Hello. I read in another forum that the kompact is less secure than other phones in the case of a physical attack. They claimed that police can essentially just plug in to bypass lock screen and access the full contents of the phone. Is this true?
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I believe stock Android and most AOSP devices are quite weak on security when it comes to law enforcement bodies.
They have access to tech that can break the security on any android based device that doesn’t have extra protection installed, using brute force attack
Graphene os has a hardened security layer which can’t be bypassed even by the owner, and iPhone has.a strong security mechanism. If you want to improve security on anything else you would need to use an an alternative method like a software vault with its own encryption where you can store sensitive information, and use of secure communication apps like signal instead of standard apps
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Interesting. So most phones are equally susceptible then minus the ones you mention.
I don’t see how signal would help if you can plug into the whole phone. Would you not be able to see app contents? My understanding was they break the lock screen so have access to anything you don’t need to sign into like signal
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Yep, the most important security feature to prevent physical access is a secure element, which most Pixels, Samsung Galaxy phones, and iPhones have. It’s basically a chip separated from the main processor which handles encryption and prevents an attacker from brute-forcing the PIN (i.e. in movies when the hacker tries all 10,000 possible pass-codes in a matter of seconds). The Kompakt doesn’t have one, and in fact doesn’t have any encryption at all so any attacker with physical access to the phone can decrypt its contents (including the Signal app). You can partially get around this by using apps which implement their own encryption, but the Kompakt also has a number of other security issues (e.g. using a very old version of android) that make the security of the device questionable at best. To be fair to Mudita, it’s very difficult for a small company to build a secure phone without the resources of a larger company like Samsung, Google, or Apple and I can’t think of any other niche phones built by small companies that do.
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There are settings in signal to add another pin, and lock registration. Messages are encrypted and calls can also be directed through signal.
Session and briar are messaging apps that offer even greater security & privacy and worth looking into.
My personal take is not keep sensitive data on my phone, use disappearing messages, and clear history in any installed browser . I carry an encrypted usb key with a hardware keypad lock, this can be plugged into the Kompakt and the contents read, handy for passwords etc and tested to military grade
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