Duress PIN thoughts

matchboxbananasynergy

jet_silver You need to enter both cause you might eventually create a profile secured by a password, or change from a PIN to a password, if you only use a PIN, set a password and it won't do anything.

DeletedUser370

jet_silver To trigger the wipe-before-reboot, you only need to enter one of either the duress PIN or duress password. So if your profile's screen lock is set to a PIN, you merely have to enter the duress PIN on any device credential screen (such as the lockscreen) to trigger the wipe-before-reboot. You won't be asked for both.
Only in the setup screen for duress password is it necessary to set both a duress PIN and a duress password.

Not sure I managed to explain it properly, so here's a video showing how it works in practice: https://x.com/tuxpizza/status/1797314703468753342

jet_silver

Thanks for the very helpful remarks, the settings were accepted as soon as I entered both PIN and password.

Viewpoint0232

I wonder what happens in countries with key disclosure laws (this includes some "liberal" countries like the UK, France or Australia, too). If you can go to jail for not giving your password to the police, how is a duress PIN treated legally?

matchboxbananasynergy

Viewpoint0232 I'm not really sure that this is the correct forum to provide or discuss legal matters like that. Things are going to wildly differ in different parts of the world, and these things can change at moment's notice.

GrapheneOS has designed a feature with a clear goal and a focus on reliably doing what it says. Beyond that, it is up to people to decide if, how, and when to use it.

Viewpoint0232

matchboxbananasynergy

Yes definitely, and it shouldn't be GrapheneOS's problem anyway (like some countries not allowing call recording or mandating a camera shutter sound). I am just curious if anyone here has some legal knowledge.

spiral

Viewpoint0232

You seem to want an easy answer to satisfy a question that isn't so simple.

Whether or not duress pin is "legal" in whatever country does not matter. "Legal" is not a black and white thing, not even remotely. People get arrested for things all the time that are not technically illegal.

For any given country you happen to be in, let's say you get picked up by the cops and you trigger the duress pin - will you get in legal trouble? Maybe/probably. Does this mean you'll actually be prosecuted for this? That's an entirely different thing, since it depends on

what country you're in
how good your lawyer is
how much press your arrest gets
what else you've been picked up for
what other metadata they can find on you

or a million other things.

Matchboxbananasynergy already stated that this is not the proper forum for a legal discussion.

ShinRamen247

Hi all,

I had a quick test of the duress on the pixel 8. I noticed that you need to press the enter to start the process. If I may suggest would it be possible for the duress to be triggered once the Duress PIN or Password in inputted without the need to press enter? Just a thought...

Thank you to the GrapheneOS team. This feature is amazing. It just get better and better.

de0u

ShinRamen247 I had a quick test of the duress on the pixel 8. I noticed that you need to press the enter to start the process.

That is the same as entering a regular PIN/passphrase, right?

ShinRamen247 If I may suggest would it be possible for the duress to be triggered once the Duress PIN or Password in inputted without the need to press enter?

I suspect that would require a substantial restructuring of the PIN/passphrase code, which must be right, so a change like that would be high-risk.

matchboxbananasynergy

This can already be done by enabling "auto-confirm PIN" in your PIN options. We don't recommend doing that as it lowers security slightly compared to leaving it disabled, but the option exists. You should take care to make the actual PIN and duress PIN the same length if you enable that. If the actual PIN is for example 6 digits and the duress PIN is 8, then due to how auto-confirm PIN works, you won't be able to enter it.

ShinRamen247

Understood,
In the past my girlfiend wanted to check my phone and I wish there was a duress PIN. It would've saved my life!
So lets say that scenario was replayed, and the Duress Pin was eg 123123, all she need to do is enter that and its gone.
Otherwise she will be at it until she forces me to handover the password. Lesson learnt and I have behaved.

Another question if I may, would the duress pin be triggered if there was a brute force attempt?

Hb1hf

ShinRamen247 would the duress pin be triggered if there was a brute force attempt?

Ohhhh amazing question! If it is triggered by brute force, a short duress pin would be an interesting idea!

Murcielago

ShinRamen247

Another question if I may, would the duress pin be triggered if there was a brute force attempt?

If I understand this post correctly, unfortunately it looks like this is currently not possible:

Duress PIN/password is an OS feature without secure element support. An attacker successfully exploiting the OS can try the duress PIN/password without risking a wipe since they can control the OS. In theory, the secure element could implement duress PIN/password support by having a 2nd authentication token for each Weaver slot which wipes the Weaver token instead of providing it. There's no way for GrapheneOS to implement this without having our own hardware where we can add secure element features.

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