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A Belarusian friend asked me this, but I can't find anything on my own. Protesters in Belarus are beaten once arrested until they give up the pin code to the phone.

So, if he could give a pin code that would immediately trigger phone reset to factory settings, or erase data, or even show a dummy profile, that would at least protect their family and contacts and limit the extent of accusations.

It would be nice if the phone could be used afterwords. Protesters may be given their belongings back after detention, and having a working phone is an advantage if they land in a hospital or just outside the detention center with none to pick them up.

So far I suspect that to have this functionality one has to fork Android or LineageOS. Is there already such a fork?

Why Android? Because back in Belarus, iPhone is much less popular than in the US or EU.

mikhailian
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  • Does this answer your question? How to make a complete factory reset, without anyone being able to retrieve my data? – alecxs Aug 23 '20 at 09:49
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    *2767*3855# if it works (given that all codes don't work on all devices). You could Google for your device specific codes. Phone will be usable but all data would be lost and you would need to set it up again//But this is not a PIN code as you are asking. This needs to be dialled from your key pad after opening the phone – beeshyams Aug 23 '20 at 09:52
  • https://coolblindtech.com/how-to-disable-fingerprint-and-facial-recognition-on-your-phone – alecxs Aug 23 '20 at 10:02
  • maybe not very helpful but related, android has lockdown mode – alecxs Aug 23 '20 at 10:11
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    in germany it is common sense to leave mobiles at home when participating protests (for tracking reasons) – alecxs Aug 23 '20 at 10:15
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    One thing coming close to this is Ripple (also available at Play Store but only in an older version). It sends a "panic event" to all supporting apps which then act with what you configured there (deleting data, uninstalling themselves, whatever). In the past there were other apps which e.g. triggered a factory-reset when you entered the wrong pin more than X times, but they're all gone unfortunately. – Izzy Aug 23 '20 at 11:11
  • Frame challenge: might it be easier to buy a "burner" and bring that to protests? That way you still have a phone if you need to call someone, but you can avoid putting any data on it that you'd be concerned about the authorities seeing. – Kat Aug 23 '20 at 22:09
  • @Kat On a burner phone, you need Telegram and a few channels and groups to follow the events, which is a red flag anyway. – mikhailian Aug 24 '20 at 08:56
  • i wonder how revolutions was possible before cell phone aeon – alecxs Aug 25 '20 at 11:38

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