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Submission + - Will FaceTime on iPhone 5 Crash LTE Networks? (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Friday August 24, 2012 @05:54PM

CWmike writes: "Are the nation's LTE wireless carriers prepared for the video chat data crunch expected to come with the next-generation iPhone and other devices that are expected to launch this fall? The answer: It depends on whom you ask. Both AT&T and Verizon Wireless decline to say whether they are ready for the data crunch. Over the summer, both carriers introduced data sharing plans that analysts believe were timed to help limit a surge in heavy data use expected — especially with the use of Apple's FaceTime, which as of the forthcoming iOS 6 will be available for cellular network use, instead of just over Wi-Fi. 'If I were a carrier, I'd be rather frightened by FaceTime,' said analyst Jack Gold. 'If everybody used FaceTime, bandwidth would go up dramatically, and the user experience would go down.' AT&T has come under fire in recent days for announcing plans to require users to sign up for a Mobile Share data plan in order to conduct FaceTime video chats over its current 3G and future cellular networks. Michael Howard, an analyst at Infonetics, said carriers are prepared for FaceTime on LTE — 'for the most part. There is a small chance that some areas in some city might get hit with some slowdowns, but I doubt the traffic upsurge due to FaceTime will add any major factor like the unexpected surges of the initial iPhone rollouts.' Other say we will just have to wait and see."

Submission + - How Bin Laden Email System Prevented US Detection 1

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Thursday May 12, 2011 @05:32PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Christian Science Monitor reports that Osama bin Laden was a prolific writer who put together a painstaking email system that thwarted the US government's best eavesdroppers despite having no Internet access in his hideout. Holed up in his walled compound in northeast Pakistan with no phone or Internet capabilities, bin Laden would type a message on his computer without an Internet connection, then save it using a thumb-sized flash drive that he passed to a trusted courier, who would head for a distant Internet cafe. At that location, the courier would plug the memory drive into a computer, copy bin Laden's message into an email and send it. Reversing the process, the courier would copy any incoming email to the flash drive and return to the compound, where bin Laden would read his messages offline.It was a slow, toilsome process but it was so meticulous that even veteran intelligence officials have marveled at bin Laden's ability to maintain it for so long. Intelligence officials are wading through thousands of the email exchanges after around 100 flash drives were seized from the compound by U.S. Navy Seals in last week's raid in which bin Laden was killed."

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