iPhones Knocks Out Wi-Fi System

One of the big selling points of Apple's iPhone is the ability to connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi, but I.T. pros at Duke University might say otherwise. The iPhones on campus are flooding the school's wireless LAN with as many as 18,000 access requests per second, temporarily knocking out access points for 10 to 15 minutes at a time, according to Kevin Miller, Duke's assistant director of communications infrastructure .
The iPhones are requesting a router address that's not valid on Duke's network. When there's no answer, the iPhones keep asking, a process that essentially amounts to a distributed denial-of-service attack, knocking out access points and keeping Duke's I.T. staff scrambling.
Miller said there are about 150 iPhones on campus causing the issue, but noted that "because of the time of year for us, it's not a severe problem." When school starts full sessions in late August, "this would be devastating," he said.