Police told to avoid looking at recent iPhones to avoid lockouts

https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/13/police-told-to-avoid-looking-at-iphone-x/

by tekacs • 8 years ago

86 68 8 years ago

goldenkey2• 8 years ago

Thats just comically funny. "Hey cellmate, I need you to punch my face in." "You sure dude?" "Yeah, they are gonna make me unlock my phone today...gotta make it fail!"

dang2• 8 years ago

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

goldenkey2• 8 years ago

What exactly is unsubstantive about the ridiculousness of forced face ID unlocks as referenced in the article?

jimworm• 8 years ago

A PSA on biometric security's weakness against coercion - including law enforcement, but likely more often abusive spouses or employers.

icebraining2• 8 years ago

Unlike the courts, an abusive spouse or employer won't presume innocence. They will take your initial refusal to insert PIN/password as proof of guilt and coerce you into doing so.

rocqua• 8 years ago

With a spouse the 'threat' is that they can unlock your phone when you're sleeping. This isn't about giving in to coercion, but about covert access.

Not sure how this works with an employer though.

tux1968• 8 years ago

Biometric authentication should stop working once a lockout has been triggered.

gok• 8 years ago

On iPhones it does.

techsupporter• 8 years ago

Discussion on a similar article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18208954 (65 comments)

netgusto• 8 years ago

Maybe a stupid question, but how comes they cannot just obstruct the front sensors for faceid to fail?

orcs• 8 years ago

That's what I thought. Just like making sure the phone doesn't connect to the internet so it can't be remotely wiped. I don't own an iPhone so I might be wrong but can't the cop just tape over the camera/sensor?

janekm• 8 years ago

Most likely they would place it in a shielding bag to cover both issues.

quickthrower24• 8 years ago

That is a good reason not to use face recognition.

okket• 8 years ago

So you are fine with always type in a long password/numbers in public? And sure nobody looks at you/films your typing?

quickthrower24• 8 years ago

Its a tradeoff. It depends how defensive you want to be against law enforcement.

You could change the password on a regular basis as mitigation against prying eyes.

philipbjorge• 8 years ago

On iPhone X, you can hold the power button and volume up for 5 seconds and it will lock the phone, disable Face ID, and force entering your passcode to unlock.

tehmaco• 8 years ago

You can also tap the power button five times in a row, which brings up the emergency screen (Power Off, Medical ID, SOS call), but also disables face recognition until a pin unlock has happened.

quickthrower24• 8 years ago

How does that work if you are under arrest? This is the scenario I am referring to and the article is about the police, so it's on point.

Chazprime• 8 years ago

Probably best not to disable the “Require Attention” option for facial recognition - then if your eyes are closed or not focused on the phone, it won’t unlock.

sbr464• 8 years ago

Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18208954

ysr23• 8 years ago

[european here] I can't read this article as there is no way to opt-out of the tracking - isn't this in breach of GDPR?

berdario• 8 years ago

I'm pretty sure it is. I also spent some time to click around to find the opt-out toggle, but that's nowhere to be found.

I guess that sooner or later they'll be forced into compliance.

antidesitter• 8 years ago

I guess that sooner or later they'll be forced into compliance.

Forced by whom?

ZoomStop• 8 years ago

A fellow HN detailed how he did it here, seems extremely non-intuitive.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17235923

yholio• 8 years ago

It's somewhat easier to just browse in Firefox's private mode all the time with trakingprotection enabled and no 3rd party cookies. Nothing is shared with the tracking networks and any cookie set by the site itself is deleted at the end of the session. As for the consent and GDPR annoyances themselves, they can be killed easily with uBlock (along with the ads etc.).

Welcome to the smooth, no-tracking surfing experience of circa 2003.

LaGrange• 8 years ago

As long as it's not opt-in, I'm pretty sure it is a breach. I really hope EU gets its act together on this before the law becomes functionally dead.

jhabdas2• 8 years ago

Though the iPhone X series uses a special chip to store the face I never read it doesn't site the face of others. None of this really matters though as any "authority" looking at your phone has the power to force you to unlock it against your will.

New Zealand, for example, recently instituted a $5000 maximum fine for individuals at airports who are unwilling to unlock their phones even asked by "officials".

Both the US and NZ, along with several other countries, are part of the same surveilance ring. So if you think not looking at your phone matters in the slightest it doesn't. Not at all.

qwertay• 8 years ago

Seems like it would be best to totally wipe all of your devices before crossing a boarder and restore from backup over the internet when you are over it.

pandapower2• 8 years ago

Curious what the border control response is to being handed a phone that has clearly been wiped immediately before the flight.

exelius• 8 years ago

I personally have a “burner” phone I take when traveling internationally (usually an unlocked older iPhone). If it’s stolen / seized I don’t really care.

nnd• 8 years ago

A quick reminder: on iPhone X you can hold power button + one of the volume up/down buttons for 2 seconds to temporarily disable Face ID.

jorvi5• 8 years ago

And if your movement is restricted, “Hey Siri, who am I?” will also trigger a lockout requiring a PIN.

Edit: for clarification - this will not lock your phone by itself. If your phone is locked (so on your lockscreen with the lock icon still there) it will trigger a lockout and won’t allow biometric authentication until your PIN has been entered.

joshstrange3• 8 years ago

Just tried this and it didn't work, (iPhone XS Max iOS 12.0)

11235813212• 8 years ago

This does not work on an XS.

Neither do “lock my phone,” “disable Face ID,” or “require passcode.”

Edit: I was wrong - it does work for me when the phone is locked.

andraganescu• 8 years ago

Oath's gdpr wizard îs torture. I hope they will pay their share of fines for it, just to compensate for the time wasted ...

IshKebab• 8 years ago

Me too but has anyone actually been fined for this sort of thing yet? I tried to report one site to the UK ICO and didn't even get an automated email reply.

Seems like the law exists but there's nobody to enforce it.

smaili• 8 years ago

Very strange. I submitted this story about a half day ago and was marked as a dupe.

dang2• 8 years ago

Not so strange; it's just that moderators don't see everything.

kgwxd• 8 years ago

Face id and finger print id, unless used in addition to, not instead of, a passcode, are convenience features, not security features. Removing the "something you know" part of digital security makes anything else just shy of useless. Apple should remove the options or start using honest terminology in the configuration steps if they actually care about security.

Police told to avoid looking at recent iPhones to avoid lockouts

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