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If This Had Been An Actual Emergency
saridder writes "In an increasing attempt to regulate the Internet like the current PSTN, the US Government has asked the IETF to come up with a system to prioritize government and emergency worker traffic in the event of another disaster, much like the GETS system already in place for the PSTN. It's interesting to follow, because it's only an RFC, so you don't have to follow it. I probably won't be prioritizing government traffic on any of my routers." The story has a link to the ieprep working group if you want to get involved or comment. Perhaps this is a better way than GOVNET.
...doesn't TCP/IP already have a system for prioritizing packets? Which no one (especially no router) uses for the obvious reason: It's too unregulated and too easy to exploit, especially if you let just anyone onto the net like today.
If this system goes through, all that will happen is that every single packet on the net is a priority-one red-alert packet and the routers will just start ignoring the priorities (again). There is no honor on a completely public medium, don't forget what happened to the idea of open relays.
sounds like they should just build their own damn secure network. considering this is a resource (not yet) 'owned' by one person, why the hell should they get priority?
sorry, awful things happen. get carrier pigeons.
your jesus is another mans xebu. chew on that hypocrites.
On 9/11, the most important communications did not come from the government. They were the cell phone calls to/from the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. I'd hate to think that those lifesaving phone calls among private citizens might get squeezed out because giving the governor an update on resuce efforts took priority.
When I first read this, I was thinking of the application of routing theory to the movement of vehicles such as would be required in an emergency, which naturally led to...
If you thought TCP/IP over carrier pigeon had huge-azz latency, wait'll you try TCP/IP over government bureaucrat!
First, the IP datagram is printed on a form I-TCPIP by the former acting deputy chief. The scroll of paper is inserted into his briefcase and he's reassigned to acting director for international affairs.
At each hop, the source address is taken by the executive associate commissioner for field operations, and filed according to procedure. After he becomes regional director for the western region, he looks up the address of the next hop.
The next hop's address is glommed onto the datagram by the assistant commissioner for inspections, formerly the acting executive associate commissioner in the office of programs.
Finally, the router, upon receipt of the datagram, forwards it to the special counsel to the commissioner, who herself is then reassigned to assistant deputy executive associate commissioner for immigration services.
Six months after the hijackers initiate transmission via a high-delay, low-throughput, and low-altitude service, the router at the flight school gets the packet containing the 9/11 hijackers' visa approval notifications.
Security is not only a problem in a normal operation, as special measures (such as the firing of the incompetent) cannot be taken even when government bureaucrats are used in a tactical environment.
A broadcast technology like TV or Radio will ALWAYS scale better than a point-to-point technology like Telephone, TCP/IP, SMS, etc.
The best information distribution would be if there was a way to send a message to every phone in the country - to make them all ring at the same time - but that isn't possible with the way switches work.
This technology will never be useful for 'breaking' news distribution, like "GET OUT OF TOWN - TORNADO!" but rather could be useful for managing the long term (i.e., several days - weeks) effect of a massive attack (terrorist, military, or otherwise) on the nation's information systems.
Not quite true. The EBS is mainly intended for "All people downstream of the Lake Pueblo dam, move to higher ground immediately. The dam is breached" or "A tornado has been sighted in the southeastern corner of Arapahoe County, moving northeast at about twenty-five miles an hour. All persons in the area of Blah Blah Blah take cover." EBS isn't just a news substitute. Thats what Denver's (lack of) all-news AM stations are for.
All this talk of emergency communication networks is bogus. They just need to feed information to the news outlets like they always do.
Again, negative. They serve two separate purposes. The news is to inform the public. The EBS is to get very-high-priority, extremely time-sensitive stuff to specific parts of the public. Emergency communications are generally not for public consumption at all.
Emergency logistic communications (like the prioritized email, I'm guessing) are for things like "We need at least three additional ambulances at Fourteenth and Clark" or "We need a dozen more cops at the hospital to keep order" or "Can someone have the Red Cross bring soap and blankets for about five hundred people to City Hall?"
As for tactical communications, we need something to say "two-adam-twelve, two-adam-sixteen, back door's open. Can you send a King unit around this way?" Our radio channels are not designed to have eighty or a hundred cops working on them at once, plus explorers and volunteers. Even with one channel used for nothing but wants checks and one specifically planned for special events, we'll swamp our dispatchers very quickly. Email and internet won't do a lot of good there, unless we need to coordinate with another agency and they have to talk to a dispatcher twenty miles away from ours. It doesn't happen very much, but when it happens you NEED that capability.(As an aside: That was a big problem at Columbine High School a few years ago. There were a half-dozen tactical teams that were simply not equipped to talk to each other.)
For instance, during 9/11, we went into shock when the first plane hit, just like everybody else on the planet. When the second plane hit, I was just getting out of the shower and getting ready for bed (graveyard shift) when my cellphone range and I was told to gear up and get my ass back to the office. I don't watch TV, and rarely listen to the radio (except for "Car Talk" on NPR on Saturday mornings) and so the EBS wouldn't have told me anything. An email might have gotten to me, but it turned out that the cellphone was the easiest (for most of us. About half of the department doesn't have email and most of us deliberately avoid television news, as a mental-health measure.)
Following Internet protocol. Asking for an RFC from the IETF instead of congress passing an unworkable law.