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Ask HN: Is there any way to make a self-destruct button for iPhone?

8 points by quirk ↗ HN
I just learned that you can set iPhone to run an automation (or any action) by tapping its back. I don't know why, but this made me wonder if it's possible to make a self-destruct button for a phone. I don't program hardware so just wildly guessing here, but maybe it is possible to set it on some kind of loop that causes it to overheat? I imagine there are lots of safeguards against that, but also imagine people have figured out ways around them.

10 comments

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Most definitely not. If you're jailbroken, you can set an automation to delete the /var/ folder and soft brick your phone (until you re-flash it with iTunes).

You could also set up your passcode so it clears your phone after a few wrong attempts, then purposely enter the wrong passcode.

At best, physically crush your phone in a way that destroys the logic board.

pc86
I'm sure you could engineer a case that pierces the right parts of the phone such that it is effectively a [self-?]destruct button.

The biggest issue with this of course is that if you have a legitimate threat profile that requires you to be able to quickly destroy your iPhone, you're not going to have an iPhone in the first place.

pavel_lishin
Or one of those USB-killers that sends enough current through the USB port to burn things out.
Nevermark
Perhaps override the heat management clock frequency limiters and run every CPU, GPU, neural and video core at maximum frequency on the most energy burning instructions, with constant cache misses forcing continuous refreshes, and writes to memory, while locking the camera flash LED on, maximum solid white screen brightness, until the rising heat damages something?

Starting with a full battery?

Not sure if this is possible, or if enough heat could be produced for a long enough time to ignite a battery fire, but that would be my approach.

Or just keep writing to the flash storage until you break down the oxide layer within the floating gate transistors. The phone won’t “destruct” but it would become inoperable.

criddell
It's not self-destruct, but you can quickly lock your phone if you are worried about handing your phone to an adversary.

Quickly press the power button 5 times. This makes it so you have to enter your passcode to use the phone (ie no biometrics).

The phone can probably still be accessed via rubber-hose cryptanalysis.

claudiulodro
You could probably do a self-destruct with this technique by also having something generate and automatically set a random password.
samcat116
I think the default is 10 incorrect passcodes wipes the device.
claudiulodro
In that case it sounds like there is already a self-destruct button!
deepfriedchokes
You can also hold down power and a volume key to lock an iPhone and require the passcode.