Boeing going ... GONE: Black phone will SELF-DESTRUCT in 30 secs Who makes the most secure smartphones on the planet? Is it Apple? Samsung? BlackBerry? Boeing is betting the US government's answer is "none of the above." A filing with the US Federal Communications Commission first spotted by storage community site MyCE sheds new light on the aerospace giant's plans to market a smartphone …
As I like to see competition and the fact that their should be competition going after my tax dollars, it would be nice to see Apple going after this space.
As an ex GI I want the best for our guys and gals and the best security for our goverment that money can buy. it also could seap over to the civilian side giving Apple another way to show that it does the best.
Apple succeeds precisely because it DOESN'T do stuff like this- things that'd distract from their core objective of making lots of money from as few product lines as possible.
Their other main things they do are sell your data (as does Google, but you can remove those bits from Android) and keep you locked into using their ecosystem. Which is good for the lay-customer who just wants a bit of shiny to play Flappy Bird on, but bad for techies, bad for anyone who wants to have control over their system and bad for anyone who wants to move away from them in future.
Plus you'd have to register any "UltraSecretBlackProjectX" Apps with Apple!
I wonder if a firm gets penalised any time the security features need to actually be used, because i can't imagine they want too many of these lost; gives the bad guys something to poke and prod for the next time which devalues the marketability of the entire product to other companies surely?
It is important to remember that Google's head of Android was recently on the record as saying that Android was built to be open, NOT secure. Why is Boeing using Android? Why not BlackBerry OS? Why not an OS of their own design? I know OSes take a long time to design, test, and build, but of all the available mobile OSes, why Android?
"There are no serviceable parts on Boeing's Black phone and any attempted servicing or replacing of parts would destroy the product. 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."
Apple will sue Boeing on the basis that this is a copyrighted feature of the next model of Iphone.
This is absurd. You don't need to get into a device to get the contents out. No doubt the US and A will pay Boeing handsomely for them regardless. Another $10,000 hammer anyone?
And I'm betting that smart hackers with plenty of time on their hands will work out how to dismantle it anyway.
Backdoors … They can claim it is secure but it is going to have backdoors. Any phone sold to governments / military etc is going to have at least one backdoor. It might even be illegal to sell a phone without a backdoor if the NSA come knocking. Blackberry has had issues with that in the past. …. mtp
mtp et al,
If one assumes and presumes, as may be the wishful thinking of traditional and conventional legacy systems administrations and exclusive executive offices of oppressive and regressive governance regimes and fiat capital authorities, which be reliant and wholly dependent for continued survival on trying to cow and halt emerging intelligence in formerly clueless masses [and man, is that dumb ass operation destined to explode and implode catastrophically and destroy all leading players and camp followers], that all communications are backdoored, ….. with there being no worthwhile exception, so all knowledge is easily made available to any and all with a need to know what be future possible and therefore most probable and presently active, …. then does/do the current dire strait states of national and international and internetional affairs reveal a monumental lack of intelligence in humans assumed to be in command and control of systems and/or everything and able to gather all information. Gathering information and being able to use information to improve things rather than degrade things are all completely different matters.
Such a deficiency and deficit is a massive vulnerability which be beautifully ripe and and such a sweet sticky succulent for merciless exploitation.
Boeing, a sweetheart of the NSA, didn't have too much success with Project 25, so why should we expect much better this time?
Additionally, why would anyone, other than the American government, trust Boeing or any other American company with security?
Requesting "permanently withheld from public inspection" is simply a Drama Queen act - which many companies employ. And what is a piece of paper worth? They can collect as many NDAs as they want but if someone wants in, they'll find a way.
Secret screws didn't do Apple any good, and epoxy is easily defeated - after the cell handset has been appropriately rendered inoperable through it's local environment.
There are places in China who can, for a fee, reverse engineer 'secure' electronics products using X-ray techniques, followed by applications of choice concoctions of heated nitric or sulphuric acid along with 2,2,2trifluoroacetamide gas. They also use chemical and plasma etching.
As for the memory fuses to stop duplication, they are a breeze, too.
Me, I would go for Phil Zimmerman's BLACK PHONE, just announced, at least he has the credits for standing up for Uncle Sam.
So away with you Boeing, go fix those batteries that keep catching fire.
Biggest group of snoops on the planet -->NSA
Biggest group of users of product --> US govt.
Therefor the people best equipped to crack it will be the people who use it.
Of course as it's from Boeing and will have umpteen tons of paperwork to "prove" it's secure it will be bit more expensive than the average P. Diddy gold-and-diamond encrusted blingphone.
On the upside the Dreamliner batteries have already proved out the self destruct system a treat.
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