#duresspasscode — Public Fediverse posts

Concerning the recent case where the Gestapo charged someone with some kind of bullshit destroying evidence charge for wiping their own phone to keep CBP out of it at the airport:

The person being charged for feeding CBP a duress passphrase that wiped their phone in CBP's hands did the right thing and depending on what was on that phone may have kept others out of jail or even prison.

The rules in this situation are those of solidarity, and those of cyber warfare.

CBP is lucky a wiped phone is all they got. This could have been a cheap burnphone "encrypted" with a weak passphrase (1234 maybe?), and some strong ransomware.

Flash drives can be fun too.

Some years ago, someone near Boston set their heart on some flash drive fun. They got some cheap flash drives, loaded them up right nice, then salted the parking lot of a police station with the flash drives. The department in question was that of one of the suburbs near Boston, not Boston PD itself. All it took was ONE cop finding one of the flash drives and plugging it into his work computer. The whole department was botted, they had to pay ransom to Russian organized crime to get back everything possibly from their warrants to their payroll.

This was just flash drives found on the ground, not flash drives or a phone forcibly stolen from an opponent who had time to prepare for an attack.

Yes the Enemy can bring charges for destroying your own data much less botting their Cellbrite box. Would you rather face an obstruction/destruction of evidence charge or get slammed with far bigger charges supported by data on that phone? Still worse you may not be the only person in the line of fire.

If you are in possession of data that could harm others, it is your OBLIGATION to keep it out of the hands of their enemies without regard to any legal risk or other threats to yourself. If you cannot handle this risk, you also must not handle such data.

This is not optional, Obstructing Injustice is DUTY!

#CBP #CopCity #DuressPasscode

Federal prosecutors are charging an American traveler under a federal law against damaging or destroying property before the government can seize it.

His "crime?" Providing a #DuressPasscode to wipe his phone contents when the US #CustomsAndBorderPatrol folk demanded access to the mobile on his reentering the country.

#byhookorbycrook #cbp #tsa #searchandseizure

https://www.thetravel.com/us-customs-and-border-protection-faces-first-ever-type-incident-after-travelers-phone-search-goes-wrong-due-to-passcode-hack/

US accuses American of allegedly wiping his #phone using a 'duress' #password during #border search | TechCrunch

The U.S. #JusticeDepartment is prosecuting an American for allegedly providing U.S. border authorities with a #passcode that wiped the contents of his phone, according to an #indictment and media reports.

This is thought to be the first known case in the United States where federal #prosecutors have charged someone for the alleged destruction of data using a “duress” password built into a phone’s software.
#duresspassword #duresspasscode #privacy #security #doj

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/24/us-accuses-american-of-allegedly-wiping-his-phone-using-a-duress-password-during-border-search/

The U.S. Justice Department is prosecuting an American
for allegedly providing U.S. border authorities with a passcode that wiped the contents of his phone,
according to an indictment and media reports. 

This is thought to be the first known case in the United States where federal prosecutors have charged someone for the alleged destruction of data using a “duress” password built into a phone’s software.

According to The Guardian, which covered the story earlier this week following the court’s first hearing on Monday,
Atlanta resident Samuel Tunick is fighting the charges.

Tunick’s attorneys said that it was unlawful for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to seize his phone as he arrived back in the U.S. last year
and that any evidence
— including the alleged wiping of his phone
— should be thrown out.

The case centers on a feature included in GrapheneOS, a custom Android operating system that runs in place of the software on most modern Google Pixel devices.

Tunick’s attorneys confirmed GrapheneOS was running on his phone.

The software feature allows the device owner to set a passcode that deliberately wipes the contents of that device if entered instead of the user’s unlock passcode.

Tunick’s case also raises ongoing questions about what constitutional rights can be invoked at the border,
which the U.S. government has long asserted is not U.S. soil until a person is authorized to enter.

The government’s indictment, which contains a typo (“Untied States Code”),
accuses Tunick of allegedly providing a passcode to border agents that caused the phone
to “delete the digital contents,”
prior to the device being seized.

Tunick’s attorneys filed a motion to suppress the evidence, claiming that the detention and the seizure were unlawful.

The motion said U.S. border authorities took Tunick into a secondary inspection at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport as he returned from overseas on January 24, 2025,
but that he was repeatedly denied access to an attorney and was not informed of his legal rights.

Tunick’s attorneys accused the government of demanding access to his phone under the pretext of searching for child exploitation imagery,
but without providing evidence to justify its suspicion.

His motion to suppress argued that the government was instead investigating him over his association with a
long-running environmental movement called "Defend the Atlanta Forest", which opposes the development of a sprawling training campus for law enforcement in Atlanta dubbed “Cop City.”

#duresspasscode #grapheneos
#copcity #atlanta #samueltunik

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/24/us-accuses-american-of-allegedly-wiping-his-phone-using-a-duress-password-during-border-search/