The Boeing Company (BA) has unveiled the new Boeing Black smartphone which is able to self-destruct, destroying data so that it cannot be accessed or tampered with.
According to Boeing, the smartphone is designed with the needs of the “US defense and security communities” and which satisfies ramped up security requirements.
The phone is specifically designed to ward against hacking and data theft — with the phone basically shutting down in an attempt.
“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,” Boeing stated in a filing with the US Federal Communications Commission.
… “There are no serviceable parts on Boeing’s Black phone, and any attempted servicing or replacing of parts would destroy the product. 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.”
The phone will reportedly be sold with an “end-user non-disclosure agreement,” and “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,” according to Boeing.
Such a phone might have prevented damage to Washington’s diplomacy in Ukraine from a leaked telephone call. A senior US State Department officer and the ambassador to Ukraine apparently used unencrypted cellphones for a call about political developments in Ukraine that became public.
Boeing’s tamper-proof phone is aimed at government agencies and contractors who need to keep communication and data secure, according to Boeing and filings with the US Federal Communications Commission.
Boeing says it will sell the phone directly.
