Boeing and BlackBerry Making a Self-Destructing Phone 75
Rambo Tribble writes: It sounds like a Mission: Impossible scenario, but aerospace company Boeing is teaming with Canadian phone maker BlackBerry to produce an ultra-secure mobile phone that "self-destructs." The phone uses encryption on calls and is intended to serve the high-security needs of government and industry. As Blackberry CEO John Chen said, "We're pleased to announce that Boeing is collaborating with BlackBerry to provide a secure mobile solution for Android devices utilizing our BES 12 platform. That, by the way, is all they allow me to say."
No word yet if you'll need the services of the bomb squad when you go over your minutes.
No word yet if you'll need the services of the bomb squad when you go over your minutes.
"But it can be circumvented!" (Score:3)
Re:"But it can be circumvented!" (Score:4, Insightful)
Cue in the comments on how that security feature is not completely perfect, so therefore it has to be completely useless.
You mean like the fact that Boeing already works very closely with the CIA/NSA and therefor this thing is 100% guaranteed to have a government backdoor per-installed AND the purchase of such a phone would automatically put on a watch list that would result in pretty much all of your traffic getting logged anyway?
Not perfect... more like, this phone likely does exactly the opposite of what it advertises.
Re: (Score:2)
this thing is 100% guaranteed to have a government backdoor per-installed AND the purchase of such a phone would automatically put on a watch list
The target market for this phone is government employees and defense contractors, not drug dealers and terrorists.
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I'm more curious how superior this is to using a burner phone.
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Kaboom. It's the earth shattering kaboom.
Bursting in flames is so 19th Century.
Nevermind the circumvention (Score:2)
For almost any use you might have the biggest threat to the security is going to be all the ways that your communications can be compromised while you are actually using it. Baseband exploits, protocol exploits, software vulnerabilities, poor or crippled RNGs, compromised platform or application updates, cloud storage of sensitive information, etc. etc. the list goes on.
Oh what? It can self destruct? It's probably way too late by then, and assuming it's been compromised the attackers would probably rather y
that isn't just a self-destructing phone (Score:2)
it's a self-destructing company!
Re: (Score:1)
It is with BlackBerry. Their cell phones are totally unusable when the keyboard fails. It's a security feature!
Hints (Score:1)
1. Entire source code is open source so that it can be audited by independent researchers
2. It doesn't run anything that talks to any fancy cloud services, which means no Google
3. Good thing Boeing is in on it. Mentioning a self destructing device in your pocket to TSA could be a bad idea..
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Maybe it just lets the magic smoke out of the storage and ram chips.
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They've been working on it for over 12 years; I wrote the following for my web site in 2002. It will be in an upcoming book. Apologies for the mangled unicode, but slashdot's preview is worthless, since "preview" shows the unicode but the submission displays garbage. Here is the article:
McCoy: He's dead, Jim
Several years ago, before PCs were not nearly as com-mon in the home as they are now, a friend of mine asked of my computer, âoebut aren't you afraid it will explode?
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lets the magic smoke out of the storage and ram chips
You had the same electronics theory professor I did!
Secure & Android (Score:2)
Just wondering (Score:1)
Easy Peasy (Score:2)
Great Idea (Score:1)
This is a great idea, actually.
In fact, I would take it a step further. If a mobile phone you value is stolen, for example, or taken into custody against your will, having it self-destruct upon tampering is one thing. What if not tampering is done, or too many false PIN attempts? Why not also have logic onboard that says "if my master has not used me or texted me a certain code in such a time, I'll self-destruct also". This would prevent someone from holding onto your phone and simply copying the data from
Re: (Score:3)
or too many false PIN attempts?
So some joker in your office can destroy your phone in a couple of minutes while you're in the washroom? That's pretty insecure.
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I used to work systems security at a bigcorp. If a member of our team walked away with his workstation unlocked, someone would immediately jump on it and change his public status message. The standard was: "Don't worry, I'm insecurity!"
I think Sony got there first (Score:1)
http://www.reddit.com/r/Androi... [reddit.com]
High Expectations (Score:4, Funny)
I expect big things, Blackberry have been world leaders in self destruction for the past eight years.
Re: (Score:2)
Dead heat between them and Sony's battery supplier.
I've had 5 blacberries (Score:3, Funny)
They've been making self destructing phones for quite some time now.
But the addition of a feature that allows you to control when and why it self destructs will be a huge improvement.
Great Feature - Fro Blackberry (Score:2, Funny)
Sounds familiar (Score:2)
I think Nokia has them beat (Score:1)
Of course, it was unintentional.
Destruct as in explode? (Score:2)
Ought to be easy to do. Israelis figured this out a long time ago.
Of course there is a downside, if you are holding it and
Boeing and ... (Score:2)
We should have done this decades ago (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
For the record, I've never personally profited from any of our government's shenanigans, nor have I ever worked a defense-related or government-generated job. Like most people that I know, I have gained nothing from the government's imperialistic activities except more disdain for them.
I have actually communicated directly with my congressman and both of my senators in person and via email numerous times about the subject of making so man
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, they've thought about that. Most modern high performance weapons need maintenance and spare parts. Get on our shit list, no maintenance and no spare parts. It's either us or the Israelis (who somehow manage to manufacture high performance US weapon systems in their entirety).
Ask the Iranians. Their 'modern' Air Force has lots and lots of hanger queens. They've gone to making model RC planes since that is the best they can do on their own.
police will charge with destruction of evidence (Score:2)
So the cops pull you over, and as they are now allowed, they start poking around your phone. It clears itself.
You are going to have some nice vacation time.
What I would like to see (Score:2)
Is an iPhone case made out of C4, that would detonate whenever the device is placed in Lost Mode. You use Find My Phone to track it when it goes missing, and if you see it floating around in the ghetto, you activate Lost Mode. Kaboom!
God this place has gone downhill (Score:5, Insightful)
30 comments and all but one or two are brain-dead stupid. What happened to the intelligent posters? Slashdot used to be known for having pretty intelligent discussion.
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Both of them?
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Pish. We had Jon Katz back in the day.
Who didn't see this coming. (Score:2)
The phone uses encryption on calls and is intended to serve the high-security needs of government and industry.
As opposed to the security needs of consumers, which are obviously non-existent. No doubt it will come with a CALEA exemption, because Boeing. (Watch for a one sentence rider inserted into an otherwise totally unrelated bill some time in 2017.) Of course they will be absurdly expensive, but the Citizens who possess them will easily be able to afford them. If you can't pay, you definitely don't deserve security. But you can't have one unless you are on The List anyway. After all, they're CALEA exempt.
PHOOM (Score:1)
But Will The Theme Play? (Score:1)
So will a voice announce the 5 second warning with the Mission Impossible theme song?
Maybe a dye pack, too (Score:2)
Blackberry experienced in self-destructing (Score:2)
The real question. (Score:2)
Slashdotters want to know - WILL IT BEND
Destruct is simple, Fail-Safe design is not. (Score:1)
Boeing and BlackBerry Making a Self-Destructing Ph (Score:1)
At least, it will raise the sales of Boeing as airlines replace planes that blow up!
Just kidding! Obviously the phone won't physically blow up.