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Washington Post Raid Is a Frightening Reminder: Turn Off Your Phone’s Biometrics Now
(theintercept.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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A reminder if you restart your phone biometrics don't work until you unlock it once with your code.
If you're about to deal with police, turn off or restart your phone so it resets to a Before First Unlock state where your information is encrypted and biometrics do not work.
If your phone allows you to set an automatic restart, set that up.
GrapheneOS by default automatically reboots after 18 hours of not being successfully unlocked. Devices in the Before First Unlock state are effectively not able to be accessed by standard law enforcement solutions. It also lets you set a duress password that will immediately make the storage contents permanently inaccessible, delete the eSIM, and power off the device.
Good recommendations. Unfortunately the claim that phones in a BFU state are effectively inaccessible is not entirely true.
It’s more difficult than the alternative, but it’s possible in many cases. If law enforcement has your device, assume they can access to everything on it. Oftentimes even things that were deleted.
Got any examples? Apple has won in court and the feds got all butthurt because they couldn’t unlock phones that they wanted to access.
And then... Few weeks later unknown company from Israel did give an access to this Apple phone. Think just how was it possible 🤣 One suggestion, Apple makes always great PR.
Source?
I’m not sure about apple, but BFU access on some / many android devices is possible
If you press the lock button on your iPhone several times in a row, it will force the entry of a pin next time it starts.
Test it out, and learn how to do it quickly if the popo comes for you.
On my pixel I can just hold the power button and click "Lockdown" on the menu and it will force the code
I don't like this because it's hard to do quickly without being obvious.
Do it very obviously as a fuck you instead
If it's obvious and slow, which it is, someone might be able to physically intervene to stop you.
iPhone users: Hold power and either volume up or down button for two seconds It will lock and ask for your pin, regardless if you shut down the phone or not.
Learn how to do it quickly and blindly, with your phone in your pocket.
Also change the passcode type to alphanumeric even if you just use numbers. Makes it impossible for them to unlock it with that Mosad software. Though you probably need to make the passcode longer than 6 characters and add in a few letters. Like a 6 number passcode just take days to crack. While a 12 character alphanumeric code takes thousands of years.
I haven't done as much research on iPhones... does that put it back into a BFU state, or just not accept biometrics?
There is a difference if it doesn't force it back into BFU state, not for say a patrol officer/agent on the field, but definitely if they're trying to get into your phone later.
It just disables biometrics, so not a complete lockdown, but better than nothing.
If you want to do a better lockdown, you do the following, it takes longer however:
This will force a restart of the device and require the pin to be entered.
You can just hold the lock button and volume up until it prompts you to power off.
Or swipe down the control center and there a power icon in the top right
Edit. Apparently that control center thing doesn't work on my phone but it used to
Is this not just AFU? If so, the effect for a physical user is the same (needs the passkey), but encryption keys are still loaded.
You don’t even need to do it multiple times. If you go into the power menu while it’s locked it requires it so just power + vol up