Some crime scene photos from the bombing that occurred two days ago at the Boston Marathon were released this morning, one of them showing the remains of a circuit-board that was presumably part of the detonator. My first thought was that a cell-phone was used as the detonator. It's size, at 4cm wide, and the large number of resistors on its surface seem to me consistent with a basic cell phone pcb, it's shape suggesting the bottom of a "slider" model like the older Ericsson Walkman series(which measure 4.4cm wide). But what do you guys think?

http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/17/photos-bomb-remnants/ylajKnZVt3KtASrJA1EXNP/story.html?pic=4

It could be any number of things. Everything has a circuit board these days; ranging from your phone to your two-slice toaster in the kitchen and remember that an explosion is a powerful force. Just because it looks like an older Ericsson Walkman series phone to fit a conspiracy somewhere on the web doesn't mean that it is. I've read an article online that the devices may be IEDs created from Pressure Cookers. My friend was in an accident last year and his license plate had a nice clean chunk missing. Relating that to your circuit board, DShiznit, the circuit board could have been cleanly cut from the force of the explosion by an edge it had contacted with and matches the size of the circuit board in the Ericsson.

While I'm sure your topic is in a good, well-intentioned manner to partake in the crowdsourcing of the data, I'd like to remind you that graphic pictures (and links to them) are not suitable for the forum. The pictures you have linked to here are mostly okay and in one photo it's not all that graphic.

For contributors to this topic, please note the following:

• Make sure posts don't link to graphic content.
  
• Please provide a "credible" source to your information.
  
• Don't shame anyone, nothing is proven and thus you are not right and they are not wrong.
  • Unless there is conclusive evidence otherwise
• Administrators still have the right to edit/delete any post they deem questionable

By "credible" I mean a news agency, a press statement or research anyone of us can independently verify as true or false. Shy away from the pictures being circulated on Facebook (i.e. guy on the roof just as an explosion happens).

It looks to me like 3 of the edges are machined, and one is broken off. I'll grant you it's not 100% certain, but it suggests to me a device that's just over 4cm wide, which is what most cheap cell phones(like a tracphone) are. I was definitely jumping the gun when I suggested a specific model(I've since looked up several Ericsson pcbs and no part of them looks like this).

What I was really interested in starting this topic was if anyone here could deduce by looking at the circuit what function this small part might have had.