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from the This-phone-will-self-destruct-in-five-seconds dept.
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: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday February 27 2014, @08:47PM
Hey Boeing, what about us?
The other thing this does is encrypt each outgoing voice stream with the target parties public key. (And decrypt voice streams coming in with with its own private key).
Meta-data (who called who) is still collectible if any part of the call goes over the commercial network. But The feds have their own net in many places.
Encrypted voice was always intended to be in the GSM spec. My old razor even had some settings for it buried in setup screens. However, the way they did it required the decryption and re-encryption at the towers, and nobody wanted to install that, and the feds put the whole issue to bed making encrypted calls illegal, unless the user does it himself.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
(Score: 1) by swisskid on Thursday February 27 2014, @08:56PM
Of course, you can only encrypt your metadata as long as your company/the government have the decryption key.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday February 27 2014, @09:09PM
Well, you can't even encrypt it then, because calls have to travel on common carriers.
When you dial, each network along the route has to know where to send your call (what tower had that target phone last).
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.