this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2026
543 points (98.6% liked)
Technology
86628 readers
3264 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"The duress PIN doesn’t give you a second chance and will trigger anywhere you enter it: on the lockscreen, while enabling Developer options, or even while unlocking an app that requests authentication. And unlike a regular factory reset, a duress PIN will erase all encryption keys and your phone’s eSIM partition as well. This makes it impossible for an attacker to access my data just by having physical possession of your device and knowledge of the PIN.
I think the real strength of GrapheneOS’ duress PIN lies in its subtlety. There are no confirmation prompts, no announcements, and no obvious signs that the wipe was intentional on your part. Of course, GrapheneOS is no longer a fringe operating system these days — it has even attracted the ire of law enforcement in some jurisdictions. In other words, a professional attacker might be aware of the existence of a duress PIN. But if you can enter it quickly enough, it achieves its intended effect: no data can be lifted from your phone."
Pretty plainly stated:
Main purpose - delete all data
A nice bonus - the process is semi hidden, no way to confirm mistakes or not
Purpose is NOT - Fool any attacker to think they have your phone even though it's wiped
So it's most definitely doing it's job. You think that job is not enough, fair, but it's living up to it's own stated purposes.