Top all-time · #5529
Arkadiy Tetelman
Personal blog · arkadiyt.com · on HN as arkadiytsecurityprogramming
Arkadiy Tetelman's personal blog at arkadiyt.com covers security and programming. Since 2018, 14 different Hacker News readers have linked it 35 times, most often “Pair Locking Your iPhone”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-05-13, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog's 2019 post on pair-locking an iPhone as a practical tip against phone forensics by Cellebrite and border searches. Other linked posts cover car modem removal.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A security blog
Most-linked posts?
- Pair Locking Your iPhone6 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2019-10-07
- Quantifying Untrusted Symantec Certificates3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-02-05
- Scanning your iPhone for Pegasus2 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-07-26
- Reverse Engineering Protobuf Definitions from Compiled Binaries2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-03-04
- Removing the Modem and GPS from My 2024 RAV4 Hybrid2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-05-13
- Detecting Manual AWS Console Actions2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-11-12
- Getting Partial AWS Account IDs for Any CloudFront Website2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-07-10
- Detecting Manual AWS Actions: An Update2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-02-19
What Hacker News says?
A reminder that you can pair lock your iPhone to prevent analysis by Cellebrite or similar tools: https://arkadiyt.com/2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-wit...
Comment linking /2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-with-configurator-2/
on “Exploiting vulnerabilities in Cellebrite UFED and Physical Analyzer”Submitted Pair Locking Your iPhone as a story · 583 points
HN discussionReminder for the folks using iPhones, you can prevent law enforcement from doing this by "pair locking" your device: https://arkadiyt.com/2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-wit...
Comment linking /2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-with-configurator-2/
on “US border forces are seizing Americans' phone data and storing it for 15 years”Submitted Scanning your iPhone for Pegasus as a story · 234 points
HN discussionYes, TSA can ask you to unlock your phone and automatically grabs data from it, on iOS you can get around the automatic grab by pair locking your device: https://arkadiyt.com/2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-wit... EFF also have a nice guide called "Digital Privacy at the U.S. Border" (PDF): https://www.eff.org/files/2018/01/11/digital-privacy-border-...
Comment linking /2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-with-configurator-2/
on “Moscow police officers stop people, request their phones to read their messages”Submitted Reverse Engineering Protobuf Definitions from Compiled Binaries as a story · 156 points
HN discussionPossibly. If anyone would like to check if their iPhone was infected by Pegasus I wrote up some step-by-step instructions here: https://arkadiyt.com/2021/07/25/scanning-your-iphone-for-nso...
Comment linking /2021/07/25/scanning-your-iphone-for-nso-group-pegasus-malware/
on “About the security content of iOS 14.7.1 and iPadOS 14.7.1”Submitted Removing the Modem and GPS from My 2024 RAV4 Hybrid as a story · 71 points
HN discussionIt is possible to remove the hardware itself that is responsible for this, but depending on the car it can very involved: https://arkadiyt.com/2026/05/13/removing-the-modem-and-gps-f...
Comment linking /2026/05/13/removing-the-modem-and-gps-from-my-rav4/
on “Data collected by cars and sold to third parties”Submitted Reverse Engineering Protobuf Definitions from Compiled Binaries as a story · 11 points
HN discussionI wrote up some instructions here: https://arkadiyt.com/2021/07/25/scanning-your-iphone-for-nso...
Comment linking /2021/07/25/scanning-your-iphone-for-nso-group-pegasus-malware/
on “iOS 14.6 device hacked with a zero-click iMessage exploit to install Pegasus”Submitted Removing the Modem and GPS from My 2024 RAV4 Hybrid as a story · 6 points
HN discussionIf you are using an iPhone, make sure to enable pair locking (1). Additionally, I recommend storing your photos (or your phone backup) on a LUKS-encrypted Linux laptop. Do not trust corporate encryption software; it’s better to use a new phone while traveling if you don’t want to bother with that. (1) https://arkadiyt.com/2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-wit...
Comment linking /2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-with-configurator-2/
on “Australian Border Force searched phones of 10k travellers in past two years”Submitted A Summary of Zoom's Bad Security Month as a story · 6 points
HN discussion> To protect yourself from Cellebrite you can use a strong password, turn off biometric unlocks, and keep your phone up to date. To add, if you truly want to prevent any forensics on your iPhone (especially if you are traveling), make sure to pair lock your iPhone to a MacBook you leave in your house. https://arkadiyt.com/2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-wit...
Comment linking /2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-with-configurator-2/
on “Rayhunter: IMSI Catchers We Have Found So Far”Submitted Pair Locking Your iPhone with Configurator 2 as a story · 6 points
HN discussionHow the court will even accept that with a broken chain of custody?! That being said, for iPhone users, make sure to pair lock your device so that any cannot be cloned for later investigations https://arkadiyt.com/2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-wit...
Comment linking /2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-with-configurator-2/
on “Cellebrite asks cops to keep its phone hacking tech ‘hush hush’”Submitted Scanning your iPhone for Pegasus, NSO Group's malware as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFor anyone wondering, this is what I do personally: for the iPhone, you can have it pair locked (1) with a MacOS (obviously one isn’t accompanied with you during the travel) that way they can’t -even if you were foced to unlock it- they can’t image the OS for further forensics, as that’s usually the case at borders, you wait an hour or two until they copy the image, or worse, planting some malware. This doesn’t work…
Comment linking /2019/10/07/pair-locking-your-iphone-with-configurator-2/
on “Federal Judge Makes History: Border Searches of Cell Phones Require Warrants”Submitted Scanning your iPhone for Pegasus, NSO Group's malware as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting Partial AWS Account IDs for Any CloudFront Website as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Detecting Manual AWS Console Actions as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Reverse Engineering Protobuf Definitions from Compiled Binaries as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Detecting Manual AWS Actions: An Update as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Pair Locking your iPhone with Configurator 2 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Detecting Manual AWS Console Actions as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Quantifying Untrusted Symantec Certificates as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Deploying EFF's Certbot in AWS Lambda as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Reverse Engineering Protobuf Definitions from Compiled Binaries as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Detecting Manual AWS Actions: An Update as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
