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Cops Can Bypass iPhone's Automatic Reboot to Get into Locked Phones

287 points · 226 comments · speckx

  1. Cider9986 · · focus · HN ↗
    For those who don't know, automatic reboot restarts your device if you haven't unlocked it in a set amount of time. Cellebrite and other digital forensics companies are able to get into AFU devices much more often. The automatic reboot feature was first introduced by GrapheneOS and was later added to iOS and stock Pixels.

    GrapheneOS's default is 18 hours and it can be set to between 10 minutes and 72 hours. iPhones and Stock pixels have it non customizable at 72 hours.

    On GrapheneOS, for privacy and convenience, it's best to use a long random passphrase [1] for your primary unlock and then a fingerprint with a second factor pin as the secondary unlock. You enter the passphrase every time the device restarts.

    If you're encountering someone that's going to seize your phone, try to restart/shut it down yourself so you don't have to trust the AFU protections.

    [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;strongphrase.net" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;strongphrase.net give memorable ones which is cool.

    1. burningChrome · · focus · HN ↗
      &gt;&gt; then a fingerprint with a second factor pin as the secondary unlock

      Unless you have a 4 or 4XL which are pretty popular with graphene os users. The weird thing is the 4 and 4XL are the only models without fingerprint because Google was pushing its #D Face Unlock System at the time.

      The funny part is Graphene by default now disables face unlock on newer Pixel models.

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