The only possible reason I can think not to have this is if it created unnecessary panic, but that just means alerts should be informative and only sent out when danger is present. Why else would it impinge on you at all to receive them?
Should cell phone be part of emergency alert system?
- Thread starter SerriaFox
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Welcome to 1984 Gimp edition...
From what i heard this test of the big brother system went poorly it was messed up and fuzzy static ridden on a whole bunch of stations.
The only use for nationwide control over the broadcast bands is for Dictators and other nasty class of characters, any disaster large enough to need info on it sent across the nation is too big for this to have any useful effect.
From what i heard this test of the big brother system went poorly it was messed up and fuzzy static ridden on a whole bunch of stations.
The only use for nationwide control over the broadcast bands is for Dictators and other nasty class of characters, any disaster large enough to need info on it sent across the nation is too big for this to have any useful effect.
Skwink
FRIIIIIIIIIITZ
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I know, I hate it when people warn me of emergencies.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
You are assuming two things: that this system from FEMA will work, and that it won't be abused.
Gamemaster77
PC > Mac
Thats a perfectly fine and dandy thing to assume. No point having a system around if it doesn't work or if it just creates false alarms.
I'm not sure how it can be abused.
Skwink
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Well, we trust the government with bombs and tanks, why not the ability to communicate with the people quickly?
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
That's a good pointwe shouldn't trust them with those things, either.
Unless there's a system, which offers every recipient of a warning SMS to easily check that the sender is valid, i can see tons of possibilites for an abuse.
Are you kidding? How many emails do you get purporting to be from the FBI or your bank and "please click this link urgently"?
JohnRM
Don't make me destroy you
If it is possible, why not?
Perfection
The Great Head.
I sure as hell don't.
holy king
Deity
oh crap, i hope i didnt fail.
I think it's a good idea, and should be explicitly opt-in. For starters, there's the issue of sending to wireless GSM/CDMA devices which may be on an SMS-capable billing plan, but are not being used as personal communication devices (think ATMs, credit-card processing, vehicle tracking, alarm systems, etc etc etc). At best these devices would just ignore the SMS, but at worst a malformed one could screw them up a bit. Second, someone opting-in would be aware that they're going to get them, whereas someone not expecting them might either panic or think it's a hoax. Perhaps a quarterly test would help in that regard, too, as it wouldn't be good for a person to think they've opted in and then not get emergency broadcasts. And I would think that the wireless operators could take their lists of opt-ins and allow for regional geographic broadcasts, but phones that are roaming might be more difficult than the home-operator directly-connected ones.
(I currently work for a wireless operator partner.)
(I currently work for a wireless operator partner.)
Who's talking about the government?
People are putting their information everywhere. Invade a social network (works automated, see e.g. here) and grab all the mobile numbers.
Do it targeted, harvest the numbers from only a specific region, or a specific company.
Then, after such an event, when most people are not really informed, but might have heard that the government is doing something about catastrophe information via mobile phones, after such an event automatically bomb everyone with some warnings at the same time.
(how? GSM is not encrypted, hackers can set up their own mobile phone transmitting stations, and every phone will accept them. And you can sure also send whatever you want)
Do that on a monday morning, in an area which might be prone to earthquakes, to a company or industrial area.
Imagine, you're working somewhere in the heavy industries, chemistry, oil, maybe the wall street or the Pentagon, whatever, you get an earthquake warning on your mobile, most of your coworkers get warnings on their mobile, and you see maybe that somewhere in the neighbourhood some company employees are running on the street. At that point you might want to shut down the heavy machines, just because it's dangeours not to do so, and evacuate the building.
-> you'll lose a whole day of work and maybe damage the machines. If it happens more often, this might have an impact in some areas. Might also be abused for industrie espionage (everyones outside), or for theft, or even as a red herring to distract the police from something else. You might not even need a purpose, look around at what currently gets hacked.
Oh, and after such a fake happened 3 or 4 times, who'll listen to it in the case of a real catastrophe? Nobody.
If there's the possibilty for abuse, someone will abuse it. Sure.
The biggest need i see is for people is those who are roaming, who might not know the hazards of the area. Which is why I voted for an opt-out system.
