Boeing Collaborates With BlackBerry on Self-Destructing Phone

Boeing filed documents with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) back in February on a secure, self-destructing smartphone it calls the Boeing Black. The Black is being designed as a secure means of communication among government agencies and their many contractors working on matters related to defense and national security.

In its February FCC filing, Boeing said:

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. 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.

In January, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a press release that was interpreted to mean that it had ordered 80,000 new BlackBerry phones. BlackBerry’s stock soared, but the reports were incorrect. The Pentagon issued a clarification later saying that the 80,000 BlackBerry devices and the 1,800 non-BlackBerry devices were “legacy systems” already in Pentagon inventories.

The interesting thing about all that was that the Defense Department included phones using the Android operating system from Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) in the deployment. The Boeing Black runs on Android, and although no one is saying anything, some of the devices could have been tested earlier this year.

The BlackBerry enterprise platform has been one of the company’s major selling points since the smartphone business passed the company by. BlackBerry’s Secure Work Space software was certified in March as a secure mobile offering that meets strict U.S. and Canadian government standards for cryptographic technology.

ALSO READ: Will Congressional Meddling Kill Boeing’s New Air Force Tanker?