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Boeing and BlackBerry Making a Self-Destructing Phone
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.
Cue in the comments on how that security feature is not completely perfect, so therefore it has to be completely useless.
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..
Misnomers?
Thirty four characters live here.
This comes with built in NSA backdoor?
Just put Sony batteries in them.
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 it. If your phone is confiscated and you cannot sent a self-destruct signal because it's in a Faraday cage for holding, it will auto destruct in a given time. If you lose your phone, but can locate it via "find my phone" or left it at a friend's flat, and it has a signal, you could text a code to not destruct.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Androi...
But just before release, we'll kill her.
Are they building it just for Him, in case He loses it when visiting local restaurants and shops?
I expect big things, Blackberry have been world leaders in self destruction for the past eight years.
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.
I've gotten a chance to try out a few friends' work-issued Blackberrys in the smartphone era, and I've got to say, a convenient way to destroy the thing entirely sounds like the most useful feature RIM has added in a long time.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Is this the same phone that was talked about in February?
Of course, it was unintentional.
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
The law will merely be changed to by using of one of these phones and when ordered to surrender it by court order (i you are lucky) it self destructs as proof of guilt of something.
Who?
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Uh ... the data on the phone is encrypted, right? Is this rubber hose protection?
And for their next act, the whole company will self-destruct. Now that's security!
The self-destruct feature should have been included in every plane, tank, APC, rocket launcher, mortar, rifle, and any other weapons we have been selling to unstable, neurotic dictators in the middle east for decades. Set up to be remotely activated by the U.S., of course. Instead, we have our troops facing down our own weapons.
When you're dead, you don't know you're dead. It only affects the people around you. Same thing when you're stupid.
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.
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!
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.
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. You must have been background checked, approved, and sponsored before you can get on The List.
Remember, Service Brings Citizenship! Enlist today!
Does this sound paranoid? Think about your answer for a second.
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 you keep the thing. Less work for them!
Baseband is a closed source blob. You can now stop making news about "privacy" in phones.
Finally I'll be able to get that o-bomb-a-phone that they're always talkin' 'bout on the talky radio.
So will a voice announce the 5 second warning with the Mission Impossible theme song?
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
As long as they're giving extra oomph to the CA compliant remote kill switch, perhaps an exploding dye pack, too.
Considering Blackberry has almost self-destructed itself, there is no doubt it is the best qualified company to develop such smartphone.
Achille Talon
Hop!
it's a self-destructing company!
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Don't worry chief, Inspector Gadget is always on duty!
*explosion*
The real question isn't will it self-destruct. :-)
Slashdotters want to know - WILL IT BEND
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
.....my Apple iPhones have been self-destructing for years. Add water and poof!!
I see this as situational. Does one need to Destroy "Just" the Data or is rendering the device itself- forever/irrecoverably DEAD a pass/fail element? Let's skip that Fail-Safe for Destroy Device aspect for a moment- and go back to Data alone. Consider an app level tool to lower Data In-or-Out risks... with simple Ramdisk tech.. IF that level of security is Good Enough, all we're left with is risk-reward calcs on LN2 attacks in the REAL world.
Hilarious that Boeing would want a self-destructing phone, because a phone that blows up would be the perfect thing to have on an aircraft!
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.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
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The haters will hate. Blackberry may have lost their lead position in the cellular phone arena, but they have started to explore other areas of revenue like embedded systems that I think will keep them around a little longer.
That said, I still love using my Q10. Like Linux, I want choice and not just two distros (Android and iOS...okay three with Windows). I'm glad I can still opt for a distro (BB OS 10) that does what I need and want it to do.
Well as has been pointed out
Use it and your calls are recorded.
Second. What ever it ends up doing.
That they claim it self destructs, means you will never get on a plane with it.
A simple in breakable pin, and a remote wipe.
Is about as good. Cell phones these days can't really be intercepted except by the gov anyways.