Atlanta Man Charged After OS Feature Wipes Phone During Search
An Atlanta resident has been charged in connection with an incident early last year in which he allegedly caused his phone to wipe itself rather than allowing it to be investigated by airport authorities.
The story centers on the open-source Pixel phone operating system GrapheneOS, which bills itself as focused on security and privacy. It has a feature that lets users set an alternate password that will wipe the phone completely, making any data truly unrecoverable.
The story played out like something made up by a GrapheneOS marketing team. The defendant in this case, Sam Tunick, was passing through security at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in January of 2025 when he was stopped for an extended inspection.
His lawyers contend that this was due to Tunick's association with local activist groups critical of law enforcement, while airport security apparently said they were investigating the possibility of child sexual abuse...
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