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It's possible that this is a little crass for HN but I decided to submit anyway. I never even knew these phones existed, let alone their purpose in prison.

I find the interview with Adam, a tiny phone seller on eBay, to be particularly interesting. When asked about the illicit use of the phones he sells:

    "If that's what they want to do, they can, but we've never tested the phones to see if they set off those scanners; some of them are mainly plastic, but they're not going to be 100 percent plastic—they still need to have a circuit board."
But what if they did? These phones seem to be perfect for the prison task. I wonder what would be different if they were specifically optimized for the "hide in butt" use case. Could they be smaller? A different shape? etc etc...