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."

Comments

Well, duh.

[NeuralAbyss]

There's her problem. She's using Verizon.

Seriously.. are there /any/ mobile telcos in the US that don't suck in one way or another? I hated dealing with them for a month as a tourist, let alone for any longer period.

Re:Well, duh.

[jamar0303]

There isn't any one perfect carrier but T-Mobile and Helio come the closest (depends on what you want- if it's freedom to use a foreign phone and great customer service go T-Mobile; if it's Korean input or the Ocean go Helio).

Re:Well, duh.

[webmaster404]

Not really... either you get good rates but horrible service outside your city, or you get great service anywhere in the US (its a big country) but get charged sky high rates for simple things such as texting.

Re:Well, duh.

[moosesocks]

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.

Re:Well, duh.

[NeuralAbyss]

Absolutely. You've just got to wonder what sort of idiot did the requirements analysis for this sort of functionality.

I mean, sure, companies try to cover their arse from the FCC.. but wouldn't an ordinary person think "hang on.. we might be sued if the alarm goes off when a violent intruder hears a customer calling 911!"? I'd go as far to say it's beyond borderline criminal, it's outright malicious.

Re:Well, duh.

[snowraver1]

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.

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. They all suck. Mobile service, as well as mobile phones, in the States are overpriced and absolute garbage.

The only use I have for a mobile phone is in the case of an emergency. Not a single carrier in the States offers a reasonably-priced service plan for individuals like myself (reasonably-priced means: minimal monthly fee ($5-8/month) with either 60 free minutes a month or 0 free minutes + pay-per-minute).

It's amazing how many times a month I'm told "wow, you don't own a cell phone?!", as if the concept of not owning a mobile is foreign or downright evil. Apparently the "call my house, leave a message if I'm not home and I'll return your call" concept is already considered ancient. What an impatient world we now live in...

Re:Well, duh.

[jamar0303]

Definitely the carrier. I've fooled around with the same phone here in China- it doesn't do that when 911 is dialed (stupid accident, I freaked, but then the call dropped before it fully connected- says a lot about network reliability in Shanghai, I suppose).

Re:Well, duh.

[Fishead]

That's why after 6 years of Telus, I switched to Rogers... only to find they are the same. They just don't care about customer service. What we need is some good European style competition!

Re:Well, duh.

[jamar0303]

Yep- in Japan I can have a $8/month no-contract plan with unlimited M2M and a per-half-minute rate for other phones (nice for those really short calls). It's called the "White Plan" by Softbank. I always wonder why no American carrier offers something like it.

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately it would be criminal to remove it, thanks to Congress.

Now the article says the FCC doesn't require a loud tone, which is technically true. Unfortunately the Telecommunications Act DOES require a loud noise of some type, so that blind people are aware that they've dialed 911.

This is a mandated "accessibility" feature. The FCC says they're free to remove the "alarm" but at best they could replace it with a loud voice announcing "you're calling 911!" which I don't think would help.

In this case Congress deserves the blame for passing a law without thinking of the consequences. They demanded that all phones make it clear to blind people that they had dialed 911, and the only way to do that on phones without a Braille interface is a loud noise of some form. No matter what the FCC says about the alarm not being "required," some form of loud noise IS required.

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

T-Mobile is the best in the US. I think it's mainly due to the fact that they aren't tied to a line based service like all the other providers. They can be more flexible and progressive, as they don;t have to worry about maintaining a legacy service.

Re:Well, duh.

[jinxidoru]

Well, there's a really easy way to fix this. You probably can't expect them to do it themselves (though with the negative PR this is creating, maybe). But the easy thing to do is, if you have one of these phones, have your lawyer call Verizon and tell them, "Hey, we're going to start a class-action lawsuit." You'll see a really quick change on their part. It's the American Way!

Re:Well, duh.

[DDLKermit007]

How would that work given in China it's 119? Something about the Chinese government hates the US that stupidly.

Re:Well, duh.

[jandrese]

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.

Re:Well, duh.

[jamar0303]

No, I'm used to using 112 for emergencies- it's the universal emergency number. Again, that was an accident when I put it down and let some kid fool with it. Of course, the call dropping before it could connect kind of shattered my confidence.

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming I'm understanding the law correctly (and I'll admit, I might not, IANAL) the concept here is that all devices must always be accessible. The theory being that a blind person might have to borrow your cell phone in an emergency and be able to dial 911.

Which, of course, such an audible tone won't really help with. But whatever, it's the law. Congress doesn't have to make sense.

Re:Well, duh.

[mpe]

Now the article says the FCC doesn't require a loud tone, which is technically true. Unfortunately the Telecommunications Act DOES require a loud noise of some type, so that blind people are aware that they've dialed 911.

Even if someone is blind they generally have perfectly good short term memory. Someone who has already forgotten that they have made an emergency call has most likely also forgotten what the emergency is. Anyway wouldn't a different ring tone or ring cadance do the job...

In this case Congress deserves the blame for passing a law without thinking of the consequences.

Even though that is actually their job.

They demanded that all phones make it clear to blind people that they had dialed 911, and the only way to do that on phones without a Braille interface is a loud noise of some form.

No doubt the majority of blind people would be insulted by the implication that they are also deaf!

Re:Well, duh.

[Asmor]

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.

Re:Well, duh.

[UncleTogie]

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.

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.

Re:Well, duh.

[darth dickinson]

Go prepaid. That's what we do for my wife's phone, since she rarely has a need for a personal cell (she generally uses mine). No monthly charge, and you pay $.25/min, which is steep, but for emergency use like you described should work perfectly.

Re:Well, duh.

[GreyPoopon]

What we need is some good European style competition!

Could you describe what, exactly, the European brands have to offer that solves our problem? Somehow, I don't think paying a whopping premium to call a mobile number from my landline is a solution. If that happens, I'll just stop calling mobile numbers altogether. I'm perfectly happy with T-Mobile except for the lack of a PDA-phone that performs well enough to make it usable, and the lack of UMTS. Both of those are supposed to be fixed early next year. I'd like to see any European plan that provides me with 700+ minutes of unlimited calling and a data plan for two PDA phones at less than $100 per month.

I'm not taunting you or trying to argue. I just really want to know what it is the European competition offers that I'm missing.

Re:Well, duh.

[gEvil (beta)]

Why not just put a "blind person mode" on the phone (probably with a more PC name)?

You mean a name like "Vista"?

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a phone with Telus, and it doesn't even use a Telus network... it uses Aliant. How useless is that?

Re:Well, duh.

[sumdumass]

I went the prepaid option once and I found that I had to add minutes every two months or they would turn the service off. It too was something like 25 cents a minute but there was also a $1 or 50 cents connection fee to establish each call.

I ended up getting rid of the service and just keeping the phone around and charged for the free 911 feature. You just have to remember to hit the auto 911 function (press "9" for 3 seconds or something like that) to dial 911 out without service. I don't know if the prepaid phones are any different now or not. I think it was a trac-phone back in '98 or so.

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Virgin Mobile? I use them too. I end up paying $10/month on average, although I'm on a business trip at the moment, and I'm expecting to pay $50 this month. (for the past 4 years it's been a pretty steady $10/mo, so it balances out.)

Re:Well, duh.

[TheLink]

Yeah vibrate would be better. Vibrate still makes a noise though, but i suppose it's easier to muffle it - and if you hold it right the sound might not go as far.

Re:Well, duh.

[nullforce]

The FCC requires that a deactivated phone be able to call 911. "Even if a carrier chooses to decline to reactivate your handset if it is not location-capable, the FCC requires that it still be capable of making 911 calls (only)." http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/wireless911srvc.html

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does it need to be loud? It could have a delay of a second and then go through the speaker in a normal speaking voice, or just vibrate in a unique pattern.

Re:Well, duh.

[NMerriam]

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.

Wow, that's quite a feature, considering most phones use holding down the "1" key as the shortcut to access voice mail!

Re:Well, duh.

[darjen]

In this case Congress deserves the blame for passing a law without thinking of the consequences.

Hmm, I thought that's how they passed all their laws...

Re:Well, duh.

[NMerriam]

Some of the prepaid services are stupid that way, charging you a bit out of your pool every month and then an extra per-call fee on top of the per-minute fees. It's basically their way of saying "we really don't want to provide prepaid service, but someone in a meeting thought it would be a good idea".

Go with T-mobile for prepaid, there's nothing but paying the 10 cents per minute. the minutes do expire based on how may you buy, but if you buy $100 in minutes (total, over the lifetime of the account, it doesn't have to be all at once) then your minutes will last for a year from whenever the last time you bought some. So buy a $10 card on day 364 if you still have a bunch left over and all your minutes last for another year. It's the best system in the US for emergency/temporary use, they don't seem to view prepaid customers as a bunch of drug dealing homeless people like other US carriers.

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

and the only way to do that on phones without a Braille interface is a loud noise of some form

No, it's not. Re-use the vibration functionality. Make it vibrate really, really strong to signal you dialed 911.

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

how about using vibration instead to indicate that you've dialed 911?

Re:Well, duh.

[cstdenis]

Because they make less money that way. The only reason you see that kind of thing anywhere is a price war -- and the monopoly telcos want to avoid a price war at all costs -- the only winner there is the customer.

Re:Well, duh.

[plott]

Well, gee, how do I know I'm receiving a call when the sound if off? The thing just vibrates! They could do the same thing for 911 calls, problem solved.

Re:Well, duh.

[Asmor]

That's what my current phone does.

IIRC, the offending phone was a Kyocera smartphone, though I could be wrong. Basically it was one of those early palm/phone hybrids.

Re:Well, duh.

[legirons]

"I think the point is more about when a phone is dialed accidentally"

Talking of false-alarm calls... I wonder how many people are going to dial 911 after reading this article, to find out whether their phone has such an alarm?

It would certainly be useful to be prepared, and know in advance what your phone will do in an emergency.

Re:Well, duh.

[GuldKalle]

OK, i'll bite

I'm a European (from Denmark, specifically) , and from what I know about how the US system works, I'm happy it's not that way here.

First off, you are not charged if someone calls you (except if you're in another country).
Second, there are no "branded" phones that artificially limits what you can do to it.
Third, a lot of subsidized phones. My phone will cost me around 500$ with all expenses, and on top of that I get ~700min/month for six months (oh, and the max. vendor-lock time here is six months). If I were to buy the phone without subsidization it would have been ~$450

For the landline premium, I agree it sucks. But instead of not calling to a mobile, most people just stop calling from a landline.
Another downside is that data is quite expensive, about .50$/MB
(btw, what do you mean by 700+ mins of unlimited calling?)

Re:Well, duh.

[sholden]

Given the recent devaluation of the USD $100 a month isn't going to get you much...

I'm also not sure, but if Europe is anything like Australia with respect to mobile phones incoming calls don't count, so how much of that 700+ minutes is incoming (and hence can be removed from the requirement)?

http://www.t-mobile.de/tarife/0,10821,17773-_647,00.html

I don't know German, but that seems like 1000 minutes for 59 euros - but it's one line and no data. An extra line is 10 euros... which pushes it to just over $100 - still no data. But go back a little to before the USD went down the toilet and you could add the data options for under $100. Since european salaries haven't dropped the 15% the exchange has, and US prices haven't had time to adjust to the more expensive imports it's probably fairer to allow the extra... Or drop back to fewer minutes (as I mentioned I think incoming doesn't count, so maybe the 400 plan would do?

Re:Well, duh.

[sholden]

For the landline premium, I agree it sucks. But instead of not calling to a mobile, most people just stop calling from a landline.

It goes with the not paying for incoming calls - the operator isn't going to give the airtime away...

The landline premium seems the better system to me - paying for incoming calls seems a lot like double dipping on the mobile->mobile calls.

Re:Well, duh.

[WK2]

That is exactly what I was going to say. The primary reason I have kept my no-longer-activated cell phone is to dial 911 if needed. I have to find out if it has this bug, and disable it if I can, or get another phone. This truly is a fatal flaw.

Re:Well, duh.

[sholden]

Now that I think for second, not it doesn't since it's using two slots...

Re:Well, duh.

[Moridineas]

1) AFAIK most cell providers in the US give you free unlimited calls to other people on your network. in my case, that's verizon, and easily 3/4 of the people I ever talk to are on verizon. In addition, free nights and weekends, and I never once have come close to my (small number of) minutes.

2) Branded phones are obnoxious. If that's a big deal to you, pick a provider that doesn't do them--they're out there!

3) A lot of subsidized phones? I don't understand, When I extended my verizon contract most recently, I got a LG vx8600 for like $50. Subsidized? Is that good or bad?

4) Data is expensive? Do you mean in Europe or the US--I can get a evdo card (which I believe is faster than any of the wireless in Europe?) and unlimited bandwidth (with some restrictions--but no per/mb charge) for I believe $60. Plans for phones are similar. I can use mg VX8600 as a bluetooth modem with my laptop to get on evdo broadband. I actually did this from the rim of the Grand Canyon a couple weeks ago--very cool :)

Re:Well, duh.

[joto]

How would that work given in China it's 119? Something about the Chinese government hates the US that stupidly.

Yes, I agree that it's a good idea to know the local emergency number. But I disagree that having a different emergency number than 911 should indicate that you hate the US. In fact, most of the countries of the world, do not have 911 as emergency number.. Moreover, many countries still "unofficially" route 911 to the local emergency number to take care of idiots, american tourists, and people raised on Hollywood movies (some of these categories may overlap).

Re:Well, duh.

[joto]

In this case Congress deserves the blame for passing a law without thinking of the consequences. They demanded that all phones make it clear to blind people that they had dialed 911, and the only way to do that on phones without a Braille interface is a loud noise of some form.

Vibration. Blind people can feel.

Re:Well, duh.

[Achromatic1978]

Blind people can feel.

You forgot to end that sentence with "... you insensitive clod!"

Re:Well, duh.

[Xyrus]

*BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP.....*

Thank you for calling 911 emergency services. If you are calling from a cellphone, please push 1 now.

*BOOP*

A corner will be assigned to you in the order your call was received. Thank you for using 911 emergency services. Goodbye!

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Finland and this is what I pay currently for my mobile calls and data plan :

500 minutes/month to mobiles and landlines within Finland (outgoing only, no charge here for incoming calls) = 17,90e/month
100 SMS/month = 1,99e/month
512kbit/s unlimited data (no p2p/servers) that I use for my phone and my laptop through the phone = 14,90e/month

Total sum is slightly less than 35e, which comes to roughly $52 at the current exchange rate.

Re:Well, duh.

[carpe.cervisiam]

Not to put a damper on your Verizon bashing, but... I work for AT&T's tech desk and we get calls all the time about the same issue with certain models of LG phones. It's not the carrier who makes the decision on how to comply with this law. Its the manufacturer of the handset as they would be the ones held liable for the device not complying, and yes I know the carrier would be sued too, but they would just counter sue the manufacturer. The carrier and the manufacturer are not really to blame here. If you want to bash someone for this, write a letter to your Congressman.

Re:Well, duh.

[jamar0303]

Yep- I'm just glad that my normal usage is so light that I have the option of inbound roaming from another country and deciding to support their carrier instead (in my case it'll be China Unicom-their lineup and customer service is far better than Verizon's-only $.40/min roaming to America).

Re:Well, duh.

[jamar0303]

Depends. For example, Europe focuses on phone subsidies, making their plans somewhat mroe expensive. I do believe that under certain circumstances you can get an N95 for free- AT&T would never do that. America chooses to focus on cheaper calling minutes instead.

Re:Well, duh.

[General_Crespin]

On my Motorola i355, holding down a number activates whatever number you've got set to that speed dial number.

Re:Well, duh.

[cohort]

Verizon cited that they were following a specific FCC rule. According to that FCC rule, there just needs to be some indicator that it's in emergency mode. Examples include an audible or visible cue. My Nokia (with a different provider) replaced all visible indicators but signal strength and battery from the display with a big, bold 'EMERGENCY MODE' indicator.

Re:Well, duh.

[stonedcat]

I believe you meant "coroner" in place of "corner"?

Re:Well, duh.

[NeuralAbyss]

I'm just viewing this from the outside (as the OP said, I only had to deal with US telcos as a tourist for a couple of months), but it seems to me that the US carriers in particular tend to have more of a say in how the phone firmware functionality is specified - i.e. the contentious practice of disabling Bluetooth/USB functionality in favour of OTA transfer methods (read: $$), and I had assumed that similar practice would carry through to other parts of the product.

It seems from the wording in TFA that Verizon chose to implement the directive by acting in this manner; whilst it may be the default for the phone(s) in question, the article does make out like the telco enforces this behaviour to comply with the FCC directive.

Re:Well, duh.

[boriquajake]

Americans are stupid and so are there movies. Wow, you really are sophisticated and cosmopolitan. Screw you and the irrelevant crap-hole you hale from. If it were not for American economic and military might you would have nothing and be nothing, you ungrateful douche.

Re:Well, duh.

[novakreo]

Yes, I agree that it's a good idea to know the local emergency number. But I disagree that having a different emergency number than 911 should indicate that you hate the US. In fact, most of the countries of the world, do not have 911 as emergency number.. Moreover, many countries still "unofficially" route 911 to the local emergency number to take care of idiots, american tourists, and people raised on Hollywood movies (some of these categories may overlap). That page also neglected to mention that Australia has a TTY emergency service on 106.

Re:Well, duh.

[Albanach]

I can get a evdo card (which I believe is faster than any of the wireless in Europe?)

Vodafone offer 7.2Mb/sec downloads with HDSPA. Coverage is still limited but should cover most metropolitan areas in the UK next year.

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress is responsible for all crap dealing with handicap accessiblity. Why on earth would you need a braile number pad on a drive through atm? How does a blind person get their to use it? A braile steering wheel?

Re:Well, duh.

[AntrygRevok.net]

All that is going to be done,
if anything is going to be done, is this:

AFTER someone is killed for dialling 911
while hiding from murderous assailants. . .

THEN authoritarian bureaucracy will have the "brainstorm" of putting a warning-sticker on new phones, stating. . .

"Do NOT call 911 with this phone in an emergency, in which you
need remain hidden or non-identified by assailants:
When you can, go elsewhere, and THEN dial 911; or
leave and contact authorities in person"

unfortunately, this isn't types as a joke,
but as a plain identification of what I expect to result.

Re:Well, duh.

[Lost Engineer]

As another poster pointed out, you can always call 911. I'd also like to point out that, after canceling service on an old phone, I tried to make a call just for kicks. I got rerouted to some service that would allow me to make the call, presumably for a usurious rate, although I didn't get that far. Anyways, it's available.

Re:Well, duh.

[Moridineas]

Wow, that's pretty impressive, I hadn't realized that was rolled out yet. What is pricing and coverage like currently?

Re:Well, duh.

[DeadChobi]

What about texting? Doesn't SMS somewhat replace the TTY? Or can you get a mobile video phone now?

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do believe that under certain circumstances you can get an N95 for free- AT&T would never do that.

Not wishing to argue (honestly!) - lots of circumstances. As you point out the attitudes are just different. I certainly (after being a subscriber to my current provider for x years) wouldn't consider actually paying for an N95... even if they weren't offering it for "free", which is unlikely, they'd almost certainly do so if asked, just to keep the contract.

Re:Well, duh.

[GuldKalle]

1) Same here, at least for some providers.

3) I rather like subsidizing. The phone companies here are required to state the minimum total cost in their adds, so you can easily see if you're getting ripped off.
In the case I stated earlier I paid $50 extra for my phone, but for that I basically got six months of free calling (since I don't use all of my free minutes)
Of course if subsidizing isn't your thing, all phones are available without it (even US-imported iPhones).

4) I mean in Europe. .50$/MB is too much for me, and unlimited plans are hard to come by. I think 3 is the only company offering it here (approx 60$, depending on speed), and if you get outside their coverage they'll screw you for over 1$/MB

Re:Well, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Finland, an unlimited 384 data plan for two PDA phones - $30 a month.

I'm sure you can get the calls too, even when incoming calls don't count.

Re:Well, duh.

[Albanach]

Central London and most major Airports. I believe the other entworks will also roll out these speeds early next year and start covering most the other UK cities.

I believe Vodafone charge £25/month for unlimited data with a 3GB cap. Other providers like t-mobile charge less

Re:Well, duh.

[jamar0303]

I agree- it's the attitudes. The bad thing about America is that the providers try to suit the majority and don't consider those that "think different". What if I *want* to pay more per month and get a bigger subsidy on my phone? I can't. Here in China the providers are the best of both- 5Euro/month gets you 450 minutes and a not-so-wonderful phone; 40Euro/month gets some 2000-odd minutes and a free SE K790. I have a custom package plan, and pay about 3Euro/month for 50MB data, 60 texts, and 20 minutes. I break the 20-minute limit but when overage sits at .01Euro/min I don't really care, and I never break the 60-text and 50MB limits.

Re:Well, duh.

[Reaperducer]

Second, there are no "branded" phones that artificially limits what you can do to it.

That may be true in Denmark, but not elsewhere in Europe. For example, Vodaphone heavily branded the SonyEricsson M600i and disabled some of the features. From what I've read, it locked up the phone to the point that it couldn't even be reflashed to a clean generic version of the firmware -- people had to wait for the Vodaphone version to come out.

Re:Well, duh.

[Reaperducer]

I do believe that under certain circumstances you can get an N95 for free- AT&T would never do that.

Why would you say that? Not that long ago people were paying $500 for a RAZR and people on /. were saying that RAZRs would never be free. Now I don't think there's a single cell phone company in America that doesn't offer the RAZR for free with a contract.

Unless you have some kind of time machine, I don't think you can say what any company would "never" do.

Re:Well, duh.

[jamar0303]

Video mobiles only exist in Japan/Europe. Stupid America...

Re:Well, duh.

[jamar0303]

Or you can buy a phone from outside America and use it (for AT&T/T-Mobile, just get on eBay and get yourself a nice phone, Verizon users go to any nearby Koreatown; shops there usually have the resources to get Korean phones on the network).

Re:Well, duh.

[HeadlessNotAHorseman]

In Australia, 911 is a valid prefix to an ordinary phone number (eg 9115 7199 - call it, I dare you), so there is no feasible way that 911 could be routed to the emergency number (which is 000 here).

Re:Well, duh.

[HTH NE1]

In Australia, 911 is a valid prefix to an ordinary phone number, so there is no feasible way that 911 could be routed to the emergency number. Not even as a guard-spaced number, where if nothing follows it in 5 seconds it is considered a complete dialing?

I've used phone services where if you ended your dialing with # it would ring through faster, as it was used as a signal that you had finished dialing. DTMF signals sent after # would be ignored by the general phone system. (This was a US system that didn't require dialing the full prefix, only the last digit of the prefix (8 in this case) and the last four digits (the first of the last four always odd, but never 1, and 3 and 9 were equivalent). If you dialed 888 followed by the last four digits, it would trigger a ringback when you hung up (I typically used it on my own number to busy it out without an alarm). It would also gladly let you keep hitting 8s to infinity and never complain. That system was eventually replaced.)

But, back to the subject a signal to identify you're calling 911: what's next? Is the FCC going to mandate that once during every 15 minutes of a call the number you're connected to must be verbally identified (like station identification for broadcast channels)? Or a perpetually repeating DTMF signal behind the conversation, like the on-screen TV bugs? (A sibling of mine had a friend whose phone number was the tune of "Mary had a little lamb". Now that would drive you insane hearing it play over and over again during a phone call.)

Thanksgiving wishes for our UK slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for giving us our own country.

Now get the fuck off our lawn. Righty-oh, good chaps.

Wearing red uniforms during a highly forested war: considered harmful

Re:Thanksgiving wishes for our UK slashdotters

[ThirdPrize]

You are welcome to it.

Re:Thanksgiving wishes for our UK slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

As a great Canadian Comic once said in his infamours apolgy to America speech;

'I am sorry that we burned down you white house, in that sily war! we are glad you are enjoying the new one.'

Re:Thanksgiving wishes for our UK slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

Now get the fuck off our lawn

Not a problem, I stopped using your lawn when you started
fingerprinting visitors.

Enjoy the turkey (but try to limit it to 2 or 3 big boy).

Re:Thanksgiving wishes for our UK slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

America: Processed cheese eating capitulation elephants.

Re:Thanksgiving wishes for our UK slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a problem, I stopped using your lawn when you started fingerprinting visitors. I'm glad to see that's keeping you limey bastards away. We don't want you or your bad teeth in our country.

Re:Thanksgiving wishes for our UK slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't George Washington have wooden teeth?

In a closet!

[courteaudotbiz]

Very practical, when you're hidden in a closet because a criminal comes in with a weapon... I'm sure he won't mind you witness his crime.

Re:In a closet!

[Felix Da Rat]

You're looking at it wrong.

What do you think is more interesting for a police officer to talk to his buddies about, murder, or a theft? Why if this gets wide spread, we might have so many cops dealing with assaults and murders that they'll finally stop patrolling the interstates. It's Win-Win!

Re:In a closet!

[HexaByte]

But now that you know it's there, use it to your advantage!

Scenario: Criminal breaks in. You hide behind/under the bed, dial 911 and throw cell phone into closet. It yells "I'm dialing 911". Criminal yells, "No, I'll kill you first", goes for closet. You shoot the bastard, saving your tax dollars being wasted on a trial. It's all caught on the 911 tape, and investigators conclude you were in direct fear for your life and acted appropriately.

Next, you sue the Cell phone company for putting you in danger and giving you the emotional distress of having to kill a human being, resulting in your retirement fund being fully funded early, and you moving to the Bahamas to live a life of ease.

Re:In a closet!

[courteaudotbiz]

You got it! I'm on the line with Verizon right now, I immediately change my carrier to get that really cool feature!!!

Re:In a closet!

[slugstone]

You forgot a few points.

4. ???

5. Profit.

There that better. :-)

Re:In a closet!

[Anonymous Coward]

And then the criminal's family sues you for murder cause he was only planning on beating you and stealing your stuff.

Re:In a closet!

[Anonymous Coward]

And you declare bankruptcy leaving them holding a worthless judgment, then bide your time and kill them, too.

Re:In a closet!

[Lost Engineer]

Only in California. And civil cases regarding murder fall under the wrongful death umbrella.

Very Dangerous

[fixer007]

What if she had been in a bank or restaurant that was being held up? The alarm would alert the theives and the person could easily be put in danger.
I know a woman this happened to, she was behind the counter when theives broke into a bar to rob it. She hid behind the counter and called 911. If she had this phone, she would most likely be dead.

Re:Very Dangerous

[Jennifer York]

I'm sure the people who designed this feature were bright enough to consider how it might be used, and when. I suspect that there is a great body of evidence showing that attracting attention to a bad situation is a very good strategy: scream for help, wave your arms, sound an alarm. These strategies are effective in a great majority of cases.

Rape whistles, burglar alarms, car alarms, etc. all are meant to draw attention and induce the villain to leave the area.

Re:Very Dangerous

[Rogerborg]

I'm sure the people who designed this feature were bright enough to consider how it might be used, and when.

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.

Re:Very Dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the people who designed this feature were bright enough to consider how it might be used, and when.

Apparently you haven't much experience with using cell phones, where it's obviously "design by checklist."

Re:Very Dangerous

[mpe]

I'm sure the people who designed this feature were bright enough to consider how it might be used, and when. I suspect that there is a great body of evidence showing that attracting attention to a bad situation is a very good strategy: scream for help, wave your arms, sound an alarm. These strategies are effective in a great majority of cases.

Whilst there might be an argument for having a phone be capable of operating as a siren/ELB/etc. It's hard to see any situation where you'd want it to do this at the same time as making a telephone call.

Re:Very Dangerous

[Xiaran]

This reminds me of an old client off mine. I used to write software for access control and security and one military client had a duress system in the main guard room. It consisted of two duress buttons and a duress code on the keypad I think. When either of the duress buttons or the duress code were entered it triggered a paging system to call a number and play a duress message of the for "The guards at are under duress. Please send assistance". The problem was that the paging unit was mounted on the wall in the guard room and the powers that be had misplaced the maul for it. It was currently set to place the message over its own speaker as well as down the phone line(this was done for test purposes) and nobody could work out how to switch the speaker off. The guards mentioned this to me that it had been like that for years and they didnt know what theyd do if they ever were under duress... I earned my pay that day and got some embarrassed looks when I suggest that they simple disconnect the speaker... security guard are the brightest bunch.

Re:Very Dangerous

[sumdumass]

Drawing attention only works in areas where people are likely to be and when there isn't some mental issue with the attacker and he/she is still able to tell right from wrong.

Cops use whistles to direct traffic not stop criminals caught in the act. They know what works best and what is the safest when in a situation. I agree that you can't always carry a weapon that would be effective at protecting yourself. So hiding and calling for help is probably the safest thing to do in a lot of situations outside of getting away from it.

Re:Very Dangerous

[mav[LAG]]

In other words, if X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one...

Re:Very Dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

Gives new meaning to the phrase Dial 911 and Die.

Re:Very Dangerous

[NMerriam]

I'm sure the people who designed this feature were bright enough to consider how it might be used, and when. I suspect that there is a great body of evidence showing that attracting attention to a bad situation is a very good strategy:

Yeah, I'm sure verizon hired a team of criminologists to evaluate their software.

No self-defense instructor teaches that one single response is best for every situation. Having one imposed on an unwitting victim is a recipe for disaster.

Re:Very Dangerous

[JoeSavage]

Nice, a Fight Club reference...

Re:Very Dangerous

[Joe the Lesser]

Are there a lot of situations like this?

'You wouldn't believe.'

Which phone company do you work for?

'A major one.'

Re:Very Dangerous

[Threni]

I don't even understand it. The phone makes a noise when you phone someone else? Get another phone then. I've never had a phone which made a noise when I make a call, unless you count the callees `hello?` when they answer.

Re:Very Dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

While it's easy to play the "what if" game, features like this need to be considered strictly as an equation. The number of lives lost due to an attacker realizing that 911 has been called against the number of lives saved because someone realizes that their phone mistakenly called 911 and can hang up in time to prevent their call from overburdening the 911 operators. The volume of accidental 911 calls from cell phones is substantial and there aren't unlimited resources to deal with all those calls.

I'm not saying I agree with this feature, but there's lives to be lost on both sides of the equation, and it's important to realize that. Perhaps the feature needs to be re-thought (i.e 911 is the normal number and makes alerts the user that 911 has been called an #911 is the "silent 911" number), but short of that, only those who've run the numbers should be making determinations about whether features like this make sense.

Re:Very Dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly does someone mistakenly dial 3 specific digits and press send?

Maybe make it a prosecutable capital offense to "mistakenly" dial 911 on a cell phone.

I think that should be sufficient to make cell phone owners think twice before "accidentally" dialing 9-1-1.

Re:Very Dangerous

[Doctor Faustus]

Speed dial.

Re:Very Dangerous

[Muad'Dave]

Here's a good one for you - my work phone was a Sanyo RL-4920 with service thru Sprint. Even if you lock the keypad, you can still dial 911. Good idea, right? Maybe, but the implementation on this particular phone almost guarantees that you WILL call 911 if the phone is in your pocket. Here's the deal:

• lock the keypad.
• dial any random sequence of digits. All will be ignored until you hit '9' - that 9 will be displayed on the screen as the first digit of a call.
• Continue typing random numbers. All will be ignored until you hit '1' - that 1 will be displayed as the second digit of the outgoing call.
• Guess what? The third digit acts the same way. To make matters worse, I'm not sure that the phone won't auto-dial when second 1 is typed, either!

So by typing random numbers on a locked keypad, you're guaranteed that 911 will be outbound number that's dialed!!!!

How much dumber can the algorithm be!?!?!

911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the first thing she should do is put the non-emergency police number on her phone so she doesn't have to tie up an emergency line with this bs. Does she call 911 when her house creaks at night? Sheesh.

Re:911 Abuse

[westcoast philly]

oh get over yourself, you self-righteous prick. 911 is for any type of emergency. If you feel you're in danger, as she did... How is she supposed to know if people are still in the house? F**king whiny AC b*tch.

Re:911 Abuse

[dattaway]

Maybe the first thing she should do is put the non-emergency police number on her phone so she doesn't have to tie up an emergency line with this bs.

We have the non-emergency police number programmed, just because we want to talk to a real officer and not put on hold to talk with some dumb 911 operator who makes us repeat our address 10 times and other dumb questions. We had a house burn down in front of ours, because it took 911 over 15 minutes to answer. I could have walked to the fire station quicker. We then discovered the non-emergency number and can get an officer here less than a minute any time. Its a real pleasure to talk with a real officer who has a clue what I need help with too. 911 operators don't have that quality.

Re:911 Abuse

[eck011219]

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.

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 ...

Re:911 Abuse

[ScrewMaster]

Sometimes I think 911 operators moonlight as cell phone customer service people. Or maybe it's the other way around. Seriously though, a lot depends upon where you are. If your local 911 service is provided by the city you'll probably be ok, since they'll know the cops (some of them probably are local cops.) A lot of this 911 stuff is done under contract to private companies, I understand, and that can be a problem when you get a clueless type on the line. Does anyone know there are any towns that are outsourcing 911 to India yet?

Re:911 Abuse

[Thanshin]

In Spain they set up an alternative number that concentrates all alarm calls and distributes them to the different services.

The problem was that most people didn't know exactly who to call in an emergency situation. For example, you see a river overflowing while traveling by train and unsure if you're already in the next state. Or, you see a gang burning down a bank while there's two people bleeding to death in the street.

Re:911 Abuse

[MMC Monster]

Fine. She should have called her local precinct or 311 or something else.

That doesn't take away from the potential dangers of an audible 911 alarm on a cell phone.

By the way, let's have a show of hands. How many of you know the number (or have it programmed into your cell phone) of the local police precinct and firehouse where you live AND where you work?

Re:911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

>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.

Re:911 Abuse

[imipak]

....that's LOOPY. When it's easier / quicker / better to phone the cops down the road rather than go via the official 911 / 999 / 211 service, something somewhere is profoundly fucked. (Incidental anecdote: my 97 year old grandmother lives next door to an ambulance station. In the past, when she's had a call, relatives have knocked them up - and received service from them - but they absolutely *insist* that you call 999 and jump through the official hoops at the same time (when control call them they just report "already on-scene") but it's kinda important for things like tracking response times, demand levels etc. If everyone just calls their friendly local neighbourhood cop rather than going the official route, that's a sort of catch-22...

Anyway, doesn't the FCC or whatever body regulate that sort of stuff? here in the socialist paradise of the United Kingdom we have pretty hard and fast standards for emergency response (IIRC it's 8-12 minutes for an ambulance to be on scene, and that applies basically everywhere except isolated & sparsely populated areas like central wales or the Scottish highlands.) Wait half an hour for a reply from the cops in a life-and-death situation and you'd make the front page of the local paper, at least.

Re:911 Abuse

[jamar0303]

OK... I think that if this is often the case then 911 is no longer serving its purpose and should be tossed and rebuilt from scratch.

Re:911 Abuse

[Errtu76]

I'll skip your question because i'm European ;P and i'll add something to it. I once dated an American girl and she thought that 911 was the emergency number for everybody. No, not just everybody in the US. Everybody in the world! Well, i thought it was funny... Arrogant, and funny.

Re:911 Abuse

[stevey]

And now the punchline ... In the UK our number is 999, but nowadays 911 works too.

I remember the rationale given that many children would see it on TV and not know it wasn't supposed to apply to them...

Re:911 Abuse

[morari]

The local fire station for where I work? Who cares, let the place burn! HAHAHAHA!

Re:911 Abuse

[jacksonj04]

112 makes more sense to remember though. Works almost anywhere in Europe be it mobile or landline, and from mobile phones in several other places across the world, including on any GSM phone in the USA.

In the UK you can also dial 101 for non-emergency police and local authority services.

Re:911 Abuse

[zippthorne]

No, she did the right thing. The non-emergency numbers are for non-emergencies. One clue that you're not having an emergency is that it seems like a reasonable idea to go to the phone book and skim through a few blue-pages until you find the right number. Obviously, if you have reason to believe you might have to put yourself in physical danger to even get to the phone book, you're not having a non-emergency.

It's important not to abuse the emergency numbers, but it's also just as important not to be nervous about using them when you actually need to.

Re:911 Abuse

[ColdWetDog]

Sometimes I think 911 operators moonlight as cell phone customer service

Perhaps it's because the same type of people who call customer service call 911? In my rather small remote town, the newspaper has a "Police Blotter", half of which details which bar had the worst night of it and the other half discusses "911" calls. Some recent examples:

- Unruly children not wanting to got to be / do their homework / talk out the garbage.
- Suspicious vehicle (parked somewhere for more than an hour).
- Loose chicken.
- Noisy rooster. (I can sort of agree with this at 4:00 AM).
- More unruly children and / or chickens.
- Snoring Sea Lions (my personal favorite).

- and dozens of children hitting the brightly colored panic button on the phone.

Like in the customer service arena, the signal to noise ratio is pretty low.

Re:911 Abuse

[deniable]

I know a while back in Australia, 000, directory assistance and IIRC faults were the same people. Mates called Telstra for something and got put on hold for emergency calls.

Re:911 Abuse

[dkf]

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. So tell /. to not show you posts of score 0 or below. End of problem.

Re:911 Abuse

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I often post things from work AC that are about my employer, If your employer has the smarts to figure out who you are when you post stuff about them from home non-AC, then they probably have the smarts to figure out who you are when you post from work as an AC.

Re:911 Abuse

[eck011219]

Yeah, I know -- good point. It just gets to me sometimes.

Re:911 Abuse

[lgw]

In America, the running joke is "Call 911, then call and order a Pizza, see which comes first".

Re:911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly! You know how easy it is to know a co-worker's handle/nick/account name? Then find out their politics, then grow to hate them for whatever reason, then find some way to get them fired? Try it and see! It's fun.

Re:911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

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. Oh, sorry to quote my own posting, but I also want to declare that the guy who works down the hall has totally HOT twin 25 year old daughters! I'm always trying to get in bed with them together, even though I have this pesky heart problem - it'd be worth it.

Back to work,
DC.

Re:911 Abuse

[Phroggy]

That's scary. For the record, I live in Oregon, and the last time I called 911 (from my non-Verizon cell phone, with no obnoxious alarm) I got an immediate response from a competent operator. At least around here, the system usually works.

Re:911 Abuse

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

I one time dialed 311 (non-emergency number) because someone was driving crazy and the police transferred me to 911.

Sometimes we get so conditioned to not use 911 that we don't use it when we should.

Re:911 Abuse

[geekboy642]

Or do what I do.
Mod AC -6 in your posting interface, and THEN read at 0.
Not brave enough to own your own words? Then I don't care what you have to say.

Re:911 Abuse

[guywcole]

I had the opposite experience. I saw a guy in the parking lot outside my apartment that was maybe stealing a car (didn't know if he was just trying to get back into his own car, he wasn't breaking anything). I figured that no one was in any danger, so I'd call the none emergency number. I sat on hold for about 10 minutes, at which point the guy had already left the car. The operator at the police station threw a fit because I was watching a crime-in-progress and I didn't call the emergency number.

Admittedly, it's my responsibility to know which number to call. But couldn't they please make it a little bit more clear? I'm happy to call whichever one, as long as they'll tell me which.

Re:911 Abuse

[comp.sci]

While it is a great idea to have the non-emergency number ready, in the case of a real emergency please DO CALL 911 first!
The reason for this is simple: Who do you think the officer will have to tell where he is going?
He will talk to exactly the same people at dispatch and request additional resources.
I agree that sometimes 911 service is lacking in parts of this country, but it's still your best bet at getting fast service.
The dispatchers actually do know very well what you will need and are the only ones that can coordinate a joint response by police, medical and fire.

Re:911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

To make it even simpler: if you would like emergency services to show up within the next 24 hours, it's a big clue that you shouldn't bother looking up the non-emergency number, and should instead call 911.

People here are taking abuse of 911 far too seriously. 911 abuse is things like calling them to ask what time it is, or to inform them that the local donut shop isn't open even though their hours of operation clearly state that they should be open.

Calling 911 to report an intrusion onto your property is exactly what it's for. Nobody is going to get upset with you for calling 911 to report a crime, that's why the thing exists.

Re:911 Abuse

[Ironsides]

Anyway, doesn't the FCC or whatever body regulate that sort of stuff? here in the socialist paradise of the United Kingdom we have pretty hard and fast standards for emergency response (IIRC it's 8-12 minutes for an ambulance to be on scene, and that applies basically everywhere except isolated & sparsely populated areas like central wales or the Scottish highlands.) Wait half an hour for a reply from the cops in a life-and-death situation and you'd make the front page of the local paper, at least.

The FCC is the Federal Communications Commission. They have no authority over anything that is not wireless or TV related.

Now, to Police and Medical assistance, this is run by the local government with state funding. The federal government has little to no say in this. For the most part, response times are established by the local government, which is roughly two government levels below the national government. The local governments are the ones that pay for most of the police, firefighters and emergency medical assistance.

Re:911 Abuse

[Taelron]

I sometimes run alcohol sales for special events. While getting out liquor license for an event at the Cow Palace in San Francisco we learned that while its called the San Francisco Cow Palace, its really in Daily City. But when you call 911 and tell them you have a problem there, they still dispatch San Francisco Police which come from farther away and are slow to respond. The Chief of Police for Daily City actually told us to NEVER call 911 while doing an event there and gave us the direct number to dispatch...

All cell phone 911 calls in Northern California actually goes to the CHP (California Highway Patrol) dispatcher in Vacaville. Half the time you sit on hold for 5 minutes before getting an operator.

So instead of actually fixxing the system to recognize who the closer public services are and dispatch them, you have legislators adding idiotic and completely fubar new regulations which will effectively deter people from using the emergency services during crimes. I'm sure there are criminals all over lauding this new "feature".

Re:911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, NO - it was NOT an emergency. Sure, she didn't have a handy-dandy Yeloow Pages - but re-read... she got there and found that the (locking) chain was GONE!!!

That's not an emergency. There's no way that 911 should've been utilized in that set of circumstances. She gets back into her car & drives away. Somewhere safe - then call information to get the right number to call. Yeah - she's panicked that the chain is gone - don't burden an over-worked EMERGENCY sytem with crap like that.

Do you really want her 'emergency call' to tie-up a 911 operator while your buddy lies bleeding in the gutter from a hit & run?

Re:911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect from a country where it is common for people to call 911 for trivial matters such as people entering their store wearing the same color clothes as the staff... OMG!!1!

http://www.improveverywhere.com/2006/04/23/best-buy/

Re:911 Abuse

[dattaway]

I think that if this is often the case then 911 is no longer serving its purpose and should be tossed and rebuilt from scratch.

Our city did do something about it! We kicked out our mayor who ran up our city's credit card by electing the city auditor to that position. Elections sometimes do work.

Re:911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a 911 operator. If your burning house was on a street with a common name (there are a lot of Oak Streets out there), we may be asking to clarify which Oak St. you're talking about. Also, there are plenty of times when either I can hear a caller perfectly well, and they can't hear me, or vice versa. When it's practical, you're almost always better off using a wire line rather than a cell phone to contact 911.

As for getting accidental calls from cell phones in pockets or purses, it happens all the time, and frequently, one particular phone can dial in accidentally dozens of times in one night. Having the phone vibrate when you dial 911 makes more sense to me, rather than have it make a sound. That way, the caller knows they really did call 911, unneeded redialed are a problem too, and, nobody else should be able to hear it vibrating. It would also encourage people to get their phone out when dialing in error, and move it into another pocket.

Re:911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately in the US in order to cut costs, many smaller departments are simply forwarding their phones to 911 at night so that won't work.

Re:911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you have my stapler.

Re:911 Abuse

[Dhalka226]

What a blatent, idiotic anti-American troll. No wonder you posted it AC.

For starters, one damn story from a group dedicated to causing precisely this kind of stir ("Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places") does not suddenly make it common.

Secondly, the response was appropriate. If you bring 80 people into a store dressed like employees, you're absolutely up to no good. In this case "no good" was trying to agitate people so they could document it and try to make fun of them on their website. It could range from that all the way up to their fear: some sort of elaborate robbery attempt.

Either way, they should be removed from the store. Whether it's 80 random douchebags confusing customers, taking up space and staff time and having no intention of buying anything or a full-on robbery, they have no reason to be there. They should be removed and the reliable way to do that is to ask the police to do it. (Why? Because all security can do is ask you to leave; if you refuse, the only recourse is to call the police anyway.) While they're there they may as well make sure it WASN'T a robbery, because otherwise snide-ass anti-American, anti-police Anonymous Cowards on Slashdot would be railing against the incompetence of the police force to let 80 people "obviously" there to rob the joint get away with merchandise.

Blarghhh. I truly am beginning to hate this site and the cesspool of idiots that has infected it.

Re:911 Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

You sure you meant to say knocking them up? Because that gives me quite confused prosedure for getting help with 97-year-old grandma...

Re:911 Abuse

[jamar0303]

Where the heck do you live? Loose chickens I can somewhat understand in a small remote town, but *sea lions*?

WTF?

[jamar0303]

Who thought that putting an alarm on a phone dialing 911 was a smart idea? It's not always about alerting anyone nearby to the fact that something's wrong- sometimes you don't want anybody to notice you, like when you're home and someone's broken in. Better to err on the side of caution. Eh, glad I know of shops where I live that can get Korean phones onto the Verizon network- I don't have this issue.

Re:WTF?

[thejuggler]

Yeah, but if someone breaks in my home when I'm home, the alarm on the phone won't matter because the last thing the intruder just heard was the shot being fired by my .357!

Re:WTF?

[deniable]

In the past, many phones have accidentally dialed emergency numbers. This was such a problem that they may have wanted you to know that the phone you left in your bag, pocket, whatever was making an emergency call. I used to have a Nokia that SIM/no SIM was designed to call 112[1] under any circumstances, even having the keypad locked. Lock the keypad and mash keys. It would ignore everything until it saw a 1, another 1, a 2, and dial. Stupid 'features' that supposedly forced changes to the Australian '000' [2] system.

[1] Standard GSM emergency number.
[2] Our version of 911. Probably selected because it was hard to accidentally dial it on a rotary.

Re:WTF?

[jamar0303]

Unless you miss, in which case you have made things a heck of a lot harder for yourself because you have lost the element of stealth. I'm near-sighted; I couldn't possibly do that without my glasses, much less in the dark.

Re:WTF?

[multipartmixed]

Well then you just need a better weapon, like an FN P90. And a big magazine.

Duh.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother with guns? Just toss a grenade at the guy, then you'll be sure to get him.

Re:WTF?

[Grey_14]

Whats with all the gun people (I'll be nice and say people instead of nuts) making their first response to every situation "I'LL SHOOT THE BAD GUY!"? I thought that was a last resort? Whats so wrong with locking your bedroom door and waiting for the police to show up? Or just holding someone at gunpoint? It seems like everyone just wants to be a cowboy (Maybe there's another 10 responsible gun owners who just don't bother posting, but it seems all the vocal types are just itching for an excuse to blow someone away)

Re:WTF?

[demonlapin]

Better still, a shotgun with birdshot. Hard to miss, and the pellets are small enough that they will embed in walls rather than go through them and accidentally kill the neighbor's kid.

Re:WTF?

[hairyfeet]

Uh, he just said he'd fire off a .357. So unless they have AK47's, I'm betting even if he misses they'll be too busy shitting their pants and diving for the nearest exit to be much of a threat. Hell, firing one of those outdoors sounds like a damn cannon going off,inside I'm betting the sound alone is going to make any intruder run for the hills. Don't underestimate the nerve rattling ability of a large explosion. Shooting the big guns,even controlled in broad daylight, can make MY nerves a frazzled mess by the end. Something like a break in,where they are already easily spooked? I don't think HE will have too much trouble as far as being a perfect aim.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll?

Did any of you moron mods consider he may very well live in a state where it is perfectly legal to kill intruders to your home? Probably not if you live in one of those chickenshit blue states where you have to scurry off to a safe room and hide in fear of your life so you don't accidentally violate the civil rights of the intruders.

I live in a state where if anyone forces entry into my house I can legally kill them. I don't have to retreat. I don't have to call 911 for help. The act of breaking into my home allows me to presume they do so with intent to cause me bodily harm and provides automatic legal justification for shooting to kill.

Re:WTF?

[InvalidError]

I thought that was a last resort? Whats so wrong with locking your bedroom door and waiting for the police to show up?

In a home invasion scenario, do you know beforehand whether or not the robbers are armed and what they are armed with? In most cases, you do not and if you hesitate on the first opening, you may not get a second chance at pulling that trigger. If you are lucky, the intruders will run away or surrender but if you are not, it could be game over for you.

As for the bedroom door, most interior doors are only 1/8-1/4" thick plywood panels hung on 1/2" thick frames robbers can easily kick their way through. If the invasion turns into a gun fight, dry wall and interior doors will not shield anyone from anything.

If I had a gun and got invaded, I would assess the number of intruders and take the first clean shot I can get since there is no telling what would happen if they found me out first.

Re:WTF?

[lgw]

Do you have a family? Bet their lives on how the situation plays out? What kind of person are you, to value an intruder over your own family?

I believe that one has a responsibility to determine the intentions of the intruder (that is, make sure it's not just some drunk at the wrong house and you left your door unlocked - shit like that does happen). Beyond that, if someone is in my house maliciously, their life has no value. No useful purpose can be served by keeping them alive. No risk, even minimal, to the safety of real people is justified to preserve the life of such a creature. For many practical reasons I'd greatly prefer to scare somone off instead of shooting them, but preserving their worthless life isn't one of those reasons.

OTOH, if you live in an apartment like I do, firing a high-powered handgun at an intruder is an act of criminal negligence. Bullets go through walls. OTOH, a shotgun with an appropriate load is perfect (or a wimpy handgun that no real man would admit owning, but is more appropriate for defense in an apartment).

Re:WTF?

[TheLink]

If I'm a robber/burglar and he's just a random target, I'd give up and go elsewhere. It means he knows you're there too AND he's got at least one gun. So what's so special about his stuff/place anyway?

Take a cue from wildlife - when predators hunt they want lunch, not battles. Even if you win the battle, he could still make a big hole in you and you don't want that - leads to lots of problems - blood on floor (more evidence), need medical treatment etc.

If it's targetted - personal or a "hit" then things could be different. But there are far better ways of taking out somebody then breaking into their home and fighting a gun battle there.

Re:WTF?

[sumdumass]

They make ammunition now that disintegrates on impact. It has enough punch to get through a layer of body/drywall but all the momentum is absorbed when it breaks apart and won't go completely through a wall.

They are calls Glaser safety slugs.

Apartments tend to be small and cramped. This isn't really a good scenario for a shotgun because it cases such a large projection from your body when navigating with them in a usable as well as accurate position. Something as simple as moving from your bedroom to your kids room to make sure they are safe can cause you to drop from a shooting position and then regain that position several times because of opening and closing doors or even tables and lamps in the hallway. Anyways, for tactical reasons, I would advise against shotguns for home defense in an apartment unless it is your only option and you already secured a defense plan.

You can find out more about some of the Exotic ammunition like the Glasers here. I'm not affiliated with that site in any way. I found it a while ago looking for some muzzle loading information. I didn't find what I was looking for there but was somewhat captivated by that article.

Re:WTF?

[Moridin42]

Just to offer up a word of caution, I've read quite a few times that semi-autos don't cycle properly with Glasers. So if you're going to use them, test them first. (This would actually apply to any loading you plan to use for defense)

It isn't cheap, especially with the price tag on Glasers. But defending your life isn't cheap either, with lost income and legal costs.

Re:WTF?

[sumdumass]

That article I linked to mentions that. I was basically wanting to let apartment dwellers know that there is an option besides endangering your neighbors.

I probably wouldn't use them myself. I Live in a relatively large house in the country with a couple of farm dogs that let me know whenever someone is close to the house or barn. So regular ammo is just fine for me. I'm more worries about Coyotes or wild dogs then people. Chances are, I would never be in a situation where I would have to use the gun for home defense unless it was someone I knew. But then I probably wouldn't have the chance to use it in that situation. Not everyone can be as lucky as me.

If Someone did get into the house in the middle of the night without the dogs alerting me (or someone), I wouldn't hesitate to do something about it to protect my family. And I won't judge anyone else in that position either.

Re:WTF?

[bdo19]

What's with all the anti-gun people (I'll be nice and say people instead of hippies) making their first response to every situation "OMG YOU WOULD USE A GUN!?" I thought that was a last resort? What's so wrong with locking your bedroom door and waiting for the police to show up, while the bad guys kick the door down because they heard the alarm your cell phone gave out when you called 911? Or just holding someone at gunpoint, after they've kicked your bedroom door open because they intend to kill you? It seems like everyone just thinks nobody has any business defending themselves. (Maybe there's another 10 "cowboys" who just don't bother posting, but it seems all the vocal types are just itching for an excuse to be helpless while they sit and wait for the police, and hope they get there in time.)

Seriously though... The context of this discussion is a situation in which your life is danger if the bad guy knows you're there and knows you've called 911. This implies that said bad guy would not think twice about using a gun or some other deadly weapon against you for his own selfish gain. And holding that bad guy at gunpoint isn't going to be an option, because he's going to shoot you first if you give him the chance. I think it's fair to say that most people, under those circumstances, would NOT tolerate the threat to their life and would use a gun to eliminate the threat if they felt it was appropriate at the time. Implying that makes them "gun nuts" and irrational is, frankly, insulting. And no, that situation isn't every situation - it's probably the minority by far - but it is more or less the situation that this discussion was based on.

Re:WTF?

[thejuggler]

Troll!?!?!?!

I'm no damn troll. Your just a damn anti-gun nut that happened to have mod points today. I've kept my .357 loaded and ready for the last 10 years and I don't plan to change that. If you hug-a-thug types would just put the criminals in jail for life then I wouldn't need to worry about self-protection nearly as much as I do now.

Re:WTF?

[Rick17JJ]

The point is that, when using a cell phone, people may no longer able to be able to just quietly call the police, hide, and hope they arrive in time. People won't always be able to dial 911. They will be forced to defend themselves with their guns, instead.

I am not trained in the use of firearms, have not been in the military and am not a gun enthusiast or a hunter, so I would have preferred to be able to just hide and dial 911 and hope the police arrive in time. But, if I can't quietly call the police, I might possibly be forced to defend myself with the one dusty old rarely used gun that I do own. Thanks to the FCC, Verizon and to blind people, many of us will now be forced to depend on our guns instead of calling the police.

By not being able to quietly call 911, more people may now be forced to "shoot the bad guys." It is not necessarily that they would prefer to "shoot the bad guys."

By the way, I have had an intruder in my home once, back in the 1970s. I was at home by myself with the doors locked and was quietly sitting in a chair. Then, I was startled by a voice coming from a dark doorway. The light was such that I cold see the person's face, but could not instantly make out the dark policeman's uniform. He had said something and was demanding to see my drivers license. I quickly realized it was a policeman. He said that they had received a call about a burglar at this location. I said that I couldn't remember where I had put my wallet and started looking for it, when I found it, I showed him my drivers license.

He quickly realized that I really lived there and apologized for startling me. If I remember correctly, he said something about the lack of numbering on most of the houses and that the caller said there was a gray Saab parked in front of the house (I had my gray Volvo out front). When he arrived, he had discovered the door knob mechanism sprung on the side door and the door unlocked. I explained to him, that a couple of days earlier I had accidentally locked myself out of the house and had become so angry and frustrated, that in a fit of anger, I lost it and had grabbed the door knob with both hands and twisted the handle as hard as I could which sprang the mechanism in the door, opening the door. I had not yet replaced the door handle and its internal locking mechanism. I realized it was an honest mistake on the policeman's part, so I never complained about the incident. We all make mistakes.

I did not own a gun at the time and almost never drink. If I did and had heard him coming through the dark room, I would have assumed he was a burglar. He had alreadly assumed that I was a burglar. One of us could have shot the other which would have been one innocent person shooting another. Cell phones did not exist back then, but I have been in the situation of having an armed intruder in my home.

Nice way to let the perps know where you are!

[tomhudson]

" 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.

Re:Nice way to let the perps know where you are!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

No, Just dial 911 and put the phone in the pocket of the bully who had been tormenting you for years.

Re:Nice way to let the perps know where you are!

[deniable]

The next time. How many do you have? You're more likely to choke on a chicken bone or be in a road accident. Getting attention in either of these cases would be helpful.

wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[LordKronos]

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.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[FRiC]

112 is also the default emergency number for most phones / carriers, and can be dialed even if the keypad is locked.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[CoolVibe]

In the Netherlands we have a similar service (we dial 112 instead of 911), which sometimes gets called accidentally. A human picks up the call, hears nobody on the other side, and hangs up. The caller gets an SMS that notifies him that he/she dialed 112 accidentally. Way better system.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[hjf]

unless you're in a car crash and passed out just after you dialed 112. yeah, way better system.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[dmatos]

The way it works in NA, IIRC, is that if 911 is called and the operator doesn't hear anyone, they have to assume the worst and send fire, police and ambulance to the address of the phone (if it's a land line). Not sure how it works for cell phones.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[jacksonj04]

In the UK I can dial 911, 112 or 999 by mistake. Well, at least I used to be able to since the iPhone doesn't react to anything other than fingerpresses.

Perhaps have it so that if you dial an emergency number with keypad locked, the phone will make an audible/vibrate notification with a few seconds delay before actually placing the call, but if it's unlocked then it doesn't on the assumption that you know damn well you're making an emergency call.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[MoonBuggy]

In the UK I've seen a callback from the 999 operator after a call was made and they didn't hear anything (just something along the lines of "We just got a call from this phone, is everything OK?", "Yes, it must've accidentally dialed, sorry to waste your time."). Don't know what they would've done if the callback wasn't answered though.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[garett_spencley]

I don't think it would do a damned thing to prevent accidental 911 calls.

I've dialed 911 by accident once before and it's embarrassing enough. Especially in my case because I realized what I had done rather quickly and hung up before I heard any ring or voice (I was trying to order a pizza and the number starts with 977 ... I typed 911 by mistake). Only the call did go through and when I picked up the receiver I didn't get a dial tone (or hear any voice or any noise at all .. it sounded like a dead line) so I hit the clicker a few times with no results and then I accepted the fact that it really had gone through and so I said "er.. hello?" and I heard a voice "This is the police ... why did you hang up on me?" and I had to explain that I was a complete moron and apologize etc.

I've been REALLY careful ever since. So no. An alarm going off after I've accidentally placed a call to 911 will not make it any more embarrassing. Alarm or no alarm, if you've accidentally dialed 911 before then you know it's plenty embarrassing enough to get you to be more careful in the future.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[garett_spencley]

I've heard the same thing but I accidentally dialed 911 once and when I realized what I did (before hearing a ring or voice etc.) I hung up. Then I picked up to dial the correct number and heard silence, no voice, no keyboard typing, no background noise, just dead silence so I clicked the receiver a few times. Finally I accepted what happened and just hung up and left it hung up. A couple seconds later the phone rings "This is the police, why did you hang up on me?"

I spent the rest of the day assuming the police, fire and ambulance would show up in that "Just incase" scenario that I've heard many people claim is policy in NA but they never did.

It might be because the dispatcher did get to talk to me and I explained to her that I was an idiot. But then I wonder what if a kidnap victim or something calls 911 and the attacker catches them before they have time to talk ? Then the dispatcher calls back and the attacker claims that he accidentally dialed ?

So no. I think the policy is just a myth.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[nacturation]

So no. I think the policy is just a myth. And saying there's a blanket policy for North America is just plain crazy. There might be such a policy in your particular metropolitan area, but that's about it. It happened in our office though. One of the sales guys was dialing long distance and you have to dial 9 to get to an outside line. So, he dials 9, followed by a 1 for long distance, then accidentally dialed another 1 and hung up before he realized the call was connected. As the number it's dialed out of doesn't get answered (it goes to a generic voicemail service) we had two police officers show up and grill us (politely) about the incident. So yeah, they don't send out all three services in my area, but the police are the most sensible to send as if it's a criminal activity they can respond, if it's a fire eventually they'd be getting calls from other people, and if it's a medical issue the police are trained in emergency medical procedures and/or can drive you to an emergency facility if it's more serious.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[manitoulinnerd]

My housemate accidentally dialed 911 once very quickly and hung up immediately. Not only did they call back but they sent off officers and told us to wait for them to arrive. We told them nothing was wrong but they sent them anyway. I don't know if it might have been because we were on campus of if they always do that in Alberta but I am sure it must waste a lot of time if so. I am sure it is worth it though if it stops even one case of domestic abuse.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Anonymous Coward]

On my older sprint treo, when I dial 911, it immediately goes into "emergency call in progress mode", which is purely visual.

If I hang up the phone, the phone will display something like, "emergency call disconnected, do you want to redial it".

And in my experience, 911 will usually call me back, even if I was still on hold trying to get to them.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's pretty crazy to think that there is a policy across North America. You are aware that there are 3 distinct nations within North America, aren't you? Coordinating a policy across various states (provinces where I live) would be hard enough...

But in any case in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, I know police do show up even if you don't talk.

When my son was 3, he got a hold of the phone and randomly pushed some digits on it.

If found out 2 things that day:

1) You don't have to just dial 911 here to get 911. ANY key combination including the set 911 will work. (e.g. 72371091181241)

2) Police show up at your house, even if you never say a word to them.

The officer was great about it. We explained what had happened, he took a quick look to ensure we weren't in any danger and he gave my son a stern talking to (my sons eyes nearly popped out of his head).

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[mpe]

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.

Or the firmware is actually written in such a way that when the keypad is locked the state actually goes "Ignore any keys except 9" "once 9 has been pressed ignore everything except 1", "when 91 has been input ignore everything except 1", when 911 has been input ignore everything except SEND". As opposed to something more like "Ignore any input except 9", "once 9 has been pressed then clear the register if either no key is pressed within 10 seconds or anything other 1 is the next keypress".

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[mpe]

In the Netherlands we have a similar service (we dial 112 instead of 911), which sometimes gets called accidentally.

112 can also occur accidentally on fixed lines which accept pulse dialing. This was part of the original reason behind the British choice of 999 and the US choice of 911.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[nategoose]

I think this probably has more to do with the idea that either through a bluetooth break in or through some sort of virus one day all the phones will dial 911 at the same time in coordination with an actual emergency, so the 911 system will be unable to respond because of all of the automated calls it will have to deal with first. I think that maybe 911 dialed on the keypad should be treated differently, as the person using the phone knows they dialed it. Automated things or bluetooth could maybe have the alarm, or maybe shouldn't even be able to dial 911. You can't really cover all the bases if it's a virus on the phone, but if there were one it might already turn off the alarm when dialing 911.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[KingEomer]

I think the idea is that if you're choking, you won't be able to speak. I've heard that you should bang the phone a few times in that case, but responding if there is no bang might be a "just in case" thing as well.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[JedaFlain]

I have a friend who works as a dispatcher for a 911 center.

If they get a call from a cell phone, and that person hangs up, they call them back to determine the problem. If they can't get them, there's not much they can do, since they don't have an address for the call.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Registered Coward v2]

Depends on the location. Our local police send Fire / Police / Ambulance. Fire is usually first on scene, which is fine because as the officer put it - they are trained as paramedics, and if it's a crime in progress most criminals flee when they hear sirens, let alone several large guys with axes running up the driveway.

Depending on the circumstances they may cancel the other responders.

They did ask us not ot hang up, but said if we are worried about being detected to hang up once the call goes through and they will respond; or if it is a situation such as a fire to dial 911 and simply leave.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Spain we also have 112. I accidentally dialed it once on my cellphone. What they did after hearing no response was hanging up and then calling back to ask if everything was ok, I presume to avoid just the kind of unfortunate situation you described.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[IndustrialComplex]

unless you're in a car crash and passed out just after you dialed 112. yeah, way better system.


Would you care if your phone made a loud beep, or sent you a text message if you were unconscious?

If you pass out after dialing, it wouldn't matter what sort of notification your phone gives. It could vibrate, set off a siren, and flash lights... and you would still be passed out.

It wouldn't be much benefit for some searching for you either, I would imagine the tire tracks and smoking wreckage would be a bit more obvious than a beeping cell phone.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[DancesWithBlowTorch]

unless you're in a car crash and passed out just after you dialed 112. yeah, way better system.

How does the US system help in your scenario? Somehow, I don't believe they'll send out a SWA-Team to every phone accidentally calling 911.

As one of my instructors during EMT training said: "You can always construct a case where even the best system fails. Let's face it, some people will simply fall through the net. Our job is to make sure this happens as rarely as reasonably possible."

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[g0at]

Right, like better than here in North America, where you call 911 from a cell phone and they ask you for your phone number and physical location, without which they are unable to find you, yeah, way better system.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Kreigaffe]

Actually I've been in this situation several times.

Back in college, the roommate I had for my first semester was in a frat. And stereotypically was constantly drunk. And since this was back in the day all of 8 years ago, he didn't have a cell phone, and instead used a calling card to call home from our dorm room's phone. And several times he started with 911.. because he was drunk. Probably 4 or 5 times in one semester.

Cops would show up, knock on our door, ask what was going on. He'd be gone already, and I'd just be sitting around playing Half-Life or some shit. Scared the piss out of me the first time, though, I tell you what -- but there wasn't any EMS or fire response, just two cops trying to figure out what was going on.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Anonymous Coward]

I work as a dispatcher for the Dutch 112 (911).

About 40% of incoming calls are accidental or pranks. Nevertheless, EVERY SINGLE INCOMING CALL is scrutinized. If we hear nothing, we hang up and call back. If we hear something weird, we immediately play back the tape and edit/amp up the sound if need be. When in doubt, police units are notified.

We're not talking about a technical 'system' here; this is painstaking work done by hundreds of professionals every day.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was about 5 years old I called 911 and hung up. Police arrived at my house a few minutes later. They do come.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[sumdumass]

Yea, I had that happen once too. The guy robbing me told them that it was an accident and nobody responded. It kind of sucked ever worse because he didn't know I had a phone until they called back. I dialed it inside my pocket by pressing hard on the cover to make it accidentally dial. But now, I was in the middle of nowhere, completely broke with no way of contacting anyone.

Seriously, This didn't happen to me. But I could see it happening. They should at least ask for some personal information that only you should know. And if you don't answer quickly enough, they should send someone anyways.

I had a cat dial 911 once, (seriously, he hit the speaker phone and hit 911 before any other numbers). Anyways, I was alerted to what happened by hearing a strange voice in the other room to find the cat swinging at a shoot from a hanging spider plant or something beside the phone. I told them everything was ok and a cop knocked on the door 2 minutes later. I had to show ID for him to leave. He wanted to come in and look around but I resisted and eventually left after 3 or 4 of his buddies showed up.

I guess there is a problem attempting to account for every scenario possible.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[sumdumass]

The system had got a lot better in the last few years. There is a GPS built into every phone now and your location of transmitted with the 911 call.

But I ran into this years ago on interstate 70 leaving ohio and entering west virginia. A couple cars were racing and one moved into the other lane to get around slower traffic clipping the other and they both spun out anding in a ditch. The 911 operator started acting confused when I was giving the location, I was connected to some nebraska system 6 states away. She ended up calling the ohio state patrol and relaying everything i reported to her. The sent EMS out of Wheeling WV, and an Ohio state patrolman tot he scene. The WV state patrol ended up showing up too. I'm not sure which side of the border I was on at the time.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[lobStar]

The system had got a lot better in the last few years. There is a GPS built into every phone now and your location of transmitted with the 911 call. Er, no. Only a few expensive smartphones have GPS built-in. And there is certainly no standardised way to transmit this information.

Positioning via GSM uses propagation time, phase differences etc to triangulate the handset from the base stations. According to this report, accuracy down to 100 m can be achievable with these methods.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Solandri]

How does the US system help in your scenario? Somehow, I don't believe they'll send out a SWA-Team to every phone accidentally calling 911.

That's what they do. The police are sent to investigate every 911 call, even if it's an immediate hang-up. When I did some work for a hotel, they'd have a customer pull a prank 911 call every couple of weeks. The police came every time. So in the U.S. system, you'd call 911, lose consciousness, and the police would be out trying to find where your phone call came from. Note that this also covers the case where you're trying to make the 911 call in secret. You don't have to risk getting caught on the phone by the criminal. You can call and hang up, and the police will be on their way.

I dunno which system is better, but I will point out that one assumes the caller is honest while the other assumes the caller is a prankster.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Solandri]

Er, no. Only a few expensive smartphones have GPS built-in. And there is certainly no standardised way to transmit this information.

The vast majority of cell phones in the U.S. have GPS built-in. It's necessary to satisfy the FCC's 911 requirements. The receivers only cost like 75 cents. It's so cheap because it's assisted GPS, not self-contained GPS. The receiver just picks up the satellite signals and relays them to the cell phone tower. The hardware there does the number crunching to figure out location, then transmits it back to the phone. So the signals to transmit all this is indeed standardized.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[LordKronos]

Would you care if your phone made a loud beep, or sent you a text message if you were unconscious?

I think you completely missed the point. It was stated that in the Netherlands, if nobody responds on the line when the 911 operator's answer, the operator just hangs up on you. The point was, that's a bad practice, because what if you are injured and can't respond to the operator? The ideal practice is to err on the side of caution and send someone to investigate.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[LurkerXXX]

Sorry, no. I have a relatively new cell phone. It is in no way classified a 'smart' phone. Just a regular cell phone. It's got GPS. So do the ones all my family members have. A couple years ago the standard new phone didn't have GPS, now at least half the models I saw in the store a couple months ago did.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[vegiVamp]

It eliminates people with a tendency to pass out after a car accident from the gene pool. That's evolution at work for you.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you pass out, then. Really, we're better off without your kind.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[nacturation]

Fire is usually first on scene, which is fine because as the officer put it - they are trained as paramedics, and if it's a crime in progress most criminals flee when they hear sirens, let alone several large guys with axes running up the driveway. I hadn't thought of that last one... big red diesel truck, sirens blaring, men with axes... yeah, with the exception of gang warfare and the like, that would take care of any crime-related situation.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about the rest of the U.S., but here
in California, all 911 calls on a cellphone go to
the California Highway Patrol dispatchers.

The problem of false calls (phone in a pocket or
purse, keypad not locked, accidental dialing or
"press-and-hold number 1 for emergencies")
got to be so bad that now, once you dial 911,
you get an automated recording stating that
"if you are dialing 911, please press 1 now
to connect to a dispatcher".

In effect, it's now 9-1-1-1.

Stupid Fucking Idiots

[brxndxn]

This has got to be one of the stupidest 'features' I have ever heard..

What if I call 911 because someone is breaking into my house and I'm hiding?! What if I'm being held hostage and I dial 911? What if I'm at a bank and someone is robbing it and I try to dial 911 because they haven't seen me yet?!

Also, why the fuck do phones have to beep annoyingly when you turn them off!?!?

Please sue that phone company into the ground. That is completely unwarranted.

Very good post

[jcookeman]

This is one of the most important threads I've seen on Slashdot. It's a very good point to recognize a use of technology that could have large side effects on us. I couldn't imagine calling 911 in a situation where privacy was of dire necessity only to have the gizmo give me up. Good submission poster.

Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[httpamphibio.us]

I call 911 on a regular basis to report out of control drivers and street fights (I live in Boston, there are tons of both of these). All my Verizon phones (I've had three) go into "Emergency Mode" when you call 911 and stay in this mode for several minutes after the conversation has ended then make a loud chirp when going back into non-emergency mode.

Two semi-related notes... first, a couple months ago my battery died when I was reporting a street fight. When I checked my voicemail after it was done charging I had an irate message from a cop yelling, "DO NOT HANG UP ON THE BOSTON POLICE!" and threatening me with arrest!

Second... on Nokia candy bar phones when the keypad is locked you can key in 911 and it'll automatically come out of the locked mode. Also, 112 does the same. Can anyone tell me what 112 is?

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[Archon-X]

International Digital Emergency Number. Works on all cell phones, all counties, AFAIK. [I know it does for at least France, Hong Kong, Australia, UK..]

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[EvilAlphonso]

112 is European 911 I'd say.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[oberondarksoul]

112 is the European emergency telephone number, alongside whichever national ones exist. For example, here in the UK both 999 and 112 will connect you to emergency services.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[Burps]

112 is the european emergency number

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[pipatron]

The European equivalent to 911.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[koekie]

112 is the European "911".

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[transmorph]

112 is the emergency phone number for both Europe and GSM (it redirects to 911 in the US from a GSM mobile phone). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-1-2.

I don't know if its used as a landline emergency number in any countries outside Europe (Australia doesn't - it uses 000).

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[squiggleslash]

112 is the GSM emergency number. The GSM standard mandates that it should work no matter where you take your GSM phone.

It happens to also be European wide emergency number for all lines, landline and mobile, (though many member states have their own number, and have implemented 112 as an alias - for example, in the UK 999 is considered the emergency number; but that's not relevant here. The context is mobile phones, and 112 is the GSM mobile emergency number. It works in Europe, it works in Korea, it works in Australia, it works in the US - on GSM networks.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[El Tonerino]

It's 999 in Europe.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[gingerTabs]

112 is the European equivalent of 911 that is standard across Europe. Most phones will also unlock on 999 (the UK specific number)

112 also works in the UK, even though many here would love to think we're not in Europe ;)

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Two semi-related notes... first, a couple months ago my battery died when I was reporting a street fight. When I checked my voicemail after it was done charging I had an irate message from a cop yelling, "DO NOT HANG UP ON THE BOSTON POLICE!" and threatening me with arrest! What an idiot. Most cops are smart enough not to deliberately record it when they try to abuse their power. I would have made a copy and kept it around, never know when something like that might come in handy.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[A beautiful mind]

Since absolutely noone mentioned it before, 112 is the european emergency number aswell as the international GSM emergency number. Glad to be able to tell you this important bit of information first!

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[SuperBanana]

I call 911 on a regular basis to report out of control drivers and street fights (I live in Boston, there are tons of both of these).

Maybe in *your* part of Boston, chief. According to your domain registration, you live near both northeastern and fenway. Don't categorize the entire city just because you live in an area chock full of drunken jocks. Also, try exploring the rest of the Boston/metro area. There are so many different neighborhoods, each with a different 'feel', it's not even funny.

Two semi-related notes... first, a couple months ago my battery died when I was reporting a street fight. When I checked my voicemail after it was done charging I had an irate message from a cop yelling, "DO NOT HANG UP ON THE BOSTON POLICE!" and threatening me with arrest!

Save the voicemail and find your local district (ie the letter-number code) for where you were reporting the fight. Then go to that district's homepage and find who the CSO (community service officer) is. Write them a POLITE email or letter explaining that you were calling in a fight, got disconnected, and someone left you a very nasty voicemail. Offer to come in and play it back. If the CSO cares, they'll write it up for the captain or shift supervisor. And you might get an apology from the CSO or said shift supervisor. Believe it or not, there are people who care in BPD. Then again, that district probably spends a lot of time dealing with ]drunken] morons every night...they might be swamped, or somewhat bitter.

Can anyone tell me what 112 is?

EU/GSM emergency phone number. Heard of Google?

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[7times9]

1-1-2 is the emergency number in several European countries. It should work in every EU country even here in the UK where the traditional number is 9-9-9.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[mxs]

112 is one of the Emergency numbers in Germany (specifically the Fire Brigade and Emergency Medical Services). 110 could also work, it's the Emergency number for the police.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I once read somewhere that 1-1-2 is the GSM/European emergency number...

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[Anonymous Coward]

EU/GSM emergency phone number. Heard of Google?
Google tells me it's a band.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[mpe]

Second... on Nokia candy bar phones when the keypad is locked you can key in 911 and it'll automatically come out of the locked mode.

Just so long as it won't allow you to dial 9, long string of random digits, 1, long string of random digits, 1. Or even 9, long pause, 1, long pause, 1.

Also, 112 does the same. Can anyone tell me what 112 is?

The European (and other parts of the world) standard emergency number. Which is in the GSM spec as always treated as an emergency number. (The specs even allow for emergency calls to be made without a SIM present.) Apparently this requirment crosses the "NANP/rest of the planet" divide which exists in much telecoms firmware.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a second here, "on a regular basis" ? How often is that exactly?

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[kevmatic]

Actually, my Nokia 1100 (don't laugh, its a great phone) does it on 08, too. If its locked, and you press zero, then eight, it comes out of lock mode. Then, if you press send, it says "dialing emergency number." I have no idea why.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[PachmanP]

You're not talking about Boston, MA are you? The comments about Northeastern and Fenway would suggest it, but every thing else in your comment disagrees.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[SharpFang]

112 is not only european. It's universally international.

In Poland, there's 997 for the Police, 998 for the fire service and 999 for medical rescue crew. You can call any of those to ask for given kind of help and simultaneously ask to have the message forwarded to other services if there's such need. You get given specific service with a certain 'time bonus' for direct connection, and the others with a certain 'time penalty' (given person must forward your info elsewhere).

Calling 112 puts you in contact with an operator who relays your report to any of the three services (or others which numbers you might not know - gas emergency service, chemical contamination emergency team and so on) - the time is slightly higher in all cases but there's never any doubt which number to call or problem you'll forget to ask to have the info forwarded.

Extra exceptions with calling the 112:

- You can call with keys locked. No fumbling what odd combination unlocks the keyboard.
- You can call without knowing the PIN number. Just enter 112 as your PIN and press ok.
- You can call without the SIM card.
- You can call without the battery. Have the phone plugged into the charger, battery missing - it's the only number working.
- You can call from a locked out phone - exceeded number of wrong PIN and PUK codes, lock-out due to messing with operator unlock code etc. The phone may be a total brick save for 112.
- Some phones allow you to call 112 no matter how deep in submenus you are. Java games, SMS writing and so on. That's not universal feature though.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. I don't think we live in the same Boston as this responder. Investing 3 hours of time for an apology?

I've been witness to incessant abuse in Boston given my position (attorney). This is the same PD that killed a girl after the Red Sox won.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2004/10/22/postgame_police_projectile_kills_an_emerson_student/

They are aggressive and inflammatory. A great deal of interactions I have had with them go like this, even though I am being professional. (This link is a recent case in Utah.)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fae_1195587967&p=1

Even during the recent celebration, 37 arrests (sorry for the fox news link.)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,305690,00.html

Of course not all cops are bad, but the culture of the PD in Boston is terrible. I keep far, far away and avoid all interactions with those jerks.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[SuperBanana]

Of course not all cops are bad, but the culture of the PD in Boston is terrible.

And it'll KEEP being that way if nobody reports the bad apples, moron.

PS: What does a Utah Highway patrol video have to do with Boston PD? Are you claiming you've been tasered by Boston PD? That's pretty funny, considering they don't carry tasers.

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[Anonymous Coward]

Awww, did that poster offend you, Superbanana?

Calling other people a moron? Are you one of those dumbasses in the street fights the OP talks about? Sure sounds like it.

You are a dumbass loser, upon reviewing your posts. Tell me where you live and I'll kick your girly ass, but I guess it is far away from Fenway.

Moron.

This is ridiculous

[dermoth666]

This is totally ridiculous! That Telecomunication act should be changed to specifically forbid making any sound on 911 calls, even the usual sound some phones do on normal calls.

Any non-compilant phones shoud be upgraded or recalled as well.

I think pepole already showed enough situation (even real ones) where this would be desastrous. Just to add one, I'm always prepared to dial 911 on my phone in my pocket, so if I happen to be in trouble I can call and leave it there. I know the call and geo-location can be traced and within minutes cops will be here even if I don't speak. "Wouldl you like a 911 alarm with that?"

Re:This is ridiculous

[faloi]

I agree it's a horrible idea to have on by default... But it's not completely useless. Geo-location will get you to the proper building, but an audible beeping might help people find you under rubble, or find which room you're in if you're in a smoke filled building.

But it should definitely be something that YOU choose to do, having it on by default is asking for trouble.

Re:This is ridiculous

[deniable]

Yep, totally ridiculous until grandma leaves her phone in her pocket, ready to dial 911, mashes the keys and gets a SWAT team in her face. It's even better for the people who actually needed the cops.

Re:This is ridiculous

[dermoth666]

When I say "prepared to dial" I obviously don't enter the digits in advance and I think nobody should try this. I just mean that I know which keys to press, eyes closed, to dial 911.

To reply to the other post, any alarm should be totally independent. If they want to put an alarm feature on the phone it should have nothing to do with 911 itself (There could be a shortcut from emergency mode though, but it shouldn't be too easy to accidentally hit).

Re:This is ridiculous

[deniable]

I understood what you meant. It's just that because you might need it in an emergency, many phones make it too damn easy to make the call. Some old phones would dial emergency when the keypad was locked. You could mash keys until you got through. Now put that in your pocket and have fun.

Re:This is ridiculous

[poetmatt]

although I agree with your premise, I would imagine you can yell louder than your phone unless you're unconscious (in which case how would you dial 911 in the first place?). 100% agree about must be mandatory and hope verizon gets their act together real quick on this. I smell a class action.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

If this beeping feature is so cool and all, why ins't it EVER implemented on hard land line phones or the more flexible IP telephony systems? [911 is routed to our Public Safety dept at work] I smell a rat in the whole beeping thing --if your carrier implements a blatantly dangerous law such as this, WHY don't others get forced to?

Why must the customer of said optional implementation have a choicebox setting on their phone, since warning via BEEPS was a CHOICE to our carrier? Why can't it get cascaded to the consumer? I don't much care if the default is the BEEP, but I want to CHOOSE to disable it to save my neck now that I am aware.

Re:This is ridiculous

[dermoth666]

All phones I ever had do that (I think that's a requirement. The rule that the phone must allow making 911 call probably also apply when the phone is locked) and BTW that's the idea too. My phone is locked with a code all the time in my pocket. It's much easier to dial 911 right away than try getting the phone unlocked first...

Re:This is ridiculous

[DJDuck]

What sort of scary country do you live in! To be constantly prepared to dial the emergency number?

Re:This is ridiculous

[dermoth666]

What I mean is that I know how to do it. I know which keys to press without looking at the keypad. That's all.

Were they illegal wetbacks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Austin has a terrible problem with illegal alien mexicans. The average mexican is mixed race tribal mongrel known as a mestizo. These primitive tribal people have no cultural tradition of respect for law or respect for property, or in general respect for others.

Not surprisingly, these tribesmen have little concept of the future or of consequences for their actions. They will kill a human being over the most trivial matters, such as a preceived slight. Despite the fact that they will be put in a cage with other animals of their kind for the rest of their lives, it matters not.

These throwbacks to a prehistoric way of life do not understand that actions have consquences. Thus they are more dangerous than most criminals. There is little logic involved in the way these primitive tribesmen behave. Give them wide berth. If you feel your life is endangered, shoot them; shoot to kill.

Re:Were they illegal wetbacks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beautiful; I am in complete awe.

great

[kurtis25]

This is not a good idea at best and more than likely a horrible idea. The standard I'm trying to call 911 in secret criticism works here. I can't watch the video in the article (youtube video anyone?) but I would imagine if I dialed 911 and heard some crazy alarm coming out of my phone I would hang my phone up and try again. I'm not sure what the alarm sounds like but if it's just some siren I would give up after a few tries thinking 911 was broken. Do we have a way to test this? I can't add or change emergency numbers in my phone and don't really want to call 911 to test my phone out.

Re:great

[jamar0303]

I watched the video- it's not exactly ear-splitting or a siren (sounds sort of like one, though), but it's distinctive and probably about 60-70dB.

Slashdotted!

[Bazman]

Right now the US emergency services are being slashdotted by slashdotters calling 911 to see if their phones go into this mode! Go on, call 911 now and you'll hear that all the operators are busy, and would you hold while they play you some Vivaldi...

112 is the GSM international emergency number

[Chrisq]

It is the GSM international emergency number, and the European emergency number. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-1-2

Re:112 is the GSM international emergency number

[JMZero]

Except in England, where it's: 0118-999-881-999-119-7253.

Re:112 is the GSM international emergency number

[Anonymous Coward]

There are more. See if you can enter 08 with a locked keypad (but don't dial!)

Re:112 is the GSM international emergency number

[VGPowerlord]

In case someone doesn't know what that's in reference to, watch this video from The IT Crowd.

Re:112 is the GSM international emergency number

[moosesocks]

Except in England, where it's: 0118-999-881-999-119-7253.

You forgot the +44

(But all joking aside, since it hasn't been mentioned here, 112 works in the UK and Ireland, as does 999, which was the UK/Ireland emergency number before the EU standard was adopted.)

Re:112 is the GSM international emergency number

[lobStar]

I discovered that on my SonyEricson once, and has always wondered what it is? Anyone who knows?

Easy solution

[Kohath]

This is another problem that can easily be solved by carrying a handgun.

Re:Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I never say this on forums, because it really doesn't make sense but i'll make an exception for you: you're an idiot.

Re:Easy solution

[It'sYerMam]

To do what? Shoot the phone? Yourself?

Re:Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded funny? One creates a threat, one ends a threat (Permanently).

Thank goodness for the later.

Re:Easy solution

[MagusSlurpy]

I, too, praise the ability to be late! :)

Re:Easy solution

[demonlapin]

The thugs breaking into your property?

Re:Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you got a problem with that? Wimp.

People aren't like they used to be. Now they're all effeminate cowards when it comes to danger.

Audible alarm?

[Forkenhoppen]

Does a giant exclamation mark appear over your head too?

Re:Audible alarm?

[Kris_J]

Does a giant exclamation mark appear over your head too?

Only if you have a quest for someone.

Doh!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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.)

Re:Doh!

[imipak]

RISKS Digest recommendation thirded with alacrity. It should be a must read for virtually everyone technical, designers, developers, architects, sysadmins,.. in fact I wish the general public read it as well, sometimes. Might set their expectations a bit more realistically when they're planning things like ID card systems, working on the assumption that computers are like the ones in Star Trek in being omniscient and virtually error-proof.

Re: Doh!

[An anonymous Frank]

The main problem is that "every" call to 911 must be treated as a valid emergency call until/unless proven otherwise, thus tying up resources for a significant amount of time; imagine the other end of a pseudo-silent call, you're a 911 tech and you can hear odd sounds, perhaps movement yet nothing helpful; is this someone grasping for their last breath and not able to speak on the phone due to injuries?

They could be helping someone in real need instead, so it's important to avoid accidental dials/calls.

In our office space here, we're regularly asked to be careful how we dial outside calls because getting an outside line requires dialing a 9, which could be accidentally repeated, and making a long distance has you dial a 1 next; apparently there's a few calls a day from our building!

Re: Doh!

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

They could be helping someone in real need instead, so it's important to avoid accidental dials/calls. Yeah, and it's important that people who call 911 don't give away the fact that they are calling 911 or are even present so that the person they are calling 911 about doesn't find them and blow their heads off.

Which is more important?

Re:Doh!

[mpe]

Second, presuming it is so common that 'something must be done'

Most likely this isn't the case at all.

then they should have come up with an escalating alarm - like say more than 5 consecutive calls to 911

What if the reason for this is someone hiding from an intruder somewhere with poor coverage on their phone?

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.

Not a good idea if you are a kidnap victim who has made the call without your kidnapper knowing.
The problem with this "solution" is that it could easily result in people being hurt or killed who otherwise wouldn't be.

Re: Doh!

[An anonymous Frank]

Thought I'd mention that I wasn't advocating the sounding of an alarm at all since my post did not make that clear.

this happened in texas?

[Anonymous Coward]

So why wasn't she carrying her pistol? I'm in a city in Iowa. When I came home and found my door open and all my lights on, I called 911 after I crept through my house with a large monkey wrench in my hand. 911 then told me to stay outside and wait for police. No thanks. If I had caught the intruder, they would have either given up and waited for the police, or been clobbered by me. Of course I would only swing in self defense, and since I would be cornering them I would consider any move by them to get away a move against myself. The police around here tend to taser or shoot everybody on a scene, then try to sort it out later. I feel safer dealing with morons myself. And my phone beeps too. A Samsung 930 with verizon. My old star tac which I miss dearly, would display "emergency call"

Re:this happened in texas?

[Paradise Pete]

911 then told me to stay outside and wait for police. No thanks. If I had caught the intruder, they would have either given up and waited for the police, or been clobbered by me.

I think you left out one possible outcome. If you don't go in all that's at risk is your stuff. By going in you've raised the stakes enormously. It doesn't matter if you are the toughest guy who ever walked the planet. As they say in poker, "Going all-in works every time. Right up until it doesn't."

Re:this happened in texas?

[sribe]

So why wasn't she carrying her pistol?

Even if she had been carrying a pistol, dialing 911 should still have been (at least nearly) her first act. And her phone should not have started making noise.

Advice to the carriers' lawyers:

[StandardCell]

Do a firmware push to turn this feature off of all phones enabled with it ASAP. Someone will be in a compromised situation who needs to call 911, alert a criminal and be killed or seriously hurt because of this.

E911 Location

[kilonad]

I'm sure that whoever thought it was a smart idea thought that the primary reason people called 911 was in case of a medical emergency. E911 makes it possible to find your general location, but only to within a city block or so IIRC. A loud alarm on the phone would make it possible for them to find you even if you became unconscious. Unfortunately, it also makes you a huge target if you aren't calling for a medical emergency.

The solution to this problem is to make a separate panic alarm which is activated either manually or remotely by the 911 operator, depending on your situation. Of course, if something happened to you as the result of the operator's decision to turn it on, they'd be liable, so that leaves manual activation, and if you stay on the phone with 911, how are you supposed to activate it?

Re:E911 Location

[petermgreen]

the other reason I can think of for an audible indication is that someone mandated that emergency calls should dial through keypad lock. Unfortunately the result of this combined with the short length of emergency numbers is to send a hell of a lot of accidental calls the emergency services way...

Re:E911 Location

[jamar0303]

Sanyo makes a phone with a manually-activated alarm (a pull string on the back). It also launches a tracking application that allows you to trace it, even when off. That's a good implementation- Verizon's is not. I wish Sprint sold this model- I think it'd be popular with overprotective parents for their kids.

Re:E911 Location

[greed]

Am I the only one who things an always-exposed keyboard is just a pain? I use a belt holster, and without a "flip"-type phone, the buttons would get pressed all the time.

I even had a flip-phone with buttons that were accessible through the flip--and holding one down (by, say, sitting down on the subway) would unlock the phone and start calling entries your incoming call log.

What point is a flip-closed-keypad-lock that can be canceled without opening the flip?

That one was a POS in many other ways, and the telco got to replace it per their warranty terms....

Re:E911 Location

[Anonymous Coward]

My old flip phone used to take lots of pictures of the inside of my packet, but at least it didn't advertise itself when I called 911. No idea about my new Verizon flip phone. I'll have to remember to be careful.

Re:E911 Location

[Starayo]

That... That is an awesome phone.

Why isn't this feature on every mobile out there?

Re:E911 Location

[jamar0303]

I wonder the same thing. This seems far more useful as a kid's phone than the Firefly. Certainly the Firefly can't give you up-to-the-minute maps and photos of where the kid's going if 911 is dialed (or the battery lock to prevent the battery from being removed).

Re:E911 Location

[Typoboy]

Mandating dial through keypad lock is idiotic. I finally have a phone whose keylock actually stays locked in my pocket (hint: more than 1 DIFFERENT button has to be pushed ) and yet it still tries to go down the road of dialing 112 OR 911 ( bought it in Europe so i doubt it has the alarm issue ) .. Next request: A bluetooth headset that has a hard OFF button, same reason.

What's the Alarm?

[rodney dill]

Danger Will Robinson, Danger

How can I tell what my phone does?

[bstone]

Is there any way to know how a particular phone/provider combination is going to work? Calling 911 to test it doesn't sound like a good idea, but knowing whether or not my phone is going to alert the burglar in my house that I'm there might be good information to have.

Re:How can I tell what my phone does?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFM?

Re:How can I tell what my phone does?

[FuturePastNow]

1) Find the most dangerous intersection in town

2) Sit there until someone gets in an accident

Re:How can I tell what my phone does?

[bstone]

I looked ... it doesn't mention it.

Does that mean I can sue them if it sounds an alarm and the burglar kills me?

Re:How can I tell what my phone does?

[deniable]

Yes, but you'll have to show up for court.

Re:How can I tell what my phone does?

[Anonymous Coward]

The best way I can think of would be to go (far far) out of service range for your cell phone, try to dial a few numbers, then being totally sure that it doesn't work, you could try 911. I still don't think this is a very good idea, because you never know for sure that you won't get service. Maybe a better idea would be to turn the phone onto airplane mode so that the radio is turned off (although then it probably won't let you dial either) The only safe way to do it would be to go out of service range, take apart the phone and remove the antenna, then at this point it would be very unlikely that you would get any service at all, then test 911.

Re:How can I tell what my phone does?

[PPH]

Wait until you happen to drive by someone broken down on the freeway, or some other minor incident. The cops won't really be pissed, as this is a legitimate (more or less) use of 911. OTOH, if the alarm DOES go off, you can then call Verizon and complain that the alarm startled you and you nearly ran a busload of small children off the road. Ask them what their liability would be in such a case.

Re:How can I tell what my phone does?

[lobStar]

At least in Sweden, you can make an emergency call on another network if the phone can't reach your own. So trying other calls isn't a wouldn't work.

is it that bad?

[Errtu76]

Really. I'm not an American and i'm just baffled by your statement. I get news about your health system and i'm shocked (no, i don't mean mister moore's movie - i have no idea how accurate it is). And now this. You can laugh, but the only idea about 911 we have here is what we got in the past from the tv show with that star trek dude. And that seems pretty professional.

And you're totally right about the non-emergency number by the way. Yes it was a situation for the police, but come on, returning from a holiday? It wouldn't matter if you called now or the next day! I guess it takes that long then because more people can't judge for themselves if a situation is really an emergency.

Re:is it that bad?

[Paradise Pete]

You can laugh, but the only idea about 911 we have here is what we got in the past from the tv show with that star trek dude.

Generally speaking, slashdot posts and reruns of T.J. Hooker run about equal in terms of accuracy.

Re:is it that bad?

[Moridineas]

IMHO, Europeans like to bash on X aspects of American life, Americans like to bash on Y aspects of European life. Is there truth in both sets? Probably.. Doesn't mean X and Y are completely accurate though!

A year or two ago, my office's alarm system went off--called my cellphone. We've been broken into before, so I ran to my laptop and logged into our security cameras--I see the front door swinging open. I call 911. From the time I made the call, cops were at the building in about 6 minutes. Maybe not great, but not too shabby either. The 911 person was very professional, I didn't have to repeat myself, I gave the address once, had it read back to me, and that was about it. That's really my only experience with 911, but I was happy.

Health care is another topic entirely (and offtopic at that) but I'm sure you would be shocked to hear that I would far and away rather have my system than any of the systems in Europe I know about! :)

What audible sound?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funeral March?

Heh...

[morari]

Maybe she should consider getting a gun instead of leaving the entirety of her safety up to a telephone and its ability to contact some piggies.

911 alarm ok if it is 2nd

[kurt555gs]

The danger of being discovered by a criminal because of this Verizon alarm is really disturbing. I would want out of my Verizon contract or , use the Casio only after using my GLOCK so as not to endanger myself. Then tell the police, " I had no choice, I had to shoot the suspect. If I would have called 911 first, it would be me in the body bag ". A few of those incidents and I'll bet Verizon fixes the problem. Cheers

Already happened

[Anonymous Coward]

This has already happened to Esther Green, wife of New York Jet Victor Green. She was carjacked and kidnapped along with her 11-month old baby in 1999. While the carjacker was driving them God-knows-where, Green discreetly reached into the diaper bag and SILENTLY dialed 911, while continuing to engage the kidnapper in conversation. A smart 911 dispatcher listened in and figured out what was going on and sent a cop, using information Green provided in her conversation.

With an audible alarm, Green and her baby would very likely have been dead.

911 denial of service over next few days?

[noidentity]

Will 911 be flooded with calls as everyone who reads this story tests their phone to find whether it makes an audible alert when 911 is being called? If I had a cellphone I'd sure as hell be testing it for this misfeature.

Wrong sound

[Deadstick]

Perhaps they could offer a new alarm tone: SHUCKSHUCK.

rj

If she had cats eyeglasses

[Provocateur]

Seeing the vandals approach menacingly, she whips out her handgun, but as Murphy's law would have it, she has a senior moment, aims the phone at her would-be attackers, and without looking away, attempts to dial the 911 number on her handgun, wondering why she couldn't hear any of the usual keypress tones...

The strangers come closer...

The only remedy I can think of

[Bananatree3]

is to time a simulated "sneeze" or loud cough at the same exact time to mask it. More safely would be to have a coworker "sneeze3" or "cough" who is far away from you to distract them. Sure it would look weird and would draw attention, but at least it doesn't signal the true 911 call.

OR

[Bananatree3]

stuff it in your shirt facing your stomach and sneeze/ cough at the same time.

I'm surprised...

[Bones3D_mac]

... that there isn't already a database of these 911/emergency mode sounds cell phones commonly make when placing such calls. Criminals could then intentionally listen for these sounds as they work so they know exactly who to kill and when.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Achromatic1978]

Haha. What, http://www.whatnoisedoesyourcellmakecalling911.com?

I can see it now, Joe The Burglar is busy ransacking your home cinema, hears a noise. John The Accomplice says, "What was that?" "I don't know, look it up on your Blackberry!" So John does. "Was it the Nokia sound? No... The Samsung sound... no. The Motorola sound? Yes! Alright, we know you're in here, you're dead you bastard, don't think we don't know you called the filth!"

Blackberries - designed to call 911 accidentally

[CKW]

> should have been asked is just how much of a problem are such calls?

It will become a problem if designers (or their idiot pointy haired managers) keep making dumb decisions.

Blackberries that have the scroll wheel and/or the pearl are extremely prone to accidentally dialing 911. If the scroll wheel is *touch* or moved in any way - a dialog pops up with three options:

    Unlock
    Emergency Call (aka Dial 911)
    Cancel

So if the scrollwheel was scrolled down a tiny bit (50% of the time!), now all that's needed to call 911 is two presses in a row of the scrollwheel - (there is a confirm dialog, and it defaults to yes please call) - and hey we already know that it's getting mucked with because it got moved!

Guess what the Blackberry/Rogers techs had to say when I phoned them to ask how to disable that? "Putting the phone in your pocket or your purse *IS NOT SUPPORTED* - you are NOT supposed to do that." They claim that blackberries are only being used "as designed" when they are in their crappy shitty uncomfortable holsters*. RIM has clearly heard tons of people bitch to them about it, because they were immediately defensive and angry and very cross for me not keeping it in the holster 24/7 - clearly a canned "oh we need to blame the customer for our screw-up" kind of response.

What kind of stupid idiot designer uses *one button* to create an emergency dialing system? At the very least all other phones require you to press two seperate buttons in a particular order (9 - 1 - 1) without pressing any other buttons within the reset/re-lockout period. I have never EVER pulled my cell out of my pocket to find it ready to call or calling 911. EVERYONE I know has pulled their blackberry out of their purse or pocket to find that it was one button press away from calling 911, and I was walking with another friend on a street when he got a call back from 911 saying "what's the problem, you just called us".

The laws may say the phone has to be able to make emergency calls, but it doesn't say the designers need to be daft idiots.

Someday I'll get around to writing a letter to the chief of police in my city and province, and to the attorney general - and pointing out that all the dead calls they are getting are likely from Blackberries, and that they should sic the dogs on RIM.

(*) Holsters that for one reason or another continuously hold down buttons and keep the screen on.

Ignored consequence

[n9hmg]

Well, that will certainly put a stop to those pesky women touch-dialing 911 in their purses during carjackings and other abductions.
And if they made it possible to disable this warning system for criminals, we'd immediately have lawyers recruiting blind people to borrow sighted peoples' phones so they could sue for violation of ADA, just like they do now by having "plaintiff farms" - groups of people holding 1 share of every stock they can get so they can sue when any stock decreases in price.
No problem exists, but if they can manufacture one, they can make money off it.

You could consider this situation a secondary effect of a parasite infestation.

Re:Ignored consequence

[Actually, I do RTFA]

groups of people holding 1 share of every stock they can get so they can sue when any stock decreases in price.

Any drop in price due to fraud or various other illegal activities. The point behind the plaintiff farms is to allow certain lawfirms to be first to file. If you want to see any flaw in the system, it is that the first lawyer to file a claim in what becomes a class-action gets such special privledges to make it worthwhile.

And actually, I'm not entirely sure that there is anything wrong with a plantiff farm. (I know they are illegal, but morally.) Then the best law firms are the ones to prosecute.

Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see what's so funny about carrying a gun. Personally I've been in two situations where I very much wish that I had a gun on me. Drawing a gun and pulling the trigger is a hell of a lot more affective than dialing 911 and waiting for the police when you're watching your friend get stabbed 4 times in the back by some meth addict who's pissed at the world because his girlfriend left him. Luckily now I live in a state that allows me to carry a gun. And I do.

Bok Bok! Bok Bok! Chicken alarm!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well with society in such capable hands those who try to do other peoples jobs and stick their noses in where they dont belong get what they deserve.

Metal Gear Verizon Guy

[game kid]

You do not want to trade that "No one but you will be able to hear it" Codec for a G'zOne with a Hind-D nearby.

Verizon Guy: *Calls 911* *911 alarm* Can you hear me n *machinegun fire* *death yell*

Colonel: Verizon Guy, what happened? Verizon Guy? VERIZON GUUUUUYYYYYYYYYY!!!

Mei: Is he dead???

Colonel: Good riddance. I was yelling to get those overtime voice-acting checks.

Just another reason...

[Dr.Boje]

...why I don't own a cell phone. I guess the most relevant reason for me not having one is my lack of a job, but hey, I had a cell for awhile and it drove me absolutely batshit insane. It's nice to be able to contact anyone at any time (assuming you have a signal), but it sure as hell is annoying when your phone rings every 10 minutes.

Re:Just another reason...

[Kreigaffe]

Unemployed, phone ringing every 10 minutes?

my 3 years of college is telling me that that's how it goes when you're slingin'.

Hmm - class action?

[cheros]

I don't know about you, but such a "feature" is in principle wilfully endangering users, especially if that "novelty" has not been made very clear in the manual like

"Warning: do not use near criminal activity. This phone's 911 service is only for safe emergancies. Only use near deaf criminals or at noisy places(*).

(*)Notice: nobody will hear you scream there either.

We do not accept any responsibility for stupid design decisions, but if this feature offends you, please return the phone to the shop to exchange it for our new model with attached compressed air canister."

It seems stupidity is the hardiest gene of all..

Force feedback?

[Dorceon]

If an audible alarm isn't required, why not vibrate the phone vigorously? If you're holding it you'll feel it but it probably won't be audible, at least to anyone else.

Re:Force feedback?

[Dachannien]

If an audible alarm isn't required, why not vibrate the phone vigorously? Wouldn't that tend to increase spurious calls to 911? ;)

Re:Force feedback?

[Dorceon]

I don't know... was Star Fax 64 bought by a lot of single women? Didn't think so.

Re:what's wrong with calling the cops?

[zmollusc]

I don't get the choice of shooting the bad guy, as i live in the UK and we don't need guns unless we are employed to protect important people.
Here, if you call the police because of an armed intruder, the cops just surround your property and sit outside till you are dead.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/4740688.stm

Okay, if it doesn't have to be audible...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not vibrate? Although that is pretty audible if you're close enough to someone, it's a bit easier to muffle than a loud alarm, and is equally easy to notice (seeing as you did dial the call, you are hanging on to the phone, hopefully well). And if you dial it accidentally, if your phone is in its holster or in your purse or pocket, it'd be somewhat easy to notice too... Or at least, easier if you're close enough to it.

Or, heck, turn it into a setting. "Notify when calling 911? Off/On" so all the blind people can turn on vibrate or super duper piercing alarm or whatnot, and all of us people who can see can disable it for our safety.

Regardless, it's still a risk, and should be gone.

911 Bot

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I dialed 911 from my cell phone I got an automatic phone system. How's that for emergency service?

Dial 911 and die

[Anonymous Coward]

This make me remember the book "Dial 911 and die"

T-Mobile

[StarkRG]

T-Mobile is the best unless you routinely travel outside major metropolitan areas.

But then again, who the hell goes to Kansas anyway?

Re:T-Mobile

[typobox43]

(Happy) T-Mobile user in Kansas here. :)

I hate automatic systems like this

[Just Some Guy]

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.

Re:I hate automatic systems like this

[onion_joe]

The same is true (IMHO) with power tools. There are simply times when a safety feature interferes with the task you are trying to perform.

So some dumbass used the device incorrectly once or twice and now everyone has to suffer.

I blame Bush.

If you accidentally dial 911

[200_success]

If you realize that you have accidentally dialed 911, the correct thing to do is to stay on the line and tell the operator that you dialed it by mistake. Then nothing happens.

It happened to me once, in an office where I had to dial 9 to get an outside line. Trying to call long-distance to L.A. (9-1-310-xxx-xxxx), my finger slipped and missed the 3.

"Mandatory" audible alarms and Photos/911

[Anachragnome]

My current Samsung/verizon phone does NOT do this as I have called 911 in the past. But when I am finally forced to upgrade(surprised I haven't been already....my phone is 3 years old), I already have a fix for it. I never use the audible ringtones anyways. My phone is always on "vibrate". If I am not wearing it, I simply lay it on a hard surface. The vibrate function when it is laying on a hard surface is sufficiently noisy enough that I can hear it from quite a distance.

That being said, I'll simply open the little badboy up and install a low-profile slider switch in the external speaker circuit. No sound unless I WANT it to make sound.

This also has the added benefit of silencing the "mandatory" audible warning that I am taking a photograph with my phone, as well. This audible warning can get one in the same trouble if you are taking a photo of a crime in action. The perp hears it, and knows its time to take somebodies phone from them, more then likely, by force.

Now, I know that the photo sound was added to keep undesirables from snapping pics of people when they do NOT have their permission, but is a criminal going to give me that permission? I feel it was just another attempt to regulate all of us to prevent a very small portion of us from committing crimes.

Re:"Mandatory" audible alarms and Photos/911

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunatly, the camera sound one came from Japan. They had a high incident rate of people snapping pictures of people when they shouldn't be, and especially from angles they shouldn't be.

That wasn't, IMHO, an over-reaction.

This is however. Since when would a blind person put their phone on slient?

On a side note....

[Anachragnome]

The sound your phone makes when you take a photo also alerts the COPS that you just took a photo of them roughing up somebody(just an example). And trust me, they know the sound of it. I tested this once when I was walking by an officer giving a traffic ticket to a driver he had pulled over. With my phone in my pocket(entirely unable to take an image of the officer)I simply hit the softkey that triggers the camera. The sound alone was enough to make him turn his head towards me as I walked by.

I'm glad Cingular and AT&T aren't subject to t

[hacker]

I have a Treo 680 and have had the Treo 650 before that, and I can guarantee that neither of these handsets, through their service at Cingular ("Single-Bar") and AT&T have this "loud" feature.

I regularly accidentally call 9-1-1 on my phone, because their stupid handsets automatically go into a mode when the keypad is locked that presents you with two options: "Ok" (after entering your unlock password) and "Make Emergency Call".

When my bluetooth headset is in my pocket, it regularly hits the "Make Emergency Call" button, and the 9-1-1 operator is subject to whatever noises are present, muffled through my pants pocket. Sometimes they call back or leave messages telling me that I've accidentally dialed 9-1-1 on them.

But there is most-certainly NOT a loud tone, chip, alarm or otherwise, when I dial them, accidentally or otherwise.

Perhaps...

[kitsunewarlock]

Maybe you can use this as a diversion. Dial 911, toss the phone across the room and put it on speaker phone?

Of course I'm kidding. This would just rile up anyone and get them looking for whose phone it was (or just randomly beating someone). Then again, if you REALLY didn't like someone nearby...you could hand them the phone...

What'd be really interesting if criminals started using these for those silly girls who go on their cellphones when walking down an alley, etc... and call up friends.

"Did you hear the 911 beep, Joe?"
"Nope, lets go get her purse!"

Copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

When you dial 911 you're giving away confidential private information about the criminal's activities. It's against his human rights to "compromise" his identity that way. Your only morally acceptable course of action against him is to pirate his music.

No need for witnessing it...

[Karl0Erik]

...we all know it was Mr. Green in the Library with the Rope.

...

...damn.

Linked page is.... wrong!!

[hummassa]

-5, Uninformative :-)

Brasil:
190 = police / all emergencies
192 = ambulance (190 also calls them for you)
193 = fire department

Re:what's wrong with calling the cops?

[belmolis]

I take it that zombies are a big problem in the UK then?

Perhaps she could have dialed Smith and Wesson

[vudufixit]

Texas is a very gun-friendly state, mostly because of this heroic person: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanna_Hupp

Duh!

[williamyf]

Ship the phone with tone enabled by default.

Put a red flier in the box saying that the tone is there, and how to disable it for non-blind people.

Put a braile card in the box for blind people explaining how to test if the tone is there, and how to enable it.

Enjoy!

s called customizability.

And meanwhile, the maker of the Red flier and the braile flier wil.... Profit?

Shouldnt this be an option in your phone?

[Narmacil]

I'm an RA at a college in the east (unnamed for keeping my job reasons) that recently had a fairly paramount tragedy, and as an RA I have to call the cops ALL the time because of inebriated people and otherwise incapacitated people who I'm somewhat obligated to help out (I love the job, and couldn't feel safer :P cause our cops are awesome) Nevertheless I have a LG phone that makes the loudest most annoying *emergency call* sound when I dial 911, and the worst part is the resident that I'm trying to help gets distressed because they think I'm out to get them arrested (normally I'm trying to look out for their well being). I cant turn it off and I'm always a little afraid that someone could get violent or attack me if they hear it go off when I go to make the call. I think this needs to be fixed, or optional, or in order to accommodate the handicapped, have it only enabled on phones that the purchaser specifically asks the dealer to enable it on.

Re:Shouldnt this be an option in your phone?

[HighBit]

Instead of 911, find out the regular number for your local dispatcher and call that... same service, less hassle :)

Shrug. You all asked to feel safer. Congrats.

[Catbeller]

Doesn't make you safer. Makes you feel safer.

As I've been saying for years, the E-911 system was just a con designed to put a GPS tracker into everyone's phone that could be accessed at will by the gubmint or whomever has the juice. I never needed to feel safe; I lack the hysteria gene that's been injected into Americans. But I do resent the tracker. And the possible tracker location log. EVERY damned police state trick they install is somehow designed to protect you from the you-know-whos nudge nudge wink wink. But the tech is always eventually turned against the population. We've survived for a half million years without being tracked in a giant prison state. We don't need it. We're feed stories of evil home invaders and dark muggers and we've turned our lives over to faceless organizations to "help" us. I'll never understand the cowardice that's gripped this country.

An emergency circuit containing the GPS location snitcher, powered by an actual physical on-off switch, fine, good, you can have a heart attack and help will come. But having the snitch hard-wired into the phone so it cannot be disabled without disabling the entire unit? That is defective by design, not designed to help you, but to track you against your will if someone wishes to do so. Powering off with a switch won't kill it -- there're tricks to get around that, and same for the software off option in the menus. We've been feed a massive con by the Total Information Awareness power freaks who drove that design through. Bet you MANY bucks that rich and powerful men can opt out of the tracking with special phones. Doubt Cheney's phone has a snitch. It's the schlubs that get to be tagged hyenas.

Re:Shrug. You all asked to feel safer. Congrats.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you didn't get the hysteria gene. You got its recessive variant--conspiracy.

Re:Shrug. You all asked to feel safer. Congrats.

[MLease]

Perhaps he did. But the history of humanity is replete with the powerful angling to get ever more power. There is a reason that nations rise and fall; in many cases, the good-intentioned people who started them eventually are replaced by (or become) people who are attracted to positions of power and responsibility just because they get off on controlling others and expanding their control, and this continues until the ones in power alienate everyone else and the house of cards collapses in one way or another. We (the US) may not be quite at the point where our government is bound to slide into dictatorship, but the signs are worrisome; our government is becoming increasingly disconnected from the will of the people, and adopting a "daddy knows best" attitude.

Conspiracy theories are often the result of the theorists' ascribing malice to actions which are better explained by incompetence, or even a simple difference of opinion as to the best course of action. However, this does not mean that conspiracies don't exist.

-Mike

Re:Blackberries - designed to call 911 accidentall

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Pearl and have accidentally called 911 several times in the manner you described. It's actually really annoying when the operating starts screaming at you for not locking your keypad. The last time it happened I replied with "It was locked jackass, look at a Blackberry Pearl sometime". I'm suprised I didn't end up in jail!

oblig:

[swatward]

SILENT ALARM ACTIVATED!

You insensitive, prejudiced clod!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"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 have no nerve endings, you mongoloid mo-ron! I can't feel vibrations! But your literary callousness, I felt that.

Re:You insensitive, prejudiced clod!!!

[UncleTogie]

I have no nerve endings...

I'm impressed! Using the Force to post on /. is totally geek!

{You would've HAD to; no link from nerve to muscle, or even from one neuron to another.}

...you mongoloid mo-ron!

Hey, even Mongo knows "moron" is spelled without a dash... Shoulda used the Force on this one!

08 bypasses key locks too...

[WoTG]

I called 911 a few times with my cell phone supposedly in keyboard locked mode because of 08 + "dial". It's super easy to do since it's only 2 digits and they're in line vertically (including the call button on many phones).

Not sure if that was specific to my Nokia model or not. I eventually looked it up, it's the emergency number for Mexico, I think.

Anyway, after getting a scolding from the call centre a couple times, I've vowed to always get flip phones from now on.

911?

[yoshi3]

I thought it was 112 for mobile phones. Isn't it meant to be an international stadard or somethin?

I'm confused

[Legion303]

According to TFA, she called 911 after noticing her "security chain" (i.e., "driveway fence") was missing. The property was otherwise unoccupied, so it stands to reason that no one's life was in danger at the time.

So why did she dial 911, which is for emergencies only?

Re:I'm confused

[Attila Dimedici]

If you read the summary, she feared that the vandals were still on the property, this implies that there were parts of the property that were not visible to her from where she was. If you read the actual article (which is a bit much to expect on slashdot) this is made explicitly clear. She dialed 911 because there was a reasonable possibility that criminals of some sort were still present. That is the course of action that I would recommend that all of my female friends take in that situation.

Re:I'm confused

[Legion303]

You would recommend your female friends stick around in front of the property (she was in front of her driveway, not on the property) to call 911 instead of driving away?

I'd recommend them to drive away, then call the operator and ask for a non-emergency police connection as there is no need to waste the time of emergency services people with non-emergencies.

Re:Blackberries - designed to call 911 accidentall

[Anonymous Coward]

Other phones (e.g. Nokia) just ignore the keylock when dialing 112 (GSM / european emergency number).

With the phone locked, pressing the keys in random order (like happens in your pocket, that's why we lock phones in the first place) will be ignored. Except for the 1 key. Touch the 1 key, and the display say "1". Keep pressing random keys, and they will be ignored. Except for the 1 key. Now the display says "11".

Keep pressing random keys... They will be ignored. Even the 1 key is ignored. But touch the 2 key just once... "112". After that, all the numbers will be ignored, no exceptions. But the dial key on the other hand...

Back when I had a phone like that, I have at least once pulled it out of the holster saying "11", even though the keypad was locked. That's how I noticed the problem.

This is a phone bought in europe. If you buy a similar phone in the US, it would probably do the same for 911.

Now I have a clamshell phone. End of *that* problem. (Now, if just I could get hold of the moron who decided to put the camera button on the *outside*, I would print out and make him eat a few thousand pictures of the inside of my pocket.

UK has 999, 911 and 112

[kingtonm]

I was at a first aid course the other day and the guy from the ambulance service said we have three, 999 which is the uk number, which is also why in most offices you dial 9 for an outside line, so you can just keep punching 9 and you'll get through. 112 because that's what mainland europe use and 911 because of north america.

He did point out the americans don't reciprocate.

That isn't the worst of it...

[drouse]

In my town 911 has the "COPS" theme song as the ring-back tone.

(And then they get angry at you for not texting them instead, I think they have a rate-plan issue)

It's definitely not new...

[Anonamused Cow-herd]

This definitely isn't new. I've had my (Verizon LG VX7000) for about 2.5 years, and it also makes a loud audible alarm when you call 911. The alarm is quite distracting, and persists even if I'm on vibrate or silent mode. I've used 911 to report a few crimes and a downed powerline in my area, and each time it infuriates me. I don't know what kind of an idiot would think it a good idea, but I called and complained already. Good to see they take that (and common sense) into account, eh?

Please...

[nunyadambinness]

I continue to be impressed by the depth of stupidity of some posters. Your objection (deaf people? seriously?) just goes to show that no matter what you do someone will make up a fake, contrived, ridiculous situation to complain about.

Re:Please...

[UncleTogie]

Your objection (deaf people? seriously?) just goes to show that no matter what you do someone will make up a fake, contrived, ridiculous situation to complain about.

Since I'm 70% deaf, no fakies here. "Accessibility" does not mean "accessibility for the blind only". Thanks for playing our game, and feel free to try again when you have something useful to contribute!

Re:Please...

[nunyadambinness]

Since I'm 70% deaf

No one cares. Your objection didn't get any less stupid because you think you being deaf matters. It's STILL a stupid objection.

Unlimited M2M?

[Pope]

Unlimited M2M? Dude, that's so gay.

New cool feature comming soon for Verizon phones!

[Anonymous Coward]

They geniuses at Verizon labs came up with a new idea. In addition to the alarm, new models will also feature a huge neon-sign that pops out of the handset with an arrow pointing to the caller and flashing "lookie here! I'm dialing 911!". This idea was approved out of a pile of other ideas that included an inkjet built in that sprays the letters "I'm a snitch, kill me" onto the caller,
and an autodialer that detects and dials the perp's phone to let him/her know who is calling 911 on them and where they can be found (thanks to the built in GPS).

Re:Blackberries - designed to call 911 accidentall

[NateTech]

The true Blackberry branded holsters have a magnet in them that puts the phone to sleep via a sensor in the phone. You sure you're using RIM-created Blackberry branded holsters and not cheap $3 Chinese crap?

Verizon is not to blame for this one

[WindShadow]

You base your comment on the assumptions that what was said by an employee is really company policy (it's not, I have Verizon, I have used 911, no sound). In addition Verizon has opened their network, you can use any phone you want to buy, subject to being technically suitable, and run any software you want. Yes, the ad says explicitly you can, I'm not drawing a conclusion on my own.

I would hope to be able to use a Linux powered "gPhone" at some time in the near future.