What's Behind the iPhone 3G Glitches

Complaints over dropped calls and choppy Web connections on Apple's
iPhone 3G have sparked a wave of debate in the blogosphere over the
root cause of the problems. Two well-placed sources tell
BusinessWeek.com the glitches are related to a chip inside Apple's
music-playing cell phone. The sources add that Apple (AAPL) plans to remedy the problems through a software upgrade rather than through a more disruptive step, such as a product recall.

The news reinforces analysis by Richard Windsor of Nomura Securities, who said in an Aug. 12 report that the problem involves a communications chip made by Munich-based Infineon Technologies (IFX).
Faulty software on the chip causes problems when the iPhone needs to
switch from wireless networks that allow for faster Web downloads to
slower ones, the people say.

Apple: "No comment"

Users of the iPhone 3G complain they're unable to get the faster
connections available on so-called 3G, or third-generation, wireless
networks even in some areas where 3G networks are in place. Owners also
lament frequent shifting between high-speed and slower-speed networks
during calls and Web sessions. The handoffs sometimes result in dropped
calls. The problem is affecting 2% to 3% of iPhone traffic, the people
say. That compares with a dropped-call rate of around 1% for all
traffic for AT&T (T), Apple's exclusive partner in the U.S. "This is a problem, but it's not a catastrophe," one of the sources says.

Still, it's causing enough disruption that the Internet is abuzz with
complaints over the phone's performance and speculation over how much
blame lies with Infineon's chips. Infineon spokesman Guenther Gaugler
declines to comment on the chip's performance in the iPhone 3G, but
says the chips haven't resulted in comparable problems in other phones,
including those made by Samsung. "Our 3G chips are, for example, used in Samsung handsets and we are not aware of such problems there," Gaugler says.

Apple, which has refused to acknowledge there is a problem with the
iPhone's performance, declined to comment for this story. AT&T
issued a statement saying, "Overall, the new iPhone is performing just
great on our 3G network."

Traffic Spikes

One source says the problem lies squarely with Infineon's
technology, which is fairly new and untested in high volumes outside a
lab setting. Not only is the iPhone shipping in much higher volumes
than other handsets, it's also gobbling up far more 3G minutes as
owners use it to surf the Web, watch YouTube (GOOG) videos, and utilize other bandwidth-hogging services.

As much as the chip may be the chief problem, glitches may also stem
from Apple's software or the AT&T network. Part of the role of the
Infineon chip is to check whether there's enough 3G bandwidth available
in a given area. If 3G isn't available or there isn't enough bandwidth,
the iPhone will be shifted to a slower network. One source says Apple
programmed the Infineon chip to demand a more powerful 3G signal than
the iPhone really requires. So if too many people try to make a call or
go on the Internet in a given area, some of the devices will decide
there's insufficient power and switch to the slower network—even if
there is enough 3G bandwidth available.

Continues : http://www.businessweek.com/

Court tells students to disclose hacker secrets in T case

A federal judge yesterday refused to lift an order prohibiting three
MIT students from publicly talking about how they allegedly hacked into
the MBTA's automated ticketing system. However, he did order the trio
to privately provide more information to the court about the security
flaws they say they have uncovered.

US
District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr., granting a request by the MBTA,
ordered Zack Anderson, Alessandro Chiesa, and R.J. Ryan to provide him
with a paper they wrote for a class at MIT and correspondence they had
with the organizers of Defcon, a Las Vegas hacker convention where the
students were slated to speak last Sunday on alleged security flaws in
the MBTA's system.

The judge said he needed to know more to
"enable me to make a sounder decision about the facts of the case." He
ordered the students, who were not present, to provide the information
by 4 p.m. today. He said he'll weigh all the facts, then hold another
hearing Tuesday on whether to dismiss or extend the 10-day restraining
order that was issued Saturday and prevented the students from giving
their presentation at the convention.

The MBTA filed suit last
week, alleging trespass and computer fraud by the students and
negligence by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after a vendor
spotted promises of "free subway rides for life" on a website
advertising the students' presentation.

After yesterday's
hearing, Jennifer Granick, a San Francisco attorney who represents the
students, dismissed those promises as "puffery" and said the students
had used "florid language" to drum up interest in their presentation.

In
court, Granick, who is civil liberties director of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, said the students have already
provided "the entire universe of information," including material they
never intended to release about security flaws, in a 30-page sealed
document provided to the court earlier this week.

Granick argued
that the restraining order is an unconstitutional gag order that has
done "irreparable harm" to the students and the First Amendment.
Granick said the students have acted responsibly and "never intended to
release important information that would allow or teach a bad guy" to
hack into the system.

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said the
students have not provided the MBTA with enough information for
officials to know whether the system's security is endangered. "We
simply want them to provide the information that's been requested by
the court or the MBTA," he said.

Ieuan G. Mahony, a Boston lawyer
who is representing the MBTA, said after the hearing that some form of
a restraining order is necessary until the agency has fixed any flaws
that may exist.

The MBTA contends that the students had a
responsibility to share their findings with agency officials before
making them public so the agency would have time to fix the problems
before they could be exploited, Mahony said.

After the hearing,
Granick said the restraining order is "preventing them from talking
about what they found, even though there's a public debate. If these
students figured it out, other people could figure it out, too."

She
said today's deadline would be difficult to meet because Anderson is
not in the country and Ryan and Chiesa are not in Boston.

From : http://www.boston.com/

Two Georgians Say They Have Bigfoot’s Body

SAN FRANCISCO — In the hairy and hoax-filled history of Bigfoot,
those who believe in the mythical beast have offered up all manner of
evidence, from grainy photos to hoarse recordings to tracks of those
aforementioned feet.

But on Friday at a hotel in Palo
Alto, Calif., a pair of Bigfoot hunters say they will present what they
contend is the most definitive proof yet of an animal that science says
does not exist: DNA evidence and photographs of a dead specimen they
say they found in a remote swath of woods in northern Georgia.

“It
was very frightening at first,” said Rick Dyer, 31, a former
corrections officer who — coincidentally — runs a business that offers
Bigfoot tours. “And it got even more frightening when you saw the
others.”

Indeed, Mr. Dyer said he and his partner, Matthew
Whitton, saw three more of the beasts nearby as they dragged the body
of said creature out of the woods. Moreover, Mr. Dyer says he has video
clips and photographs to prove it.

One photograph provided to
the news media showed what resembled a gorilla — or maybe an old
sheepskin rug — lying twisted in a freezer, with a dollop of intestines
protruding from its belly.

“There’s a lot of comment being
made that it looks fake, or it looks like a suit,” Mr. Dyer said. “But
these people wasn’t there when I was sweating, pulling this thing
through the woods.”

Tom Biscardi, a longtime Bigfoot booster from
the Bay Area, who traveled to Georgia to see the animal, said he was
“150 percent” sure that the carcass was a Bigfoot, an American Indian
legend whose modern fame dates to an elaborate “footprint” hoax
perpetrated at a Northern California logging camp in 1958.

“This
is ‘Eureka!’ man,” said Mr. Biscardi, whose operations include a
Bigfoot Web site, a Bigfoot merchandise line and a Bigfoot Internet
radio show. “I touched it.”

Both Mr. Biscardi and Mr. Dyer said
they expected skeptics to discount the find, which is being kept in a
freezer in an undisclosed location outside Atlanta. But they promised
even more proof, including video, a DNA test and, of course, a mission
to capture one of the big guys.

“I’m not asking anyone to believe
us,” Mr. Dyer said. “I’m just asking them to sit and watch, because
you’re going to eat your words.”

From : http://www.nytimes.com/