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Worry Over VZW, Sprint Phones' 911 Alarm
[TheBORG] writes "An Austin woman who dialed 911 recently discovered what she said could be a fatal flaw in some new cell phones. She called for help when she arrived at some vacant property she owns in east Austin and found her security chain gone. She grabbed her new Verizon Wireless Casio G'zOne phone, which to her horror made an audible alarm when she called 911. Fearing vandals were still on the property, she hung up and hid, then put her hand over the earpiece and dialed again to muffle the sounds. A Verizon Wireless spokesperson says it's mandatory according to Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act. The FCC says Section 255 of the Telecommunications Code requires that phones let a caller know a 911 call is underway, but does not require an audible alarm. This thread on Howardforums.com mentions that the alarm is present on new Sprint phones too."
Well, yes. Verizon is generally crap.
However, in this case, their incompetence is borderline criminal. They need to push out a mandatory firmware update that removes this behavior immediately, or issue a recall. This comes to mind as being *extremely* dangerous.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
" requires that phones let a caller know a 911 call is underway, but does not require an audible alarm."
So now don't bother trying to call 911 the next time there's a school massacre - you'll just be targetting yourself and earning bonus points for your Darwin Award. Fucktards strike again.
I can kind of see the point of this, with all the people who've accidentally dialed 911 while the phone was in their pocket/purse. However, I think this may be the wrong way to go about solving the problem. I don't have any evidence to back up my theory, but I suspect most accidental calls don't actually dial the full 911. I've seen several cell phones before where simply holding down the 9 key will dial 911. If that isn't an accident waiting to happen, I don't know what is. Eliminate that, and I wonder how many accidental calls will be left.
Hm, a woman alone on vacant property with the suspicion that there are bad people there? Yeah, you're right, there's no potential for emergency there. Honestly, sometimes I wish Slashdot didn't allow AC posts. It would solve a lot of hot wind problems like this one.
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I have had several police officers in several different municipalities (even Chicago, which is quite understaffed and full of very real crime) tell me when I call the non-emergency line to call 911. They say that they would much rather respond quickly to even what seems like a minor problem so it doesn't become a major problem.
If I had mod points I'd mod you troll. I hardly ever do that, but really, you're just picking a dumb fight.
Of course, I'm the putz who bit on it
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I wonder how much this really has to do with the carrier. Personally, I would think that it has more to do with the phone manufacturer. I know that my cell phone (LG Chocolate flip) makes a sound when you dial 911.
I'm pretty sure that when the phone companies make a contract with a carrier, they just slap some crappy branding all over it, and (for me on Telus anyways) disable every feature that they possibly can, then charge you to use thier "service" (ie. disabling bluetooth file transfer so that you can't put ring tones on without paying them; Making it so that mp3's you store on the memory card cannot be copied to the phone internal memory, again so that they can bend you over for $3.00 + download fee for a ring tone.) I fucking HATE Telus.
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This is the kind of story that shows up in Risks Digest all the time - an email digest that ought to be mandatory reading for anyone involved in technological development.
Clearly the goal is to reduce bogus 911 calls that occur when a cell phone's keys get accidentally pushed, like in a purse or someone's pocket. But the first question that should have been asked is just how much of a problem are such calls? Yes, we get the occasional anecdote of cell phones gone wild, but is it really such an overwhelming problem that it needs to be fixed at all?
Second, presuming it is so common that 'something must be done' -- then they should have come up with an escalating alarm - like say more than 5 consecutive calls to 911 or more than 10 minutes air-time connected to 911 and the phone plays a short recorded message through the phone so both parties can hear it saying that it is going to start making noise in a few more minutes unless the user - or the 911 operator on the other end - types in a short number to disarm it. Even if the user doesn't know what to do in response to the message, the 911 people will quickly become familiar with such warnings that they will know what to do. (I'm assuming that 911 operators have actual keypads at their stations, that might not be the case.)
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Hello. I work for and with "those people". And no, they're not bright enough. I mean the people who actually make the decisions really, really aren't. They may ask their lawyers whether they're more likely to be sued for not doing it than for doing it, but they won't take you or my best interests into consideration for one second. Really, they won't.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
>Honestly, sometimes I wish Slashdot didn't allow AC posts. It would solve a lot of hot wind problems like this one.
It may not be obvious to you, but AC posts are vital to slashdot IMHO. I often post things from work AC that are about my employer, or contain relatively privileged information that I would like the community to know without being readily traceable to me. Yes they are also used for abuse, but these are quickly modded -1.
When I have mod points I specifically look for insightful or informative AC posts, as I have to post AC for some of my best comments.
Why not just put a "blind person mode" on the phone (probably with a more PC name)? This mode would emphasize voice dialing and whatnot and have the 911 alarm, but could be turned off by people who do not need it. In fact it could be off by default and turned on by the representative at the store if the person buying the phone needs it.
I read the internet for the articles.
I think the point is more about when a phone is dialed accidentally... For example, I used to have a phone which would dial 911 if you held down the 1 key for a couple seconds, and there was no way to change that.
What amuses me is that they call a loud SOUND an "accessibility feature" for the disabled, ignoring the fact that it does us deaf folks no good... In fact, it might be MORE dangerous; I might not have heard the "alarm" and left it going... and for those asking what a deaf guy has a phone for, 911 is it. Even if I can't hear the operator, I can keep repeating the important info {location, problem, situation} until someone shows... assuming the bad guys don't hear me or my phone first.
If the jerks had really considered the entire subset of disabled, they might have realized that a "vibrate" pulse every 3-5 seconds is the only solution for both deaf and blind people.
I'm not asking them to bend over backwards for me; I'm just asking the FCC to put more thought into these regulations.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
In other words, if X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one...
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
I don't like automated "helper" systems like this that can't be overridden. It's my nature to try to come up with a situation where they'll do more harm than good. My pet anti-favorite is always-on headlights on cars. I imagine a scenario where you're in the middle of nowhere and trying to get away from the bad guys before they can find you. You ease the keys into the ignition of your silent-running electric car, take a deep breath, and turn it on - only to see your lights^Wbeacons come on. The bad guys jump out and shoot you.
Safety features are great, but they must be overrideable.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?