Self-Destructing Phones Now a Reality

Megalith

Megalith

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Maybe my imagination is broken this morning, but is there any real application for this other than pretending you’re in a spy film? Making things combust remotely must be pretty neat, but why not just wipe the data? Or, you can just do it the old-fashioned way, like smash the hell out of it. Also, in before any Samsung battery joke.

The self-destruct mechanism has been created by electrical engineers at the King Abdulla University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and consists of a polymer layer that rapidly expands when subjected to temperatures above 80 degrees Celsius, effectively bursting the phone open from the inside. The mechanism can be adapted to be triggered in various ways, including remotely through a smartphone app or when it's subjected to pressure. Once triggered, power from the device's battery is directed to electrodes that rapidly heat, causing the polymer layer to expand to around seven times its original size within 10-15 seconds. This crushes the vital components inside the device, destroying any information stored on board.
 
Might be a good anti theft thing? Who'll steal that latest iPhone if it'll burst apart?
 
Stupid application idea, the mechanical stress will burst the phone open yes, but it won't crush the memory components mounted on PCB, it might damage the PCB, but if you need to extract information, you can just solder the memory storage onto a new PCB for data retrieval.
Polyfuses use a similar technology where resistance in the fuse heats up the polymer which contains conductive metal particles, as the polymer expands due to excessive current generating heat, the current flow stops due to particles no longer conducting across expanded material, when polymer cools particles reconnect and that's why it's a self-resettable polyfuse.
 
lostinseganet said:
Que Inspector Gadget! This message will self destruct.
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This guy aint happy about it.

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Why try to destroy the entire device? Just need to smoke the non-volatile memory chips and pop the main power fuse. Poof, the phone is disabled and all data is lost. Simpler and less likely to cause personal injury lawsuits in the future.
 
PaulP said:
Why try to destroy the entire device? Just need to smoke the non-volatile memory chips and pop the main power fuse. Poof, the phone is disabled and all data is lost. Simpler and less likely to cause personal injury lawsuits in the future.
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Deterrence and revenge. If Samsung allowed us to remotely explode our phones once stolen in an extravagant (but safe manner, so not in a pants pocket or without too much heat, shrapnel etc) I'd get it. Something like that flexible LG phone, if they built a memory alloy frame that would cause it to bend past the point of no return upon remote wipe after showing the finger on other custom insult on the screen, I'd pay extra. But the exothermic destructive mode we could use to kill enemies of the state, just require is use in all "burner" phones ;p Oh god they would probably do that.
 
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