George Hotz, as you may know, is the 17-year-old who got his iPhone to work on T-Mobile's network. No small feat. Hotz, who hails from Glen Rock, NJ, which is just a few miles from our office here in Paramus, seems like a guy with a good head on his shoulders. After all, he did take home an award in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)--again, no small feat.
But what truly amazes me, and maybe you, too, is the way he went about his task, which by the way, was listed in the news as taking 500 hours. He starts a blog about his project for the entire world to see. And people in other parts of the world did take notice of his blog entries. According to the Associated Press, Hotz collaborated online with four other people, two of them in Russia, to determine the unlocking process.
I wonder where you draw the line between the old style of problem solving and this new style. Who would think that a high-school kid, even one as intelligence as Hotz seems to be, would find collaborators a world away to help him with his project. I'm sure his high school teachers took note of this, and probably his future college professors, too. Maybe they will find a way to inject this aspect of learning into high-school and college curriculums.
We read so much about the sorry state of education in this country, and the inability of our children to excel in math and science. Obviously, Hotz is not one of these students. Not only is he willing to take on a challenge that includes tearing apart a $499 cell phone, but he realizes that he could use some help. So not only is he smart, but he's also smart enough to know that there are other people out there who are as smart or smarter than he who could help him solve his problem.
With his high-profile hack of the Apple iPhone, Hotz has shown us what education really means. You do your best in the traditional educational setting. If you have a chance to participate in a high-level contest, you take that challenge. If you're smart enough and work hard enough, you may even win some money to defray the high cost of higher education. Then, when you have some spare time in the summer, you challenge yourself to come up with a solution to an annoying problem. In this case, the Hotz family had a family plan with T-Mobile, but if George wanted to use his iPhone, he would have to sign up for a two-year AT&T plan and pay for it himself. That can be annoying, especially at 17.
Like many problem solvers, he refused to accept this annoyance and set out to rectify it. And as often happens, this takes time. But as we all know, when you're immersed in solving a problem, 500 hours doesn't seem like that much at all. The hours fly by when you can't get your mind off of a problem. Each iteration brings more insight, until it's just a matter of time before you arrive at a solution.
Hotz was quoted as saying, "Some of my friends think I wasted my summer but I think it was worth it." How hard is it to find friends, especially at the high-school level that appreciate what you're trying to do, and can even lend a hand. You're more likely to find these people at the college level, and then again when you start your career. It's kind of neat to think that the Internet has truly extended your circle of "friends," so that even a 17-year-old can find a few people to collaborate with on a thorny problem.
George's blog is great reading. You can find it at http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/. I wonder how many people outside of the engineering community even understand the iphonejtag moniker. But JTAG is what allowed Hotz to pry into the iPhone. Here's a sample from the blog:
Here is how things are going to go down. It's 7 AM now, and I have a linux box and a homebrew JTAG adapter. I leave here at 8:15 and pick up bagels. I like bagels. Then it's off to these guys (link to New Jersey Factory Service, Inc.) to see if they can remove the S-Gold2 from the communications board. If not, it's over to Home Depot for a heat gun, seeing as mine sparked and died last night. Then I'll head over to the Apple store and pick up an iPhone. After probing the contacts, I'll get the location of JTAG on the board and connect up my adapter to the new phone. Hopefully it'll connect, and I can download and modify the full contents of the BB NOR flash+ram!!!
You've got to wonder how a 17-year-old achieved such a sophisticated understanding of electronics engineering and computer science, when these subjects are not even taught at the high-school level. But, obviously, the information is out there on the Internet, and a bright person like Hotz can learn as much as he wants. Add to this some electronics savvy folks who Hotz mentions in the blog, like his mentor, Joe Barbatta, from Recon Industrial Controls Corp. of Englewood, New Jersey, and you have a rich learning experience, one that doesn't fully depend on the traditional educational system, but augments it greatly.
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