The FBI has been unable to access a Washington Post reporter’s seized iPhone because it was in Lockdown Mode, a sometimes overlooked feature that makes iPhones broadly more secure, according to recently filed court records.
The court record shows what devices and data the FBI was able to ultimately access, and which devices it could not, after raiding the home of the reporter, Hannah Natanson, in January as part of an investigation into leaks of classified information. It also provides rare insight into the apparent effectiveness of Lockdown Mode, or at least how effective it might be before the FBI may try other techniques to access the device.
“Because the iPhone was in Lockdown mode, CART could not extract that device,” the court record reads, referring to the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team, a unit focused on performing forensic analyses of seized devices. The document is written by the government, and is opposing the return of Natanson’s devices.
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As someone who uses GrapheneOS with sandboxed GooglePlay on his only smartphone (with daily usage for years at this point): I don’t know what kind of adjustment you are referring to. I never had to adjust to anything, because I never encountered anything that GrapheneOS couldn’t do that stock Android could. Follow the installation process and after that the phone behaves like a regular phone, except you have way more options regarding security and privacy.
Is your friend trying to use GrapheneOS without any Google services maybe?
I had to fiddle with some stuff to get the Google location history and Android Auto working. But if you’re using it for privacy-from-Google purposes you probably don’t care about those.
Edit: also RCS and tap to pay with credit/debit card. Those require your carrier and Google to allow them, respectively.
Correct, I am not using GrapheneOS to then give my data to Google willingly. Kinda defeats the purpose I would say. I think it is the right thing that this is blocked by default and you have to actively turn it on. (Edit: I am assuming that you are talking about the fact that location data gets redirected to GrapheneOS by default, which can be changed in settings)
Is this a country-specific topic? I don’t know anybody who still uses SMS/MMS to communicate. Everybody uses WhatsApp or Signal where I am.
Yeah, as an example Tmobile / Mint Mobile regularly stop working and require reprovisioning every 36 hours.
Look, there always will be obstacles. Do you have any other carrier option? If yes- change it and tell them why, if not- you’re already fucked and I wouldn’t comply when it’s already that bad. Nothing’s going to get better when doing nothing. My bank wanted to store a picture of my face on their servers to continue using their service so I changed my bank. You need to not be lazy.