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

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[xCepheus]

Great... this guy's web server survived _HURRICANE KATRINA_ and now you go and a post a link to it on slashdot.

Nice...

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: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:Why has no one mentioned...

[interiot]

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

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[squiggleslash]

A year ago after Hurricane Charley, the president was accused of responding too quickly, allegedly to curry favor with Florida voters.

I don't think he was accused of any such thing, but that said, it's an interesting contrast, isn't it? Two months before an election, he's right there from the get-go, promising help to anyone who wants it in his Brother's swing state.

Ten months after the election, however, with no more elections for him to win, he plays the guitar, makes a few (non-relevent) speeches, and acts, essentially, as if nothing's happening. At some point on Tuesday afternoon, after the floods have started, and 36 hours after the hurricane actually hit, he announces he's cutting short his vacation. But he didn't actually get back to work until Wednesday afternoon.

And remember, while the floods may have only started on Tuesday morning, the Hurricane itself did immense damage, leaving hundreds of thousands of people across three states without power, in seriously damaged, often to the point of uninhabitability, homes. The hurricane itself - not its rains that caused the levies to break - caused astonishing amounts of distruction on Monday, more so than anything that hit Florida (and I live in Florida, in Stuart as it happens, where two of last year's hurricanes hit) - that's all been kind of pushed aside as we concentrate on looking at New Orleans.

And, you'll forgive me, but at least on Wednesday, the feeling I got from the White House was that gas prices were the primary concern of everyone there.

I'm sorry if this sounds like partisan bitching to you, but, well, call it constructive criticism if it hurts.

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.

I see noone understands Maslow's Heirarchy

[WillAffleckUW]

of Needs.

Expecting people to be angels when you haven't satisfied their primary needs of:
1. Water - yes, this is 1 - and potable too;
2. Food - and it has to be ethnically acceptable too;
3. Clothing - and sitting around in 110 degree temperatures when you may not have been dressed for it in the first place ...
4. Shelter - this basically means dry shelter;

but basically, if you haven't met at least the first seven levels, and it sounds like most people there haven't even had the first four levels met, you will act in ways that few people would believe.

Add that to seeing bus service laid on to evac the hotel guests while they wouldn't even use the trains to get you out, and you might be a bit miffed - and you can forget about civility.

But, hey, I'm just repeating my Army training guidelines ...