How ironic that during a time industry chooses to celebrate the heroic side of the wireless phone industry, we also can see how wireless phones can cater to the less gallant side of humanity.
CTIA this week honors its VITA award winners-people who have used their wireless phones to warn law enforcement about kidnappers, carjackers and other menaces on America’s roadways. It is good for industry to pat itself on the back for its efforts to contribute to a safer America.
Yet we also hear that lawbreakers increasingly are using prepaid wireless phones as a tool in their trade because prepaid services promise anonymity and give the secure wireless connections that are difficult, if not impossible, for law enforcement to trace.
My new favorite rotten use for the wireless phone comes from Germany and is called your.cheats.
According to a press release from YourWAP.com, your.cheats “increases the fun aspect of studying for young and old students. Important information such as math formulas, historic events or vocabulary can be secretly carried around on the WAP phone. Teacher approaching your desk … No problem, with one click the content can be hidden under a self-selected image. These `hide images’ can be created and uploaded with the YourWAP.com Wireless Companion, which is a free Web and WAP browser, which can be downloaded from the YourWAP.com Web site.”
Of course studying is fun when you don’t have to actually remember anything. Up to this point, I thought banning cell phones at school was a stupid idea. But now I can imagine teachers telling students to put away their books and their wireless devices.
And talk about a digital divide. Only students able to afford the more-expensive wireless phones with data capabilities will be able to fully take advantage of the cheating capabilities available using a WAP phone. I suspect President Clinton won’t jump on that issue, however. Rich kids cheating and poor students who can’t cheat won’t illicit that much sympathy on the 6 o’clock news.
Some students will always be able to figure out how to cheat-a wireless data-enabled phone is perhaps just a little easier to read than time-honored classics like writing down answers on shirt sleeves.
What is troubling is the companies willing to help the would-be cheaters along.
Someone once said gambling would be the killer application for wireless data.
Somehow I expected more … I certainly never expected less.
