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If you want actual legal advice pay for an actual lawyer. You aren’t going to get it asking a bunch of randoms on a tech forum. Since we’re techies we tend to

If you want actual legal advice pay for an actual lawyer. You aren’t going to get it asking a bunch of randoms on a tech forum. Since we’re techies we tend to think about technological nuances and have a certain literal frame of mind (eg “They can’t make it illegal for me to just type the wrong pin” is the type of thinking I’m talking about here) whereas in law weird precedents and your intent really matter so you really need expert advice and either way, you are throwing yourself at the mercy of a stochastic process that depends on a bunch of fallible humans along the way many of whom have the power to make your life extremely miserable. Technicalities of destroying the data vs destroying the key to the data, destroying the data when you have a backup etc may matter a lot to us but may not mean anything in an actual judicial process depending on how it goes. It seems to me if you have data you don’t want subject to seizure at a border it is best not to travel over the border carrying that data. If you have a backup (in your scenario), why not restore your phone from that backup after you have travelled, and not cross the border with anything that is likely to be a problem if seized? Then you’re not putting yourself at risk from this process.

gyomu 26d ago
> we tend to think about technological nuances and have a certain literal frame of mind see the colored bits essay for an ur-example of this https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23
iririririr 26d ago
What about the opposite? remove the tech from the hypotetical. Say you carry a valise with a lock. They ask for the key, you truthfully answer that you do not have with you. They burn the valise and lose all the contents. So, are you in jail? or can you sue them for destroying your stuff?
- Jolter 26d ago
  What the point of this hypothetical? In real life they would break the lock on your valise and return it to you bound together with tape.
  - iririririr 25d ago
    and how if this similar to how a duress password work? say breaking the lock burn the contents somehow, to prevent documents falling into thief's hands for the sake of the comparison.
- otterley 26d ago
  You didn’t tamper with the potential evidence; they did.
  - iririririr 25d ago
    right. that's my point. why if they try to guess your password and end up wiping data, then magically you're guilty?
    - Jolter 25d ago
      Intent matters in a court of law. A judge or a jury will consider: - did you intend for the data to be destroyed in an eventual search? - probably yes, because you went to the trouble to set up a duress password - is it reasonably that you mixed up the two passwords? No, because only an idiot would make them similar and you're clearly no idiot, because you were able to set up a phone with a duress password. - hence, you intentionally made the officer wipe your data, and you will be held liable. It doesn't make any difference if the destroyed potential evidence is physical or digital. The law as written is stupid, but that does not mean courts are stupid. It is rather funny to look at how some programmers believe they can "trick" the law. It does not work like computer code!
otterley 26d ago
I am a lawyer (this is not legal advice) and agree with the main thrust of this comment. The law is not “hackable.” Ultimately people are making decisions about guilt and punishment. And judges really, really don’t take kindly to defendants who think they’re trying to outsmart the court.
- davidwritesbugs 26d ago
  Second lawyer here, well - ex-lawyer, I'm saying the first Law Talking Guy is 100% right.
- deleted 26d ago
  [deleted]
- lisper 26d ago
  > The law is not “hackable.” It absolutely is. The rich and powerful do it all the time.
  - antonvs 26d ago
    Paying for something is not really a hack, because at least in this case, it’s the system working as intended.
    - type0 26d ago
      > Paying for something is not really a hack Although bribery is a felony in itself > it’s the system working as intended. Maybe it is
      - antonvs 25d ago
        It’s not bribery if the system is designed to support it.
    - lisper 25d ago
      Not sure what you mean by "in this case." I'm pretty sure that the founders intended the Bill of Rights to apply everywhere including the border.
raverbashing 26d ago
100% this People here thinks in technicalities and what if, and while technicalities apply in legal cases, they're not like a lot of people here think they work (quite the contrary!) This is not "well if the gov had a quantum computer they could decode" this is not how the legal world decided things.
hamburglar 26d ago
The interesting thing is that the "don't carry the data" scenario of wiping your phone and restoring it after you're across the border is not functionally different from the "just don't carry the keys across the border" scenario. I would be comfortable with a dd archive of my encrypted phone contents in an short-lived S3 bucket that I could restore with a simple passphrase-derived key, for example. It's hard for the law to recognize that they haven't achieved anything useful by forcing me to do that instead of just lose the key. One thing this case makes me wonder is if the government would have a problem with someone walking across the border with a completely virgin phone. They must have wiped it, right? Would they try to prosecute? How could they possibly know the defendant in this case actually had anything on his phone before the duress code was entered?
- eru 26d ago
  For your virgin phone scenario: in practice they'll probably reverse burden of proof and call it a day.
  - rho138 26d ago
    Or just subpoena AWS for a copy of their shit and dump them in a hole until it’s unlocked. Yay america.
    - eru 25d ago
      If you actually have a virgin phone, there's no data on Amazon to subpoena.
- b112 26d ago
  It's immensely different. Leaps and bounds different. Why? Well, once you have been told to unlock the device, you're already in a legally binding process. The phone is at this point evidence. It was not evidence before. It was not evidence a month ago. It really is just that simple. Now, they could view prior wipe as suspicious, but as a US citizen they cannot prevent entry. And they may be able to seize your phone(suspicious!). Which is why simply stating the truth politely "I believe in privacy, and loath government poking into the private affairs of citizens" might help down the road if you want to sue. Might. Border guards protect the realm, after all, and have wide latitude. From my side, my truthful argument for wipe has always been that all of my buisness clients, emails, data might be on my phone. I have a duty to protect their privacy. Making reasonable statements takes the edge off of 'suspicious', and the more people who wipe? The less suspicious it becomes. The biggest thibg anyone could do, is make 100% restorable backups for non-rooted Android a thing. It's doable, but a PITA right now. Make it one-click, perfect, reliable, and more will do it. And then it isn't unusual, it's normal, and the suspicious elements vanishes. Of course, as Google is mired in asshattery lately, I'd expect any attempts to protect us all, such as ASOP patches or bug reports, would be fought against and ignored. Helping the world, protecting travellers, political dissidents, not on their radar. They even fight such things. Because in this day and age, Google does not have your back. Instead, they shove knives there.

gyomu 26d ago

> we tend to think about technological nuances and have a certain literal frame of mind see the colored bits essay for an ur-example of this https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

iririririr 26d ago

What about the opposite? remove the tech from the hypotetical. Say you carry a valise with a lock. They ask for the key, you truthfully answer that you do not have with you. They burn the valise and lose all the contents. So, are you in jail? or can you sue them for destroying your stuff?

Jolter 26d ago
What the point of this hypothetical? In real life they would break the lock on your valise and return it to you bound together with tape.
- iririririr 25d ago
  and how if this similar to how a duress password work? say breaking the lock burn the contents somehow, to prevent documents falling into thief's hands for the sake of the comparison.
otterley 26d ago
You didn’t tamper with the potential evidence; they did.
- iririririr 25d ago
  right. that's my point. why if they try to guess your password and end up wiping data, then magically you're guilty?
  - Jolter 25d ago
    Intent matters in a court of law. A judge or a jury will consider: - did you intend for the data to be destroyed in an eventual search? - probably yes, because you went to the trouble to set up a duress password - is it reasonably that you mixed up the two passwords? No, because only an idiot would make them similar and you're clearly no idiot, because you were able to set up a phone with a duress password. - hence, you intentionally made the officer wipe your data, and you will be held liable. It doesn't make any difference if the destroyed potential evidence is physical or digital. The law as written is stupid, but that does not mean courts are stupid. It is rather funny to look at how some programmers believe they can "trick" the law. It does not work like computer code!

otterley 26d ago

I am a lawyer (this is not legal advice) and agree with the main thrust of this comment. The law is not “hackable.” Ultimately people are making decisions about guilt and punishment. And judges really, really don’t take kindly to defendants who think they’re trying to outsmart the court.

davidwritesbugs 26d ago
Second lawyer here, well - ex-lawyer, I'm saying the first Law Talking Guy is 100% right.
deleted 26d ago
[deleted]
lisper 26d ago
> The law is not “hackable.” It absolutely is. The rich and powerful do it all the time.
- antonvs 26d ago
  Paying for something is not really a hack, because at least in this case, it’s the system working as intended.
  - type0 26d ago
    > Paying for something is not really a hack Although bribery is a felony in itself > it’s the system working as intended. Maybe it is
    - antonvs 25d ago
      It’s not bribery if the system is designed to support it.
  - lisper 25d ago
    Not sure what you mean by "in this case." I'm pretty sure that the founders intended the Bill of Rights to apply everywhere including the border.

raverbashing 26d ago

100% this People here thinks in technicalities and what if, and while technicalities apply in legal cases, they're not like a lot of people here think they work (quite the contrary!) This is not "well if the gov had a quantum computer they could decode" this is not how the legal world decided things.

hamburglar 26d ago

The interesting thing is that the "don't carry the data" scenario of wiping your phone and restoring it after you're across the border is not functionally different from the "just don't carry the keys across the border" scenario. I would be comfortable with a dd archive of my encrypted phone contents in an short-lived S3 bucket that I could restore with a simple passphrase-derived key, for example. It's hard for the law to recognize that they haven't achieved anything useful by forcing me to do that instead of just lose the key. One thing this case makes me wonder is if the government would have a problem with someone walking across the border with a completely virgin phone. They must have wiped it, right? Would they try to prosecute? How could they possibly know the defendant in this case actually had anything on his phone before the duress code was entered?

eru 26d ago
For your virgin phone scenario: in practice they'll probably reverse burden of proof and call it a day.
- rho138 26d ago
  Or just subpoena AWS for a copy of their shit and dump them in a hole until it’s unlocked. Yay america.
  - eru 25d ago
    If you actually have a virgin phone, there's no data on Amazon to subpoena.
b112 26d ago
It's immensely different. Leaps and bounds different. Why? Well, once you have been told to unlock the device, you're already in a legally binding process. The phone is at this point evidence. It was not evidence before. It was not evidence a month ago. It really is just that simple. Now, they could view prior wipe as suspicious, but as a US citizen they cannot prevent entry. And they may be able to seize your phone(suspicious!). Which is why simply stating the truth politely "I believe in privacy, and loath government poking into the private affairs of citizens" might help down the road if you want to sue. Might. Border guards protect the realm, after all, and have wide latitude. From my side, my truthful argument for wipe has always been that all of my buisness clients, emails, data might be on my phone. I have a duty to protect their privacy. Making reasonable statements takes the edge off of 'suspicious', and the more people who wipe? The less suspicious it becomes. The biggest thibg anyone could do, is make 100% restorable backups for non-rooted Android a thing. It's doable, but a PITA right now. Make it one-click, perfect, reliable, and more will do it. And then it isn't unusual, it's normal, and the suspicious elements vanishes. Of course, as Google is mired in asshattery lately, I'd expect any attempts to protect us all, such as ASOP patches or bug reports, would be fought against and ignored. Helping the world, protecting travellers, political dissidents, not on their radar. They even fight such things. Because in this day and age, Google does not have your back. Instead, they shove knives there.