8-14-95. NYPaper: "Israelis and Others Feel the Sting of a Cellur Phone Bug." A software bug inside the Alpha digital phone of Motorola has demonstrated an area of vulnerability in the growing web of digital communications systems -- and prompted Motorola to issue a worldwide recall. Motorola wound up asking 150,000 Alpha users in six countries to return the phones to have the software changed. The Alpha adheres to an emerging standard for digital cellular telephones called time division multiple access, or T.D.M.A. The bug caused the phone to lock on to one channel and stay there indefinitely. "There are tremendous risks as soon as you put something in software," said Peter Neumann, a computer security specialist with SRI International. The cellular industry "has foisted a disastrously insecure technology on the public," he said. CEL_tic (about 7K)