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DHS to Send Widespread Alerts
MarsGov writes "The Department of Homeland Security is gearing up to be able to periodic test 'alerts' to cable television stations, satellite radio, as well as any text-capable device — PDAs, cell phones, and web sites." From the article: Some glitches remain as telephone companies and other networks grapple with potentially trying to alert all of their customers at the same time without jamming their systems, Lawson said. But the alerts could be transmitted by text messages, audio recordings, video or graphics, he said, opening the possibility of sending out additional detailed information to specific sectors, like hospitals or emergency responders."
So, if the U.S. gets invaded I'll get an SMS saying "All our base are belong to them?"
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
As much as I think this could help in the event of disaster, I hope that some legislation is passed to limit it's use. It would be very easy to abuse it for propogand purposes.
They have to push the fear buttons before the fall election. It will make the difference between winning and losing.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
Great, all we need now is gov't spamming of cell phones...
Homeland Security Spam!
--- JurassicPizza
There was an unusual "statewide administrative alert" broadcast to the TVs at the bar during lunch yesterday, and nobody knew what in the hell it meant. So much for my theory that DHS was buying the next round.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
We all know these networks aren't built for 100% simultaneous utilization, so how do they decide who gets told first? The largest campaign contributors to the next president?
I wouldn't worry too much about this. It's nothing new really, just a few more devices added to the warning network. Plus, think of it this way; once the warning is over, all of those cell-phone folk who's conversation got interupted will have something new to talk about for hours on end...OMG, it's a money making scheme!11!
Although a great system, I wonder how long it will take someone to hack this system and send out a shout out to his hacker buddies and their 295 million friends?
A standard message format for disaster warning would be useful when prompt response could save lives. Tornado warnings come to mind as an ideal use for this. Not everyone is watching the boob tube or listening to conventional radio these days.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Who is going to willingly upload their cell num/SMS to the Department of Homeland Security?
Or do they plan to get the numbers directly from the cell providers?
Execute? [Y/N] _
The truth is that these events will continue during the 2006 elections and we should start seeing a few Orange Alerts or even a planned attack here in the next several months. No, wait, I got it. There will be an attack immediately followed by news of Osama bin Laden's death. Yeah, that will do it.
--Chag
So does this mean that when I get an SMS pushed to me by the DHS via my cell carrier that I'll get charged $0.10 for the feature, or will it be a free-of-charge alert?
If this is supposed to be a war on terror, then why is it that all they seem to be doing is looking for new ways to make people terrified?
As others stated it should indeed be opt-in. Although if it's "global", that being everyone in the US, or specific states could be alerted all at once, it'd be mighty convenient to issue terror alerts to blue states (or red states, depending on who's in power) right as people are going to the polls. "Stay away! Terror! Don't vote!"
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
I mean, it's not like the terror alerts shifted up and down during the run-up to the 2004 elections.
Oh, wait.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
So when you get a text, remember to duck and cover. Hiding under desks also helps.
Remember kids, with great power comes great opportunity to abuse that power
A disaster happens (I wonder if they would have used such a thing during 9|11 even to tell people who were not directly at risk?), and I find my pda beeping, cell phone vibrating, TV sirening, computer flashing, and maybe even my fax maching faxing. And to anyone who dares make fun of me having all these devices active at once, I'd imagine quite a few people here would too....
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Break all electronic devices nearbly, lest you be innunadated with hyped-up warnings. Hell, I don't even pay attention to tornado sirens--at least, I don't due so in the usual sense--my incessent curiousity as to how turbulent the weather is causes me to 'hang out' and watch the storm outside until it subsides. So, now people might rush out to possible terrorism targets and 'wait' for something novel to occur? Hmm...
The terrorists' goal is to spread fear to help them get to their political goals. They are going to be very happy everytime this alert system is used, they're going to reach a lot more people to scare them now. And with this no need to plan expensive real terrorist acts, you just have to convince the USA intelligences services that something big is going to happen. But who is spreading the most fear? Who's political agenda is pushed by this? Who are the terrorists?
just what I need, more spam.
can i opt-out??
From:DHS
To:555-564-5930
Txt msg body:
There's nothing to see here. Please move along.
End msg body.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
Alert The Internets!
-- Bridget
And corrupt the first amendment.
What will happen is they will interrupt your show with some irrelevent crap exactly when you are telling the public that there is electronic election fraud.
ask the DHS what exactly is the status of the security of our country.
Fuck the DHS
~phil
Warning Warning Warning!
Fear Alert -- You should be scared now!
Please run and hide.
All is not how it should be.
I am the Great Oz!
that wonderful color-coded scale that was touted to alert people to the current state of readiness? You do remember that chart, don't you?
Me neither.
So tell me again how sending the entire nation into a tizzy everytime bin Laden sneezes is going to be any better? Don't we have enough dumbasses living in a swamp coming on tv and telling everyone how afraid they are that their double-wide will be bombed whenever they see someone whose skin isn't white?
Do we really need this crap other than to keep people in a state of panic?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
In order to not miss any alerts, you could just leave it on all the time (hey, the government's paying for it, right?). The government could broadcast alerts or educational content (maybe some exercise shows?) and of course programs with patriotic themes. They could even make it interactive! Of course, there might be problems getting enough people to be "interactivity monitors", but I bet if they tried they could do it!
"Tonight on Airstrip One Reports...."
Just junk food for thought...
...until some guy hacks that system to send out "Test Alerts" about his large penis.
Back in the cold war they started the EBS, "Emergency Broadcast System", so if the Russians fired their nukes, you'd have a good half hour to "duck and cover" and tremble in fear before you were vaporized in an atomic holocaust.
This was more intelligently re-worked as the "EAS", or Emergency Alert System, where they actually had a real use for it: it would sound when a tornado or other dangerous weather was coming. Anyone remember the hilarious episode of WKRP where there was a tornado about to hit Cincinnatti, and the radio station only had warnings for nukes, and Les Nessman had to substutite "tornado" for "communist" (warning of the "Godless Tornados")?
WTF is this damned pork? There is already as system in place. The EAS could warn you of a terror attack just as easily as a tornado... except they can't see terrorists on radar, or 9-11 wouldn't have happened! WTF is this actually supposed to DO? I mean, besides coddle the cowardly?
Speaking of weather vs Osama, we had two tornados rip through our town this year, no loss of human life (lots of dead animals) but incredible infrastructure destruction- houses, trailers, businesses, roofs, electricity, roads. Bin Laden couldn't DREAM of making a mess anywhere near as catastrophic. I can't imagine anyone here (or moreso New Orleans where a thousand people died) being the least bit scared of terrorists.
Is anybody else sick of our incredibly cowardly government? What can we do to get these yellow bellied chickenshits to grow a spine?
The Department of Homeland Security... keeping Americans scared for a double plus good future.
FROM: DHS
SUBJECT: omgwtfbbq
BODY: big missls cmg oshit run awy now pls kthx
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
They're also working on a way to put a fear-inducing drug in beer and getting Max von Sydow to distribute it at Octoberfest.
What they don't tell you is that all your outgoing data will be inversely read and/or filtered for "security reasons."
"This has been a test of the emergency broadcast system" - CBC.
When in fact it was just a test of my patience. Can we please limit this to commercial time?
Oh I guess it wouldn't be very effective unless it was able to intterupt everyone in what they were doing. Welcome to the new and improved "in your face" politics. Next they will be legislating mandatory PVR passthrough, telephone interrupt, and server pushed popups, just to make they have our attention for the weekly test.
Ok, it probably wont be that bad. It might even be a good thing when we really need it. But I am skeptical.It just seems like it has a huge potential to waste a truck load of time over the years.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
this is mearly the color coded system 2.0 now when it goes to orange everyone will know :P
Just a thought.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I've long wondered how many amber alerts are not for missing children. Train everyone to go "omg think of the children", and you can use it to find political dissidents at the drop of a hat.
It reminds me of a scene, I think from 1984, "Attention all citizens, there is a criminal running through the streets..."
Maybe this has happened; maybe it will happen; maybe it's just the muscle relaxants talking.
This is exactly the type of information broadcasting was intended for now we're going to try to distribute it on systems that are intended to reach single devices? WTF?!
They would be better off requiring all computers and phones to have a built in emergency broadcast radio receiver permanently fixed on the channel and on at all times. At least then they won't bog down general bandwidth.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
That's all I need - it says "Scared" on my browser now in a yellow box.
When it changes for the worse I'll pop a beer and kiss my butt goodbye.
Homeland Security Office - that's a contradiction in the USA
What happens when there's a false alarm?
I remember reading somewere about a system like this in Europe. One of the features was you would get a txt message welcomeing you when you entered another country.
When Hurricane FEMA^H^H^H^HRita was due to hit the Texas coast, I received 3-4 phone calls in a 15-minute span telling me to leave. Forced evacuations mean the gov't won't allow individuals to plan for themselves. I've lived within 15 miles of the Gulf since 1967, and have never needed to leave for any hurricane. I could tell that Rita was going to weaken, from experience. Hurricanes that start up quickly in the Gulf also weaken quickly as they approach Houston.
I spent 5 days on the road for no good f******* reason.
That's abuse of power.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Hmm...disaster prepardness...being able to tell people where to evacuate...didnt DHS already get an absolute ton of money to implement all this crap? What did they do with that money?
Ohhhh that's right, they pissed it away and then we saw them utterly fail against something we KNEW was coming (Katrina).
And their solution to their shitty management and inability to run anything properly is to...give...them...more...money?
Yep, they're a government agency allright. Oh, and of course we won't have a choice as to whether to give them more money or that. That's the beauty of it, they pretty much get the money by fiat. Of course, we could vote out all the louts in congress etc who administer this nightmare, but hell...if you think you can actually change anything in the US Government by votes alone, and without massive amounts of cash to bribe politicians with, then I have a bridge in brooklyn you might be interested in
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
My problem with spontaneous human combustion is that never seems to happen to the "right" people.
Can you imagine the cacophony of an office or theater full of cell phones, pagers, and other devices when a test is sent through this system?
I don't know about you, but this system actually has some appeal to me.
I wouldn't want to be receiving messages everytime Osama Bin Laden sneezes, or some vague insubstantial threat warning is released, but some type of good, reliable system for distributing information when there is a clear and present danger would be immensely helpful to our country.
An effective information distribution system would have done wonders for getting people out of New Orleans ahead of time, rather than at the very last minute.
Likewise, if such a system were activated during the big NYC blackout a few years ago, it would done a lot to let people know that there was no sort of terrorist attack or other emergency.
As long as such a system is kept under tight control to only be used in *extreme* emergencies, I have no problem with it, although I do agree that such a system could very easily be used for propoganda purposes...
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I meant the system abused for political means has never happened before, and it was (poor) sarcasm.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
They better have an opt out for this "service" because if i start getting charged for the text messages i receive i will look into starting a class action suit.... for a lot, my time is quite valuable.
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
Why would DHS need this ability? Is there something wrong with the media alerts currently used? I would imagine that since this is a government agency, the bureaucracy involved to send an alert would pale in comparison to other news sources. If anything, this would be a glorified Amber Alert
"Does this wine taste funny to you?" -- Socrates
So I'd get a bill from Cingular for said text message...I already get enough unsolicited text messages that cost me money.
"Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck." -George Carlin
I'm glad I have SMS messages blocked on my cell, that way I don't have to hear about it every time the security level changes from yellow to orange to periwinkle. (unless the evil overlords have already planned for this and override it somehow : / ) -d
noobcake or noobmuffin? It is the same price...
> Some glitches remain as telephone companies and other networks grapple with potentially trying to
> alert all of their customers at the same time without jamming their systems, Lawson said.
That's easy enough to figure out. Send out the text messages in waves, from least annoying customers to the most.
"I'm sorry to hear about your injury Mister Donovan. Yes, it did take ten minutes for you to get the message, that is because you are a "Tier five" customer. Yes, yes, it seems that Ted in activations flagged your account as a five after you ridiculed his manhood."
I'm imagining that it's more like a "send to any phone listening in this region" kind of deal. They don't care what phone numebr you have, as long as it is communicating in a tower in a region they'd like to send a message to.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
""The Department of Homeland Security is gearing up to be able to periodic test 'alerts' to cable television stations, satellite radio, as well as any text-capable device -- PDAs, cell phones, and web sites."
You forgot to add the next lines - "Expect the alerts to slowly start a few days after disaster strikes. (When it is so obvious to the rest of the country something needs to be done.) Immediately following, you will receive texts placing the blame squarely on mayors, governors, and other local authorities."
"But this one goes to 11!"
Any time there is any emergency the local and national media are all over the story before the government even know what the hell is going on. Another stupid government program.
DHS is about protection and security. That includes a lot more than just terrorism, this would be awesome for alerts about regional problems where you'd like to alert a lot of people at once about a problem - like reverse 911 only to communication devices that people actually use today. Shouldn't we be happy that something actually useful and of value might come out of DHS instead of meaningless color coded alerts that everyone ignores?
Are you also claiming reverse 911 is just a tool to scare us all?
To paraphrase Freud, sometiems a communication tool is just a communication tool.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
at least for cable systems - SCTE18 is the standard you want
I'm still going to teach my kids to duck and cover.
Sure the bert the turtle cartoon was over-simplified, but it was directed at 6-7 year old children.
It's not just aplicable to nuclear incidents.
Near-by transformer shorts out? There's a big flash. The split second it takes to duck and cover may save a child from being hit by debris Near-by lighning strike? Ducking may reduce the chance of the child being struck (more applicable on the prairies than where I live) SWAT team raiding the crack-house up the street? Taking cover when you see the flash-bang may keep a kid from being hit by a stray bullet. Industrial accident nearby? There may be secondary explosions or flying debris; best to take cover An actual nuclear detonation? If you're still able to duck and cover after seeing the flash, you might be far enough away to survive the blast if you take cover.
How do you alert people when an E-bomb has leveled all electronic devices in that (rather large) area?
I guess it won't matter at that point, as you'll have less than an hour to find a fallout shelter. =(
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
Don't rely on the gov't to come bailing you out. They have more important things to worry about. If there is a disaster in your area you better be prepared to fend for yourself for as long as it takes to get services back up and running.
Oh and if you get flooded out and move to another state to suck off the FEMA free money gravy train, when the train stops, and you haven't gotten off your ass to get a job, don't go crying to the press that you need more time and can't find work.
Sounds like NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards Established infrastructure, works, and isn't that expensive for the end user. But that is the rub -- people have to buy a compatible radio. If there were any kind of demand, that could be cheaply added to clock radios, TVs, etc.
Will the system be used the same way the color-coded terror-level was used? Put out continuous "terror-warnings" just before the 2006 elections, maybe ending with a "your safety depends on a tough-on-terrorist administration" signature? I'm not saying the system is necessarily politically-motivated, it just seems like election-time sharpens the administration's focus on terrorism.
I am not a sig.
...since the destruction of the World Trade Center towers took out several cell networks based within the buildings.
If this warn-every-device system is created and manages to avoid loss of life or destruction of property, then it might just get targeted first next time. But I'm not optimistic that it will be that successful.
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
Just another way to get the 50M who purportedly voted for bush all twitted up, again.
Here in DC, we had several 'informational' electronic signs placed above major thoroughfares such as the Beltway. For a couple of years after 9/11, these reminded us to "REPORT SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR - PHONE 1-800-DHS-WATCH" (or somesuch). Whenever I passed, I would make my little car swerve a bit left and right and wave my hand in the air, inviting those steadfast AMERICANS to report me. Haven't had a knock on the door, yet.
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green. Emergency Broadcast System. Children, the drill is to get your head under the desk and wait for the ball-o-fire. Same bullshit, same purveyors. Only reason is to get more money out of your pocket and into theirs!
Luckily you can buy Viagra today at
Uphold!
Bah. Nobody in emergency comms relies on cell phones anyway.
/Emergency Coordinatory, Amateur Radio Emergency Service, Okaloosa County, FL
//73 from KI4IIB
Except the Red Cross. But that's another story.
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
Are the Kos kids taking over slashdot?
Someone needs to tell the DHS that telephone companies NEVER have enough equipment to handle all of the subscribers at once, because they bank on the fact that not everyone uses the phone at the same time!
This is all just more simcurity bullshit. On 9/11/2001, the US was under direct major attack in NYC and DC. For hours no one knew whether there would be more attacks, whether escalated with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, missiles, or anything.
The Emergency Broadcast System, which generations of Americans have been drilled in for precisely that scenario, was silent.
And no one even noticed it was missing. The first notice I heard of it was last year, when some obscure TV comedian's standup routine mentioned it.
The current Homeland Security system is so much more a charade than our Cold War systems that we can expect nothing but failures from it.
And every proven failure destroys America's ability to protect and govern ourself, as we learn to distrust the government to do anything, even though it used to at least do so adequately.
I fully expect widespread DHS alerts during the Republican campaign season now underway, that stretches through November 2006, past 2008, and whenever it's necessary to scare Americans out of the wits we might use to change the course we're on.
--
make install -not war
You made my day. The kos kids took over here long ago.
Umm, err. Vote Quimby!
...you wouldn't have any idea if the message in the alerts was total bullshit or not. This government has proven beyond any doubt they wil lie on top of lie to push some NWO globalism fascist agenda. It's a good idea, but as far as I am concerned, RR had it correct, there isn't any trust without verification, and now they are making even verification "illegal", they are going to "crack down" on "leakers", the people who still have a conscious in government and are willing to try and get the truth out.
The coup plotters have taken over, they control the DHS, so anything they say in these "alerts" is unfortunately suspect now. My advice to folks is to always keep open alternative channels of information, even if it is as old fashioned as just knowing how to use a shortwave receiver adequately. You could *easily* be fed some complete fairy tale like the 9-11 crap again and they would use that fairy tale to institute more draconian take over measures.
These are *dangerous times* now, I mean real dangerous, there are crazy deranged people in charge and issuing orders that are being followed by mostly well meaning but hoplessly naieve people, a lot of them with guns and in positions of authority.. we have plots within conspiracies and it is about impossible now to get any real unbiased data to form opinions. My default stance is if it comes from an official federal mouthpiece, it's a lie, or has a high probability of being a lie or "half lie".
reverse 911
That would be totally freaky. Skyscrapes being built all by themselves,
I think you may want to re-read my comment, and notice that no-where did I use a slash between "9" and "11". Instead I am referring to the number you dial when you need an ambulance... authorities can use the 911 system in reverse to dial everyone in a certain area to warn them if they need to evacuate, as in the case of flood or hurricane or forest fire.
My apologies if you were just trying to make a joke and actually knew what reverse-911 was... it just seems too many people have 9/11 on the brains and are not thinking of other kinds of emergencies that can occur.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Basically the people of India have FAR more of a spine than the snivelling cowards that seem to make up the majority of the US population. It's no wonder many Americans look down on the french, the two countries are extremely similar to each other, only a couple of hundred years apart in their influence and power.
So when the elections come up for Senate and congress they can RAPID-FIRE off dozens of so Called "TERROR ALERTS" and people will be scared into voting the Republicans into office to "Protect us all" Pretty Sad But for "NATURAL" Disaster warnings it would be a Great Idea
From TFA...
"The Homeland Security Department, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, expects to have the system working by the end of next year..."
Sure they will... as long as the FEMA director isn't out having dinner at the time.
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
With the internet, I think an emergency management communication protocol would be really cool as well. Something that all web browsers or other devices could monitor for emergency alerts. Even if it just told you where go for more info.
The practical parts that other people bring up are true... hopefully we won't get alerts every time the "terror alert color" changes from pink to striped. It could be used for political purposes.. or worse in a "Fahrenheit 451" type "go to your door" but the basic technology is very important to have for everybody's sake. Even in a case like 9/11 just telling everybody to go home and be safe would have done a lot. Or in a case like New Orleans where we needed to get people out... a way to broadcast where to go for disaster relief would have reduced the number of stranded people or we could have found them faster.
Can they use similar technology to alert people to turn off their cell phones during movies? Meetings? Dinners? Class? Church? Libraries?
You may casually dismiss reverse-911, but if there's a fire in your building you wouldn't be so dismissive as they can warn the residents to get out. Lots of New Yorkers know about reverse-911 for just this reason, just as many people in flood zones know all about reverse-911 from being told high water is coming in.
I'm not really sure what you are getting at with your last comment but an expanded reverse-911 system that can warn more people of danger can be seen as nothing but a boon to civilization. If they started using it to sell you magazines that would be another thing, but reverse-911 has been around for decades and is NOT abused in any way as it's crucial to leave the 911 system open for only real emergencies.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A while back the FCC wanted to require that all television sets include technology to receive emergency broadcasts, even when off, and turn themselves on to display the broadcast. Whatever happened to that proposal?
I agree that sending SMS messages to everyone in the US might be amusing, but that requires hacking into the telco network. Cruising through the streets to activate the neighorhood's TV sets in the middle of the night would probably only require a hand-held transmitter.
Simple examples:
:P
'Hurricaine X will make landfall in 12 hours' - should be enough time to pack up and evacuate or board up and hunker down.
'Texting' that there has been a terrorist attack (or worse) WWIII has broken out and the ICBMs are on their way is pointless -- mass hysteria is all but guaranteed...Bring on the body count!...
PS: For the 'terrorist attack' the message will give interested parties (that survive) the heads up to either help out, search for loved ones who may have been killed or injured, or keep away during the cleanup.
This system could be useful, but as shown, it's effectiveness and utility is severely limited....
I was driving to work one morning some 3 weeks ago while listening KQED (a public station in San Francisco) when suddendly, after some weird, piercing buzz noises, a voice that felt like those story-tellers in the 50's B-movies said that "this is a test blah blah blah, do not act based on this message etc and this is from DHS". After another set of buzzing signals, the station's program went back.
It looked like the guys in the show did not even know that their program was run over by the DHS message. How is the message inserted? In the studio, at the antenna level, or it's some sort of jamming-over?
It seems all too typical of /. to divide into camps praising or bemoaning some new development because either it's adapting new technology (which is good) or it could be abused (which is bad). I've so far only seen a couple of posts that discuss, for example, its feasability or its impact on the population. Don't love or hate something as an abstraction. Think about what it would actually be.
I get enough spam as it is, and the color code for terrorist alerts don't change what I'm doing in the slightest. I'd rather not receive useless cry-wolf text messages and get charged for the displeasure of reading the "alerts"
Also, "emergency broadcast system" tests are annoying enough as it is when they already interrupt an on-demand movie I'm watching on digital cable. Please confine these to broadcast television, and put them on during commercial breaks, like broadcasters used to do. If I care to learn about homeland security's crying wolf, I'll tune to CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, or HN or check out their web sites.
Thanks for your understanding.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
since what most of us are liable to see is just the regular test messages, all that would do is remember people to be scared, something the current administration never gets tired of.
For 35 years, I've been part of family that PLANNED for these things. Now, cuz some idiots WON'T plan, the gov't decides it must take care of us - by forcing us onto roads th day before a CAT-5 WORLD-EATING HURRICANE hits. NO, 1 day is NOT enough time to prepare and leave and actually get far enough away to escape a hurricane that's big enough to justify it. Even if you're not competing for road space with 3 million other people.
If Rita hadn't weakened and turned north, about a million (no exaggeration) people would have been caught in traffic on the freeways and highways of SE Texas, in 200 mph winds and a 20-30 foot storm surge. As it was, an unannounced number of people died on the roads due to heat, lack of food/water/gas, and most especially, lack of rest. The police on the evacuation routes were NOT LETTING PEOPLE PULL OVER, no matter how long they had been on the road, how old they were, heart conditions, etc. 20+ elderly died on the way to Dallas cuz an unmaintained bus overheated and caught fire; a coworker of mine was found in his car dead. The govt has never reported the loss of life, the damage or cost of the Texas evacuation for hurricane Rita.
NO FRICKEN THANX, FEMA, I can find much more pleasant ways to kill myself.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
they didn't bother to use the system on 9/11, so please stop interupting my television shows with tests of your pointless system.
It seems post WWII leaders read 1984 as how to book instead of a prescient warning. Whoever moded the parent post as funny is out to lunch it's not very damn funny.
"In George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Two Minutes Hate is a daily period in which Party members of the society of Oceania must watch a film depicting The Party's enemies (notably Emmanuel Goldstein and his followers) and express their hatred for them and the principles of democracy.
The film and its accompanying auditory and visual cues (which include a grinding noise that Orwell describes as "of some monstrous machine running without oil") are a form of brainwashing to Party members, attempting to whip them into a frenzy of hatred and loathing for Emmanuel Goldstein and the current enemy superstate. Apparently, it is not unknown for those caught up in the hate to physically assault the telescreen, as Julia does during the scene. The movie, as it progresses becomes more surreal, with Goldstein's face morphing into a sheep as enemy soldiers advance on the viewers, before one such soldier charges at the screen, machine gun blazing. He morphs, finally, into the face of Big Brother at the end of the two minutes. At the end, the mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted viewers chant "BB" over and over again, ritualistically.
Orwell's obvious reference in the sequence is to the utter demonization of an enemy during a time of war and the exultation of the cult of personality of the leaders of totalitarian states. Parallels (in form, if not content) to the Two Minutes Hate can be seen in real-world propaganda films from the Second World War."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Don't forget Bin Laden was a CIA asset, yes even according to the MSM MSNBC
"As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow's invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war.
What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan's state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA's primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow's occupation.
By no means was Osama bin Laden the leader of Afghanistan's mujahedeen. His money gave him undue prominence in the Afghan struggle, but the vast majority of those who fought and died for Afghanistan's freedom - like the Taliban regime that now holds sway over most of that tortured nation - were Afghan nationals.
Yet the CIA, concerned about the factionalism of Afghanistan made famous by Rudyard Kipling, found that Arab zealots who flocked to aid the Afghans were easier to "read" than the rivalry-ridden natives. While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now. So bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the "reliable" partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3340101/
The analogy to Goldstein as the fallen inner party member in 1984 though not exact is close enough to give one pause as to the uses of propaganda by the Bush regime.
"The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's neck. The Hate had started.
As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even -- so it was occasionally rumoured -- in some hiding-place in Oceania itself."
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/1/
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
A lot of people simply can't afford to hit the road for 4-5 days. In order to get away from a hurricane that's big enough to justify running away, (like Katrina), you must go *hundreds* of miles, and I don't mean 2 or 3 hundred.
A few years back, a hurricane that was Cat 2 when it hit Galveston (near my home), was still a Cat 1 hurricane when it got within a hundred miles of Dallas. (It had a male name, can't remember it - Allen? Daniel?)
And that was Cat ONE. Katrina, if it had followed the same path, would have been within a hundred miles of Dallas when the eye crossed the coast at Galveston . People see the flat weather map, and don't remember that the tropics are distorted to look smaller and the northern parts (like most of US and Europe) look larger. I've seen hurricane maps where the entire Gulf of Mexico was one big hurricane.
The hundreds of thousands of poor people in urban areas on the Gulf Coast can't go to Colorado for a week; that's what "poor" means.
There were LOTS of warnings - everyone knew it was coming. You were either ready to stay, or ready to go. If you weren't ready, life sucked, and maybe you died.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Why does everyone assume that the first thing everyone will do is panic, run around like a bunch of headless chickens, and go on some apesh*t looting spree? It is because the people who assume that we are stupid are the ones who really are stupid!
The people have the right to know why their are black helicopters and men in black covering up things. What they don't want to be informed of is this "counterterrorism" bullsh*t that is so incredibly vague. We want to know what the hell is going on, not of "potential threats". I could be a potential threat. You can be a potential threat. We are all possible potential threats!
Everyone, reguardless of their background, and I mean all of us, have the capablity of committing unpredictable acts. Noticle how vague that sentence was. Unpredictable. What is unpredicatible? The future. Some of us could all decided to wake up one morning and blow up the bus on the way to work or beat a family member with an alumnium baseball bat. But do we do this? We don't. We chose not to do these things because they are wrong. The same can be said about terrorism.
While some terrorists plan their attacks days in advance, a majority of terrorists ad lib their plans based in impulsive volition. Take the violence in Israel, Iraq, India, and Indonesia. Most of these people they don't leave behind a paper trail of books and video tapes to threaten us or to send messages post mortem like the Al Qaeda. They just load up, find some random place to execute their attacts and just do it without reguard to the world around them.
What people need to realize is that their is not religious or monitary motiviations behind violent behavior. These thing occur on the conviction and strong belief that they're going to hell anyway so they may as well take the world with them.
Some people are lemmings. Plane and simple.
On the other hand, oppressive abiguous warning does put people into a corner. Some chose to stop cringing in fear. Others choose to become the fear.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
TFMs are at the FCC site. I'll go ahead and summarize for you.
EAS is equipped to transmit audio and data warnings (but not video, per se) originated from the President or a variety of national, state, and local government agencies. Broadcasters can also activate EAS locally if there is a need to.
Most broadcasters are required to have an EAS encoder and decoder (usually the same device) installed. In most cases, the unit is installed between the station's program feed and the transmitter, allowing the unit to automatically override the station's signal when an alert is issued.
Each EAS device monitors at least two audio feeds. Which feeds are monitored depends on the operating plan for the individual locality, but they can include other broadcast stations, a state or local government agency, or NOAA Radio.
The buzz noises you heard are called SAME codes (Specific Area Message Encoding). SAME codes are digital tones that convey the orginator of an alert, its type (national notifications, a variety of weather events, AMBER alerts, tests and system administrative messages, and others - around 80 total), the location (accurate to the sub-county level), the date and time of the alert and its duration, and the station that relayed the alert. The SAME code is transmitted three times for redundancy.
The EAS device decides what to do with the alert based on how it is programmed. Decoders have to be able to store an alert in case a higher-priority alert is being transmitted on its alternate feed. EANs (Emergency Action Notifications) from the President have to go out live. Video services (such as cable and broadcast television) are required to display a visual warning based on the SAME code. This is usually implemented as a message crawl.
At the end of the alert, the three final bursts are SAME messages that order the EAS decoder to switch back to station audio.
It's very possible the KQED talent were unaware a message was going out. EAS could have been activated, broadcasted the alert, and shut down, all without the studio knowing. Alternatively, you could have been listening to a tape.
If there's a broadcast channel that can be used for this application, that's at least technically realistic, if not socially.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's from the Department of Homeland Security, whose two main jobs are keeping the American public afraid while reassuring everybody that Big Daddy Government will take care of them if they just give up a bit more of their civil liberties and taking away our civil liberties. Of *course* it'll be used for propaganda - even if there's a real emergency. Even the fact that they want to deploy it in the first place is propaganda.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sometimes when rules get made by the Supreme Court they stick around for a while. Most other rules aren't very solid.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's pretty straightforward - Yellow is "Wolf Wolf Wolf!", orange is "Wolf wolf wolf wolf!" .
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The first time I heard an Emergency Broadcast System announcement on a car radio at ~9 at night that said "This is not a test." it scared the crap out of me - after growing up during the Cold War, learning all through school that the EBS warning meant we should get down under our desks and kiss our asses goodbye, and working in a radio station where we did the EBS test at some regular weekly timeslot like Tuesdays at noon, it was really a surprise to find out that they were now using it for actual localized emergencies (this one was a flood warning) rather than Global Thermonuclear War. I think there was still a Soviet Union at the time, or at least large remnants of one, but there hadn't been any sabre-rattling going on in the news that would have made an attack likely.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I grew up with fear all around me. As the son of a naval officer I remember very clearly the day we were all told at (boarding) school not to use our parents military titles on letters addressed home because it was a terrorist threat. I also remember the mirror on a stick which was issued to my father to check for bombs under the wheel arches.
Of course all this was back in the days before the USA thought that funding terrorist organisations was a bad thing. This was back in the days when America openly funded the IRA through a variety of front organisations in the same way that many of the countries they now bully also do.
I am sick of hearing what homeland security is doing to make the US people more scared. By trying to put all these pointless measures in place they only serve to make the people feel more insecure and fearful. Rather than concentrating on these useless measures to defend yourself why not look at the reasons so many countries hate the US and address those problems first?
It is a common misconception that Americans have that all the little brown people in far off lands hate the freedom of the USA and are anti democracy... this simply is not true. They are anti decades of US meddling in their area. They are anti globalised US corporations raping their natural resources and they are also anti CIA tinkering with their chosen government.
I was in the US on 11/9 and witnessed a nation change in a way similar to watching the school bully get kicked in the shins by one of its victims and then go crying to the teacher. During July last year I saw Britain, and in particular London, deal with the aftermath in a more pragmatic way.
There is currently more chance of being hit by a bus than being blown up by a terrorist, so you take reasonable precautions and get on with your life without banning buses. There is more change having a heart attack than being killed by a bomb, so you take reasonable precautions but don't live in fear. There is more chance of your daughter getting raped than being killed by a terrorist bomb (yes, that's one in three all you caring fathers) but I bet the government has not spent anywhere near as much money trying to safeguard people against that threat.
In America the terrorists achieved a nation gripped with fear. The US is full of worried people. The government does not how to make them feel safe so it makes them feel even more scared by validating the threat.
In Britain we live under a constant threat but do not let it upset our daily lives. I was on the tube a few days after the bombings last July and my little brother (11 years old) told me that he was a little scared and I explained that fear is the objective so we do not stop doing what we are doing and carry on with our lives regardless... that's the way to win the war on terror.
Be nice, sponsor me: http://jailbreak.ragabonds.org.uk
SMS Aleart From Department Of Homeland Security
The Terrorist group "The Coalition Of Creditor Nations" is invading the US in order to repo our stuff. Luckily the security systems in our airports will protect the security systems in our airports from those who financed them. Terror. Terror. Stay the course. Weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
$2000 per year for every man, woman and child is the going rate. And don't forget all those boxes coming back from Iraq...Iran...Iraq...which one was it?
This reminds me of a joke on the comedy channel. The comic says, for 50 years, we had to listen to the annoying interruption, "This is an test of the emergency broadcast system. If this had been an emergency, this message would have been followed by an announcement telling us where to go and what to do. Well, on 9/11, there was no Announcement telling us where to go and what to do. Seems like an incredible waste of time and effort." However, the other joke was that Congress had build bunkers for themselves, but not the "little people". We joke about the Soviets, but their disaster planning was organized and methodical. I am sure it was full of holes and beareteic logistics, but it was far better coordinated. I guess if you had the money, you used your private funds to build a fall out shelter, something that I hear was popular in the 50's. In 12 years of schooling, we only had one "Emergency Attack Planning Drill". Maybe having too many might make too many people rethink the MAD strategee. Hey, people might even rebell and decide to rid the world of nuclear weopeons or the 60's "Give Peace a Chance". Ironically, in the US in the 90's, the slogan became, "Give War a Chance". Fundametally, with this sort of attitude on both sides of the Iron Curtain, I am quite surprised that an all-out nuclear war never materiallized. Hell, the USSR would be destroyed 200 times over, while the US would have surived 80% (according to Edward Teller). Maybe if Yuri Andropov had survived, and Gorbechov never rose to Primir status, that would have been the likely outcome. Stalin was committed to insuring the survival of the USSR. Whatever you might think of him, Stalin did insure that the USSR never collapsed under his reign, one in which the USSR was fundamentally far more weaker than it was in the 90's.
does DHS run on Linux?
Kill your TV
For cellphones, etc... how hard would it be to mass-mail a spoofed message for those phones capable of recieving email-to-SMS messages?