Linus Tech Tips Discussion

 GrapheneOS duress PIN could land a man in prison Summary A man has been arrested in America because the border patrol wiped his phone. The guy had a google pixel with GraphineOS installed, one of its core features is a duress pin. It is a second pin on your phone which when entered wipes the phone entirely, it also destroys encryption keys, so even if the phone data can be recovered, it cant be decrypted.  The man flew into the US, was "randomly" picked for a search, was denied the right to have a lawyer, when he was asked for his pin to unlock the phone, he gave the agent the duress pin and the phone was wiped front of them. He was then arrested for destroying evidence.     Quotes Quote “It’s concerning – and sends the message that [GrapheneOS] is criminal by default,” said Christophe Boutry, a cybersecurity and surveillance expert. Boutry and Bill Buddington, senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, both said they had not seen a similar case.   My thoughts Im no lawyer, but they need to prove that there was evidence of a crime on the phone to prosecute the person.   Sources https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/23/cop-city-protester-phone https://www.androidauthority.com/grapheneos-duress-pin-us-prosecution-3691271/ https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/24/us-accuses-american-of-allegedly-wiping-his-phone-using-a-duress-password-during-border-search/