black box

Definitions

1. A flight recorder; the brightly colored cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders in an aircraft designed to aid in determining the cause of an accident.
   informal
2. Any similar device on motor vehicles, such as rail event recorders and ship trip recorders.
   broadly
3. A theoretical construct or device with known input and output characteristics but unknown method of operation.
4. A device used in phreaking that prevents the calling party from being billed for the call placed.
5. A type of theater characterized by a lack of decoration or complex mechanisms.
   attributive
6. Synonym of football (“the leather briefcase containing classified nuclear war plans which is always near the US President”)

Equivalents

Examples

“scrutinizing all utterances recorded by the black box”

“the pilothouse's analogue of an airliner's black box”

“The authentication method and its details can be treated as a black box for purposes of this security architecture overview.”

CEFR level