Hacker News Reader

Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>Good to know though - if you are ever arrested, reboot your iPhone before entering the PIN.

how do you trust that the phone was actually rebooted? ie. the ui fakes a reboot screen.

There is always that risk. However, if you are this paranoid, you need to remember that you can do a Force Restart. This is handled by hardware, not by software, so if you know what to look for it cannot be faked.

https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/force-restart-iphone-...

You can't even trust that it's your phone; it wouldn't be that hard in many cases to provide an identical-looking device that just records the entered PIN. It won't hold up to inspection once unlocked, but it doesn't have to; once you've provided the PIN, you've lost.

If the device has left your possession, don't accept it back or interact with it. Get a new device, and restore it from backup.

Also, if you fill out the emergency contacts in your phone, you can call those contacts without unlocking your phone.

There's an easy defense against this: when you're handed the phone, intentionally enter a passcode that isn't yours. If it unlocks, then you'll immediately know it isn't your phone, and won't have given away your passcode.

If it doesn't unlock, it's probably your phone.

Use siri to dial without unlocking.

Siri has had vulns before that allow device access from the lockscreen. Best to disable it entirely if this is your threat model.

Fortunately, the crack in my screen is quite uniquely identifiable :)

Not sure this matters. Is your screen incompatible with other iPhones?

Do iPhones have the hard-reset like Android where you hold power for a while, ignoring the on-screen prompts until it's forcefully reset?

That might be an option. If it's not, I guess it's much easier on iOS to fake a reboot as the boot process (visually) is known, on Android it could be anything because it's manufacturer customisable.

EDIT: Fixed some grammar.

Yes, they do.

let the battery die, sure fire way to make the phone reboot, ironically the agent installed on the phone would probably help with this.

You'd probably have to wait days/weeks just to be sure. Otherwise the UI can "pretend" to have a dead battery.

Just remove the battery.

Oh wait we can't do that anymore.

To fake reboot UI it would need to root the OS. A tremendous and very unlikely achievement.

Incorrect. When the person press and holds the power button, just show a fake graphic onscreen for "swipe to turn off". When person does that, show a black screen for 3 seconds, show the Apple logo for 8 seconds, do an animation, and the phone hasn't rebooted while the person's been tricked.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com