Open system could cause headaches
Spam on your cell phone?
Ready or not, that day is coming.
As wireless customers start using software applications not sold or even vetted by their service providers, spam, viruses and other cyberheadaches are inevitable, says Deepak Mehrotra, a vice president at Aricent, which tests applications for carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless. "The cell phone becomes fertile ground for hackers."
Mehrotra says big carriers do not make applications available to customers until they go through a "certification" process, which includes a battery of field tests to make sure the application performs as promised. Testers also make sure it doesn't interfere with voice calls or compromise a device's internal circuitry, including memory.
The process can be time consuming, he says. "Just to test out a single application with a single carrier is a three- to six-month process."
Such vigilance is one reason U.S. cell phone customers have never had to deal with the viruses, spam and other headaches that can plague desktop PCs. This abundance of caution, however, has also made it difficult and time consuming for application developers to get their wares distributed broadly on cell phones.
As the wireless environment becomes more "open," all that could change, Mehrotra says.
On the upside, U.S. consumers could soon be able to easily download dozens, or even hundreds (memory permitting), of new software programs to their wireless devices. On the downside, Mehrotra says, they will have to exercise caution when downloading new applications or could wind up infecting their wireless devices with "nasty viruses, the kind that can eat (PC) hard drives." Noting that today's wireless devices are essentially minicomputers, he says it wouldn't be that difficult for a hacker to devise a program "that makes your (mobile) device use 99 percent of its processing power to add 1 plus 1 for the next six months."
"Those are the types of problems we have not seen in the past" on mobile devices, Mehrotra says. "But they can happen."
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin agrees that the new, open world of wireless brings additional responsibilities for consumers. "The Internet model is moving its way to the wireless world," he says, noting that today's PC users have similar responsibilities. Even so, he thinks it will be worth it. "Consumers will be able to get broadband all the time, in real time."
Bill Plummer, a vice president at Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, also thinks consumers will benefit. "The more competitive the (wireless) broadband space gets, the more we, as an industry, will continue to innovate."
That, in turn, will pave the way for "new applications and new consumer experiences," he predicts. "Whatever the Internet is tomorrow, mobility is going to be at the heart of it."
WBJ Web Partners
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