Then perhaps another possibility concerning how Mr. Erickson delivered his commands has been raised — one which would not require him to use the walkie-talkie, or indeed be anywhere near Mr. Condon, to issue his commands. These are obviously computerized devices to begin with, and computers can be reprogrammed. Perhaps the headphones could be reconfigured to play a file of his speech already modified as the walkie-talkie would alter it, rather than taking outside input as it's clearly configured to do now.

[Given that the headphones themselves have no means of writing to disk, however, that would require swapping that tiny solid-state drive out.]