One, the wrench can be metaphorical. If you brick the device that's antagonistic. Getting you on a petty crime, as a cop, or getting $50 from your wallet as a criminal, may stop them from looking. Being combative results in retribution, and as we all know cops can be petty, and selective enforcement of rules is one of the hallmarks of Institutional sexism/classism/racism. If using Crypto While Black isn't already a thing, it's gonna be, and there's nothing you and I can do to stop it. Slow it down, absolutely, but stop it? Not without help from our kids and possibly grandkids.
This isn't a chess match between equals. This is someone who can ruin your life just to make a point. Even keeping you in custody for a day or three can screw up a lot of people.
The Lockpicking Lawyer put it pretty well recently. The people who make locks are following rules that nobody else is beholden to follow. The designer looks at the parts and thinks about their purpose. Their design. The picker is looking at what they can make the thing do, not what it's 'meant' to do.
They are repurposing things, to circumvent the wishes of the manufacture and the consumer. That's where the wrench comes in. That's where cloning the device comes in. That's where giving the adversary a fictional win to regain your liberty comes in.
Again, if it's an option, it's more like violence would have been used to get the password, and further violence against your family/loved ones if you were antagonistic.
This is why plausibly deniable encryption is such a boon. If you have something somewhat valuable behind some weak encryption or in plaintext and a big blob of mystery on your device it's a lot easier to make the claim that you've surrendered everything without giving up the game.
If they know you're hiding something, for certain, they'll go to much further lengths to find that out compared to suspecting you might be hiding something and finding some other stuff you'd obviously like to hide. If you've got an envelope with 100k in your pocket and you get mugged throw your wallet at the dude as quickly as possible and just book it - chances are that the mugger will either: A) consider the risk/reward at this point to be too dangerous since they've already got a nice bit of cash or B) assume you're just scared and have nothing else. If you say "Hey, I just threw you 200$, I'm going to run off with this 100k now" you're definitely not going to have a good day.
If your threat model is the police, a wrench could be a best case scenario for you. If you can prove the police took a wrench to you during an interrogation you're definitely getting the case thrown out.
LOL. Yes, possibly, but think of the time. I didn't break when the cops put a loaded gun to my head or threatened me and refused me a lawyer. I broke an hour later when they decided threatening my wife would be a better plan.
It took 7 years of sitting in jail to get the judge to watch the video and throw shit out.
With police you can start a Twitter mob if you're lucky but there are ten thousand other George Floyds out there that didn't get any justice when police took wrenches, tasers, knees, guns to them.
And that doesn't really apply to the CBP and the CBP equivalents of other countries. They're ruthless and can lock you up in cages, there isn't really the opportunity to start a "case" until you're past the CBP. If you aren't a citizen you sadly don't have access to a lawyer if the CBP wants to hit you with a $5 wrench, because you aren't even in the US yet.
