-Battery pack
--The device is powered by four lithium-thionyl chloride (Li-SOCl2) D cell batteries
--Each cell is good for 13,000 mAh and are suited for extremely low-draw applications where longevity is needed, making them ideal for powering an always-on transmitter/receiver
--Minimal service life is 10 years.
-GPS antenna
--A quick peek at the antenna board indicates it was manufactured by SIgem, a company that partnered with Tyco in the early 2000s to make GPS components.
--The FBI really did not want anyone tampering with the innards of their tracking devices. The screws were coated with so much threadlocker that we had to break out the power drill and eliminate the screw heads.
--The module providing the GPS signal processing on this device is a µ-blox GPS-MS1 that's sort of ancient in the realm of modern electronics.
--This module was 1st released June 29, 1999 and it features 0.125 MB of SRAM and 1 MB of flash memory.
-Transmitter/receiver ICs
--XEMICS XE1201 Ultra low power single chip transceiver
---The XE1201 allows for data transmission and data reception in half duplex mode.
--RFM RF1172 SAW (surface-acoustic-wave) filter
---The RF1172 provides front-end selectivity (the capability to separate signals in one frequency from all other frequencies) in 433.92 MHz receivers.
[Edit: Please note, much of the text above is c/p'd from the ifixit post.]
If the FBI didn't want anyone tampering with the unit, they would have potted it in heavy epoxy or welded the case shut. Maybe even put a light-sensitive thermal charge inside.
More likely they were worried about the screws vibrating themselves off while stuck to the underside of a car - thus the threadlocker glue everywhere.
The fact that they didn't pot it is interesting. I hadn't thought about that. Potting seems to be on the decline over the last 10 years from what I've seen.
Re: software—we linked to the reference design, which includes a lot of information about the software. There should be plenty of information available to start investigating their implementation.
Potting is still used heavily in industrial electronics and a lot of appliance work (think of washing machine control boards). I would think the military uses it a lot as well.
Is that the PCIe crypto module shown in Google searches for IBM 4765? Please share the link if you have it, as I couldn't find a teardown in my brief search. I'd like to see how one would dismantle a potted circuit.
Yeah it's the crypto module. I think the teardown involved shaving the part down layer by layer and examining all the parts like the fine wire meshes that would instantly blow the chip if disrupted and etc. Wish I could remember where I saw it.
Yeah it looked to me more like the product designer was concerned about ruggedizing it for the automotive environment and possibly making a weak attempt at making it tamper-evident.
It certainly didn't look like anything designed to protect secrets.
-Battery pack --The device is powered by four lithium-thionyl chloride (Li-SOCl2) D cell batteries --Each cell is good for 13,000 mAh and are suited for extremely low-draw applications where longevity is needed, making them ideal for powering an always-on transmitter/receiver --Minimal service life is 10 years.
-GPS antenna --A quick peek at the antenna board indicates it was manufactured by SIgem, a company that partnered with Tyco in the early 2000s to make GPS components. --The FBI really did not want anyone tampering with the innards of their tracking devices. The screws were coated with so much threadlocker that we had to break out the power drill and eliminate the screw heads. --The module providing the GPS signal processing on this device is a µ-blox GPS-MS1 that's sort of ancient in the realm of modern electronics. --This module was 1st released June 29, 1999 and it features 0.125 MB of SRAM and 1 MB of flash memory.
-Transmitter/receiver ICs --XEMICS XE1201 Ultra low power single chip transceiver ---The XE1201 allows for data transmission and data reception in half duplex mode. --RFM RF1172 SAW (surface-acoustic-wave) filter ---The RF1172 provides front-end selectivity (the capability to separate signals in one frequency from all other frequencies) in 433.92 MHz receivers.
[Edit: Please note, much of the text above is c/p'd from the ifixit post.]