Papas Fritas writes:
"Reuters reports that Boeing has unveiled a smartphone that deletes all data and renders the device inoperable if there is any attempt to open its casing. 'The Boeing Black phone is manufactured as a sealed device both with epoxy around the casing and with screws, the heads of which are covered with tamper proof covering to identify attempted disassembly,' says a letter included in the FCC filing. 'Any attempt to break open the casing of the device would trigger functions that would delete the data and software contained within the device and make the device inoperable.' Boeing's Black phone will be sold primarily to government agencies and companies engaged in contractual activities with those agencies that are related to defense and homeland security. The device will be marketed and sold in a manner such that low level technical and operational information about the product will not be provided to the general public. 'We saw a need for our customers in a certain market space.' says Boeing spokeswoman Rebecca Yeamans."
(Score: 1) by bogibear on Friday February 28 2014, @02:27AM
So what happens if you drop it and crack the screen, does it self-destruct?
If it is tampered with, do you get some effects like they showed in the old Mission: Impossible series (magic smoke)?
It'd be interesting to figure out how they make it self-wipe.
The world's cumulative IQ is a constant. The population is growing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2014, @02:42AM
Maybe it doesn't use flash memory for most of its non-volatile storage, but CMOS SRAM or something similar that still requires some power to maintain the data. Trying to open the case results in immediate power cut somehow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2014, @05:19AM
I imagine the self-wipe is probably based around the same principles as DBAN. Not sure what that means about how they implemented it though.