The recent federal raid on the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson isn’t merely an attack by the Trump administration on the free press. It’s also a warning to anyone with a smartphone.
Included in the search and seizure warrant for the raid on Natanson’s home is a section titled “Biometric Unlock,” which explicitly authorized law enforcement personnel to obtain Natanson’s phone and both hold the device in front of her face and to forcibly use her fingers to unlock it. In other words, a judge gave the FBI permission to attempt to bypass biometrics: the convenient shortcuts that let you unlock your phone by scanning your fingerprint or face.-
It is not clear if Natanson used biometric authentication on her devices, or if the law enforcement personnel attempted to use her face or fingers to unlock her devices. Natanson and the Washington Post did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The FBI declined to comment.
What if you take your dick and use that on the fingerprint scanner, do you think the cops would make you whip it out
Probably, although they probably can’t force you to reveal it’s your dick that unlocks the phone.
What if I compromise and reveal that it’s a dick that unlocks it, but not whose?
Or at the very least; turn your phone entirely off (shutdown) whenever you expect or encounter police contact.
Biometrics only work when the device is already running. Mobile devices are in their most locked down/secure state when ‘at rest’, ie shutdown.
In android; there is also a ‘lockdown’ mode you can quickly activate from the power off screen, that disables Biometrics until next unlock with a pin/pattern, but doesn’t fully shutdown so you can still quickly access things like the camera. This has to be explicitly enabled in settings first and will not offer much protection from various lockscreen bypass software available to law enforcement.
Five clicks of the lock button on an iPhone will force a password or pin to enable biometrics again.
