRC it was the only one that Cellebrite couldn't break, but this was based on quite old news.

[grapheneos]

There are more recent leaks. The last release of GrapheneOS they've been able to exploit on locked device is still from 2022 as of a couple months ago. They take longer to break into iPhones than stock Pixels but that may largely be due to Google giving much earlier access for public testing. They have a far shorter window to prepare for a new iOS release before it's in production as a regular update for users.

[mycall]

Perhaps GrapheneOS should just be an ASOP release with implicit security features that makes it hard to notice it is anything different. If people think it is a vanilla Android install, it would give them no reason to imply criminal activity.

[chasil]

Google is never going to put their administrative access in a restricted sandbox.

That is diametrically opposed to their interests in data collection.

[hedora]

They'd also have to update all their phone spec sheets -- not having the sandbox doubled graphene's battery life on my Pixel 6 Pro (in practice and vs. advertised specs).

[Cider9986]

Not worthwhile or feasible. The OS is not designed to hide its identity.

[close04]

He’s a “surveillance expert” so the language is not at all surprising. These are the people who always bring up the appeal to emotion, associating a benign act with something unpalatable, criminal, terrorist, think of the children.

When your job depends on not understanding and all that.

[ChoosesBarbecue]

I'm fairly certain the person being quoted is saying the opposite of what you've implied - i.e. he thinks it is concerning THAT GrapheneOS is automatically associated with criminality.

[close04]

You’re right, I misinterpreted but now that you mention it it’s like those ambiguous figure images, irreversibly collapsed on the proper interpretation. In this case I can only assume my interpretation of “surveillance expert” is also completely off. Can’t edit, flag away.

[Tanoc]

It was the article author's choice to include that language without wider context. People say things that can undermine their own position all the time, and it's those that present those statements that influence whether that happens or not. Think about how I soloed that quote out of the wider article for example.

[microtonal]

citing the 18-hour auto-reboot feature that returns the device to Before First Unlock (BFU) mode, where keys cannot be extracted.

Also worth mentioning that you can set auto-reboot to a shorter period (down to 10 minutes). So if you anticipate situations where your phone can be seized (border crossings, demonstrations), it's worth temporarily setting this to a short time period (or rebooting your phone yourself to get to BFU).

[msh]

I dont understand why people like a journalist working on things they dont want seized would carry this kind of data on their device at a situation like this (border crossing), I see it as more useful to remove that kind of data from the device first.

[dugite-code]

Probably because everything seems to be an "app" these days. Even when it has no business being one.

[inigyou]

Exactly. Everything must be switched to Service as a Software Substitute. It's for your own safety, you see.

[xnickb]

So delete messengers, email apps and other comms?

Delete the contact book? Clear calendars?

Where exactly should one stop?

[daneel_w]

You're misinterpreting. They mean that there are additional options next to only keeping these things on your phone.

[xnickb]

What am I misinterpreting? OP literally said they don't understand why a journalist would carry these data with them. As if the data is a file on your phone. Data can be a contact book on your phone, or a messenger with E2E encrypted messages. What would the alternative to that be? Sending pigeons?

[iamnothere]

Restoring from remote backup when you reach your destination, then wiping again before you cross borders. Or shipping the (encrypted) data separately and picking it up after safe arrival.

[choo-t]

Because you may need the data in the data during/after your travel and lack clean way to access safely, securely and anonymously remotely.

[daneel_w]

No one is stopped from backing up important data. It is, in fact, kind of boneheaded to keep all "valuables" on a single device. I don't understand the scenario of not trusting a device to safely access the Internet or the telephony grid while also insisting that they need a PHONE to keep all their stuff on where they're going, and at the same time somehow trust that both themselves and their possessions are perfectly safe from seizure and extortion in the very same location.

[inigyou]

Personally I just got grapheneos to replace my normal phone. It's nice, it works for the user instead of the advertiser, and its security features help block antiuser features in apps

[daneel_w]

I personally run iOS but have given GrapheneOS an extended run on a development phone I use for work, and I have to say it really is a much tidier, less distracting, smoother and more responsive experience than any other Android setup I've used before.

[kotaKat]

This is where we need "cloud phones as a service" / "selfhosting a cellphone at home with some kind of remote access system".

Not even kidding here, it's time to bring out thin client computing to cellphones. Let the spicy stuff sit somewhere else. I could bootstrap a Tailscale or Netbird signin remotely, install the access client, and remote back into the 'normal phone'.

Would be then funny to map that to lockscreen PINs - enter a PIN to unlock the device, be remoted into "phone A", enter another pin and be remoted into "phone B", enter another PIN and you're on the 'local device' session. (Or duress-PIN kill "phone A" if someone attempts to bruteforce PINs, etc, etc...)

[drnick1]

You can already do most of that with GrapheneOS or even an iPhone. My contacts, files, photos, etc. are on my home server, accessed through a VPN. My GrapheneOS phone only runs a handful of open source apps. If I were to lose the phone, I would simply revoke the Wireguard key and there wouldn't be anything valuable left on it.

[mystifyingpoi]

> "selfhosting a cellphone at home with some kind of remote access system

You can use TeamViewer for that. Or maybe scrcpy could be coerced into working in a similar way.

[prmoustache]

Good luck making it work again remotely after a long power outage.

[like_any_other]

Remove and securely overwrite, otherwise the data can still be recovered from the disk image. We have not made privacy easy.

[podocarp]

What about using decoy profiles? Say before the border crossing you switch to another user. Does that expose keys or anything for other users?

[0-_-0]

You would need to hide the existence of the original profile while in the decoy profile for this to work, which GrapheneOS considers too complex to implement

[inigyou]

The only really plausibly deniable way to do it is for every graphene phone to come pre-partitioned for this. E.g. 128GB main + 128GB duress, random selection of whether partition 0 or 1 is the duress partition. But that means giving up half your storage.

You can't even make them different sizes because that gives away which one is duress. You could have more partitions with a static split like 32+32+32+32+32+32+32+32 but then you have to manage so many independent partitions it isn't practical.

[kmeisthax]

Deniable encryption has gotten way more advanced than this, though - the state-of-the-art is to have a bunch of independently unlockable data stores along with a mechanism to add chaff data that doesn't decrypt with any key. That's how bunnie's Betrusted project works, and it's the same idea as PhonebookFS from yesterdecade.

The main problem with any deniable encryption system is that while your adversary might not be able to prove if you gave them the decoy or real data, they can at least force you to wipe anything you fail to decrypt. In your partitioning scheme, that would mean wiping any partition that doesn't decrypt with the set of PINs you gave them. In the more advanced granular scheme that Betrusted devices use, that would mean border control unlocking all the basis keys you dared to give them, and then them running the storage reclaim tool that wipes all other keys.

In either case, it would probably be easier (and less suspicious!) to pre-wipe your device and then redownload a backup after you pass through border control... assuming you can get access to an untampered Internet connection after the fact, AND assuming your backup is actually complete. Like, I'm pretty sure most apps exclude their login tokens from backup, because every time I do wind up restoring a backup, I have to log into everything again, which makes me wonder what the point of the backup even is?

[inigyou]

That requires a whole new OS from scratch. It won't work to support Android. Even if it did, would you unlock your duress partition every time you used your phone to prevent overwriting?

[Cider9986]

I mean, so does everyone.

https://veracrypt.io/en/Wear-Leveling.html

[therealpygon]

I’m still curious if they “weren’t inside the U.S.”, how they are being charged with a law that is only applicable to…the U.S.

[rationalist]

Some U.S. laws are extraterrestrial, such as murder, crimes against children, tax laws, etc.

[hedora]

Also the US CLOUD act: If you do business in the US, you have to give American authorities access to warrantlessly search any device not in the US that you have access to.

(I heard Europe and China passed the same laws. The EU has intelligence sharing agreements with the US, so I guess American authorities can just have the EU pull the data for US citizens in the US and forward it back home. I'm not a lawyer. It'd be nice if I'm wrong.)

[dredmorbius]

The Guardian story discussed on HN: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024436>.

(The Computer Weekly item was submitted but saw no significant discussion.)