Technology In Katrina's Wake

We've had many submissions about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It doesn't come easy writes "From 'the end justifies the means department', the BBC is reporting that bogus emails about the current situation in New Orlean contain links to websites that promptly infect the concerned reader's computer. From the article: 'The separate virus and fake donations bogus e-mails have been discovered by computer security firms SophosLabs and Websense Security Labs. They are similar to previous fraudulent e-mails connected to last year's Indian Ocean Tsunami.'" Less cynically, an anonymous reader writes "A Linux developer is organizing volunteers for a public 'web station' project to assist Hurricane Katrina victims. The plan is to create numerous Linux-based public kiosks that boot directly into the Firefox browser and display a special home page with links to various services. In addition to offering disaster relief information and news, the kiosks will provide basic email capabilities via Yahoo!, Gmail, Earthlink, MS Hotmail, and other web-mail services. They're looking for donations of time and money. If you're looking to donate more directly, tech companies across the country are maintaining pages with ties to respected charities. Yahoo is maintaining the Red Cross donation page, and everyone from Microsoft to IBM has a message on their frontpage."

Comments

Why has no one mentioned...

[Lordfly]

...this guy?

http://massivewinners.com/mgno/

He's writing a blog from within New Orleans.. he's running diesel generators to keep his company (I think it's a datacenter) running... he has a live webcam and hundreds of pictures of the disaster. It's about as close to the ground as you can get. Truly amazing...

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[interiot]

Link to the guy's posts on a webserver that can handle it, please

Re:Why?

[Drooling Iguana]

Why do people keep building villages next to volcanos,

Volcanic soil is quite fertile.

museums with important artifacts in large cities,

So that it can be seen by as many people as possible. That's kinda the point of museums. Otherwise they'd just stick all their priceless artifacts in unmarked boxes in giant wharehouses, like they did with the Ark of the Covenant.

data centers in flood plains,

Flood plains soil, like volcanic soil, is usually quite fertile, and cities are nearly always built near rivers due to the fact that a city's growth is directly dependant on its water supply. Data centers are built in cities because it's easier to find qualified employees there.

major network hubs in cities.

Again, they need to be built where people are, or it would be way too difficult to find qualified technicians to run them.

Journalists finally starting to do their job!

[wass]

Journalists are finally starting to see through the misleading statements of federal officials who are claiming everything is jus' fine down in N'awleans, and are reporting the actual reality on the ground.

Too bad it took a disaster for this to happen. But when you see people dying in front of your eyes and your own government waiting 4 days before really attempting to help out, your sense of conscience grows.

CNN has a special page contrasting the statements of officials about how great things are going versus the reality. Read the article here.

Re:Fraud

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Funny you should mention that. The third link on the FEMA.gov "Volunteer or Make a Donation" page, under "Donate Cash", just happens to be Operation Blessing, who's chairman is "MG Robertson," is none other than the Rev. Pat - Marion Gordon Robertson is his real name - while Pat's wife DeDe is vice president and son Gordon Robertson is also on the board.

I feel certain that 100% of any and all donations will go directly to New Orleans.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

Where did this cut and paste article come from ?

http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins20050 9020719.asp

HA! The National Review Online. HA!

Re:Not really contradictory, even worse

[wass]

If you actually read the article, there isn't much contradiction.

Oh really?

Chertoff [Homeland Security Director]: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day.

Nagin [Mayor of New Orleans]: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation.

---

Brown [FEMA Chief]: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it ... There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining.

Dr. Matthew Bellew, Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients in this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. The conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients.

---

Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that.

CNN's Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, they're losing control of the city. We're now standing on the roof of one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn't safe to be out on the street.

Don't forget some the best tech working - the hams

[Anonymous Coward]

Let us not forget all the ham radio operators who have been working continuously since even before the hurricane made land fall, whether they are working in RACES, ARES, SATERN, the Hurricane Watch Net, or just volunteering their time on their own in the disaster area. There has been far too many ignorant dolts, especially with regard to the topic of BPL, who trivialize ham radio as some special interest hobby that should go away so that we can get subpar internet access to places where it is feasable to get better service otherwise. Where are your cell phones and internet service now jackasses?

Here are a few stories: 1, 2, and 3.

Re:Relief funds?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The Red Cross turns 92% of donations over. The other 8% is used to pay the employees and keep the orginisation open. That's one of the (if not THE) best place to donate.