From what I know of the recorders, that tape is definitely not from either of them.
Now that the crash site has thawed, perhaps it should be visited by someone with more aviation accident investigation skills.
I agree, looks more like black electrical tape to me. And the blogger and journalist seem to use the generic term 'data recorder' for both the CVR and FDR.
That Eastern crash was a stealth event at the time back in the States. 'Only' 29 people aboard, on a holiday in the early CNN era with no video of the scene.
According to an Associated Press article late in the same year, 'It was the first of many airline crashes that have claimed nearly 2,000 lives this year, and is one of the most mysterious.':
https://news.google.com/newspapers?n...,7177582&hl=en