[Mutiny32]

It's the same for phones. Phones can also be bricked not by software upgrades gone bad or hardware failure; but as a result of being lost or stolen on certain carriers. On CDMA carriers, a phone can be bricked if it is stolen pretty easily, because most (the standard actually has a provision allowing the equivalent of a GSM SIM and is used by some South Korean carriers) CDMA phones have a ESN that is hard-wired to the device and thus can be blacklisted.

The origins of the term "brick" comes actually from the computer CMOS chip world. Due to the nature of CMOS and similar semiconductors; writing data to them can be very dangerous. If a data write goes bad for a myriad of reasons, the CMOS chip is essentially useless. Since most computers and complex electronics have some sort of CMOS-type semiconductor in them used as an essential piece, it's pretty much a fact of life.

So now you're stuck with a very expensive piece of useless equipment. Since computers, routers, phones, and most other electronics are square and usually relatively heavy, they are compared to the only thing you can do with heavy square objects other than make a wall out of them; use them as paperweights. And what is the best paperweight? A brick.

I just went waaaaay into this. Lol, my ADDHD-IA medicine makes me super analytical the first few minutes it kicks in. Just be glad I didn't try to explain this out loud, I could have made a History Channel monologue.