this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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Privacy
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What does turning the phone off frequently do? Also, by duress, do you mean anti-tamper destructive functionality? Like wipe info if unapproved authentication methods are used or something?
Cell phones have three states: unlocked, locked afu (after first unlock) and locked bfu (before first unlock). When in bfu the phone is much more difficult to attack because it won’t allow access to the pairing or anything really. It becomes even more restrictive with lockdown on.
Turning the phone off frequently accomplishes two things, it keeps the user from messing with it and makes sure if someone grabs you up in your home while you’re reading your newspaper smoking your pipe then they grab your phone while it’s turned off, in bfu lock when it’s powered up.
The duress inputs can do a lot with a little. You can lock the phone, turn it off, dial 911 etc.
iOS devices already have wipe after a number of failed pin attempts. I’m dubious of much more than that for this user. The threat model here is police picking you up and using a far reaching warrant and off the shelf technology to peer into your devices, not someone dead bugging your devices’ security chip. It’s only got to last as long as the cops are allowed to hold your shit, so the four or five years lead that leaks from various cybersecurity companies indicate that devices in bfu have over their opponents in intelligence seems perfect.
It’s common practice for law enforcement to go ahead and do the ten tries or whatever makes the device wipe itself before they give it back to you anyway, so it’s a double edged sword.
I wonder if all models don't pair and whatnot bfu. If so, that's good to know for sure.
If you’re interested, look up the celebrite leak images. They require a little googling of jargon but you might get a couple years on an android device with a locked bootloader and at least four or so on an up to date ios device.
In my experience all the ios stuff won’t pair bfu but some android stuff will. There’s just too much out there to say for sure about everything.