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Homeland Security Drops Color-Coded Terror Alerts
Hugh Pickens writes "The LA Times reports that the Homeland Security Department is poised to end its five-tiered, color-coded terrorism warning system, a post-Sept. 11 endeavor that has been called too vague to be useful and has been mostly ignored or mocked by the public. The domestic security advisory system was created in 2002 under then-Secretary Tom Ridge and in 2004, the department began assigning color threat levels to general targets such as aviation, financial services and mass transit. However the Department hasn't changed the alert level in four years, even after the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 and the alert level has only been elevated to red once, on Aug. 10, 2006, when British police disrupted a plot to detonate liquid explosives on airliners. Although it is unknown what, if anything, will replace the color-coded alerts, a senior Homeland Security official, who did not want to speak on the record about a decision still under review, says that 'the goal is to replace a system that communicates nothing.'" Can't we just re-use the big DefCon displays from Wargames?
... that Mauve is the Universally recognised colour for danger.
Disclaimer: I’m Canadian, so my view of this whole color coded terror alert thing may be a bit off.
Rather than trying to produce something that “provides more information”, try producing something that directly satisfies someones requirements.
Who wants this information. What are they going to do with it? Lets say we are a financial institution and our terror alert is high.. what does this mean to us? How does it change our activities for today? What threat specific info would be useful in guiding us?
I think “levels” are kind of silly.. the information should be self explanatory and maybe in bulletin form. “There was an attempted bombing. We are not sure if this is isolated or part of a larger plot. Similar institutions or people in the same geographic area should be on the lookout for: whatever.” If there is a transit bombing.. then other transit institutions should be notified and some kind of established procedures should go into effect.
Using colors I think was especially silly, because paraphrasing Lewis Black (with less profanity), every time they talk about the color they have to explain what it means anyway.
Any higher level alert will be avoided as it could cause a panic and play into the terrorists' hands.
Any lower level alert will never be used because by design the war on terror is a perpetual war . And ending the crisis would constitute the government surrendering power back to the people, which they don't want to do.
This actually makes sense. The "threat level orange" was getting pretty ridiculous, and political chances of the "threat level" ever returning to "green" or even "yellow" seemed awfully remote.
how many fingers am I holding up?
Open Standards Portal
Why not use probability average American will get killed in a car accident divided by probability they will be killed by a terrorist.
It gives a useful comparison, is verifiable and makes the danger level obvious to all.
I bet the replacement will be 2-way switch with labels "Terror" and "More Terror" glued shut in the latter position.
People who like this sort of sig will find this the sort of sig they like.
About fucking time. That whole system was totally pointless anyways.
I mean seriously. What the hell is this good for anyways?
"Saddam" (i.e. no threat)
"Oh shit, I might have bounced a check"
"Oh shit, I bounced a check"
"OMG"
"OMFG"
"Pant-shitting"
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
It's Blakley's Law:
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
...as threat indicators, I mean come on, how cool would it be to hear "*ding**dong*The Department of Homeland Security has deemed the current threat level to be 'Tapioca'"
Loading...
Yes, this is the problem.
The last time flew into Denver from Canada, they kept saying over the loudspeaker in the airport that we were at Threat Level Orange. I assumed this was something new and that I should brace for even worse security.
When I asked my US counterparts what was up, they basically said the same thing ... they've been at Threat Level Orange (it sounds much more official with the caps) for most of the last decade, and that they've stopped listening to it -- pretty much the whole country. In fact, they joked about it because it had ceased to be meaningful in any way. It seems to have become a perpetual state from which nobody will ever be moved. I fear, as you say, they would never allow us to go back to normal, because they'd have to give up their new-found control.
We have always been at war with Oceana (or is that us? I get so confused).
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Oh Great!
For years, I looked at these home-built alert level gadgets and finally decided to build one myself.
-And the moment I buy a string of orange Halloween LED-lights, they decide to drop the color level system
Replace the system with nothing. General description of threat is meaningless and does nothing but frightens the public.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Wargames?
No we can't those are for Global Thermonuclear War.
Not for some guy with a dynamite stick up his ass.
n/t
Level 0: "Friendly pat" - no terror threat. Only theoretical, as we will never see this level.
Level 1: "First Knuckle" - be afraid citizen, but only a little, as the DHS will protect you. Now, cough, please.
Level 2: "Middle Finger" - citizen, we are going to have to "set aside" your rights for a bit. I hope you aren't allergic to latex.
Level 3: "Two in the stink" - prole, you will comply, for the good of the country.
Level 4: "Fist" - your papers are not in order. You vill follow us to the back room.
Level 5: "total(itarian) domination" - What searches? There are no searches! You have committed thoughcrime and wordcrime. Big Brother Loves You, and wants you to be better, and will re-educate you.
www.eFax.com are spammers
> Obsolete because we will always be at Orange Alert
I think that a more appropriate term is Scare Level Orange.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Yesterday most of the TSA's whole boddy scanners were idled, and very few passengers were asked to go through them. This way the TSA was able to claim that only a small number of people opted out (since only a small number of people were made to choose between getting pornscanned or gateraped.)
So apparently, the threat of bad PR and long lines from National Opt Out Day was a bigger threat than Al Qaeda. That is a more informative datum than the color code.
So clearly, people should chill the fuck out, we are not under a great thread, and it's time to quit pornscanning and fear mongering.
And also, it's time to change the thread scale from the color code to a scale of bitchiness, i.e. how bitchy do you have to be to be considered a bigger concern than Al Qaeda. Yesterday was clearly around a 2 out of 10 (i.e. "Meh") on any bitchiness scale. Even a slight level of bitchiness was enough to be a bigger concern than Al Qaeda. If Osama and his guys get some respite from dodging the Hellfire missiles and plan an actual attack, the level will rise all the way to 10/10 ("Reno 911").
Howzat?
It always looked too much like this
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
They were probably tired of switching light bulbs whenever they were going from blue alert to red alert.
Ezekiel 23:20
Replace the entire DHS with nothing. While we're at it, let's demolish the ICE black helicopter corps and every other federal domestic paramilitary department of ritual abuse.
Can't we just re-use the big DefCon displays from Wargames?
While I realize that the submitter was just cracking a joke, it's actually pretty lame on an important level (...probably on some unimportant ones, too, but I digress).
The DEFCON (Defence Readiness Condition) system is in many ways the antithesis to the obscure TSA color-coded alerts. DEFCON assigns its lowest level (5) to the 'normal' state of preparedness -- none of this nonsense with a perpetual orange alert; if something is usual practice then that's the lowest condition.
Under DEFCON rules (or the terorrism-related FPCON rules), members of the military have specific, clearly delineated responsibilities and tasks. There is a firm grasp of the meaning and intent of each condition. In contrast, telling civilians they're facing threat level Orange (or Yellow, or Red) doesn't mean anything. We don't know what to do differently - if anything - and we don't know what might happen, or how to respond, or when the condition might be returned to normal.
Of course, I also recognize that my message header could serve as an apt description of the whole color-coded threat warning system....
~Idarubicin
Today's threat level is PUMPKIN.
Ok then, here's my public status indicator: #FFFFFF
That is all.
It's hard to feel a sense of emergency when the threat level has been stuck on the same level for years.
Sunkist sales were down. Nobody was buying oranges anymore, and lemon sales were stagnating too.
I have a sanitation droid to do it for me...
[All Your Fish Are Belong To Us]
One less toy for politicians to play bullshit bingo with whenever federal elections are around the corner.
Back in the day the Bush administration simply took the whole thing too far.
See, I liked the color system! You could combine it with other color codes--like, if Code Puce (puce is a reddish-brown) was declared, it meant that terrorists flinging poo was an imminent threat. ;)
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
The best explanation of the purpose of the color system I have heard is as follows. Potential suicide bombers are, by definition, not afraid of death, because they believe that their murder/suicide will bring them paradise. They are, however, terrified of being captured. This would mean an ignominous death in a jail cell of old age, and they would be denied their afterlife reward. As a result, AQ is said to be extremely skittish. If AQ believes that a plan has been exposed, they will scuttle the plan and go into hiding, sometimes for years.
The color system was designed to work in conjunction with the sort of intelligence we were getting -- where we knew from traffic analysis that an attack was likely about to be executed, but did not know the specifics. The idea was that the color level would be maintained at yellow, but when U.S. intelligence felt that an attack was imminent, but had no specifics, they would make a public announcement and raise the color level. This would, it was hoped, spook AQ enough for them to postpone or cancel the attack. Then, of course, there would be no attack, and the talk show hosts would mercilessly mock the government officials, who would have to console themselves with the knowledge that they had possibly saved hundreds or thousands of American lives, but not really knowing for sure.
The article gives no indication that the current Homeland Security understands the actual purpose of the system. They seem to be dismantling it for no other reason than that being mocked by the media rubs them the wrong way. I certainly hope that there are no more successful AQ attacks, but it is sobering to realize that the U.S. government is dismantling what may well be a very well functioning part of our national defense system because they find using it to be embarrassing.
And apparently nobody remembers what a lime even looks like. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Yet everyone that has an IQ over 100 can see the 'terror threat level' is total bullshit... It's the other 80% of the population under 100 that is too stupid to realize these facts.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
they joked about it because it had ceased to be meaningful in any way
In order to cease, you need to start first.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Lisa: “By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.”
Homer: “How does it work?”
Lisa: “It doesn’t work. It’s just a stupid rock.”
Homer: “Uh-huh.”
Lisa: “ but I don’t see any tigers around, do you?”
I'm Canadian. I thought USA homeland security only used yellow, orange and red.
DHS will now release colored chickens to broadcast level of terror alerts. Citizens are encouraged to take the below actions depending on what color chicken you see running around in their neighborhood :
- Yellow colored chickens : Start looking at the minorities in your neighborhood suspiciously and irritatingly
- Orange colored chickens : Start moaning about good old days in doorsteps with your neighbors, and comment that "Good old {Insert-conservative-dead-president} would not let these damn {Insert-preferred-minority-to-rail-against}s run around prancing like {Insert-derogatory-irrelevant-adjective}s in our neighborhood like that" and spew in a minority house direction on the ground.
- Red colored chickens : Duck and cover. Or, alternatively, start treating the chicken as your long lost grand grandfather and change your name to "Doggone".
- Purple colored chicken : Youre already in planet Mars.
Read radical news here
As am I. Green is the hypothetical color we'll never see again -- think September 10, 2001.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Get serious. There's a doubleplusgood reason we've always been at war with Eurasia.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Literally your odds of winning the big prize in a lottery are far higher than dying in a terror attack in the US. Take away 911 and the Oklahoma bombing and the numbers become astronomical. People are panic stricken about being safe from terrorist yet more people are killed by lightning in the US. It's all media and government hype. They got lucky with 911 because the government had their eye off the ball and regulations were incredibly lax. I'm not talking about "enhanced" security measures I'm talking common sense ones like cabin security which would have prevented the plane crashes. Guess how many fatal terror attacks the enhanced security measures have stopped? Zero. What about the underwear bomber wouldn't they have stopped him? Even if his bombed had worked it wouldn't have brought the plane down and he seemed to be the only one at risk. The shoe bomber? Once again the bomb was too small to bring down a plane. Oklahoma and 911 were unusual because most terror attacks in this country aren't about killing large numbers of people they are about getting us to be afraid and changing how we live. If that's the yardstick then the terrorists are winning and we are helping them. Virtual all the major attacks were stopped through intelligence or lucky breaks outside the country. We're effectively taking off our shoes and getting groped to make people feel safer it's not really about stopping terrorists. I've heard the scanners are really more about drugs and contraband than bombs and weapons. I'm dead wrong? Well then what ever happened to the explosion detecting machines? Instead of those they went for more broad range technologies that just happen to reveal other things as well. This is along the lines of stopping some one for a broken tail light so the police have an excuse to search your car. It used to happen to me all the time. Now they can strip search you without cause let alone a court order and they don't even need to be police. The enhanced measures are just an excuse to search people and have little to do with terrorism. This holiday season relax about terrorist attacks and worry far more about a real threat, getting struck by lightning.
Can't we just re-use the big DefCon displays from Wargames?
How about we have no indicator whatsoever? I know, it's a crazy, wild idea. Just hold on a sec and follow along. I know, I know, it's crazy, but hear me out. The current color-coded threat level has been derided as useless by the public. The government employees themselves don't pay attention to it. Raising the threat any higher means Bad Things Coming, and we can't lower it, for fear of the public and officials getting complacent. Homeland security is doing nothing because it's hands are tied, and the indicator didn't serve much purpose in the first place.
Maybe, just maybe, I know it's crazy-talk, we should have no indicator at all.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Dude, by definition it's the other 50% of the population under 100.
Thanks for clearing up on which side of the Bell curve you sit.
That's actually fairly interesting. Assuming it's 100% legit, under condition green:
So, even under the best of all possible conditions, you should get getting pamphlets which will teach you to be paranoid and vigilant about hypothetical things for which there is no apparent risk.
So, there simply is expected to be a level of mostly contained background panic even at the best of times.
Wow. Just F'ing wow!!
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It's not like a less vague system makes anything less vague since the public doesn't have the information the government does. And it all seems to come down to a matter of chance in the end.
Take the UK system for example:
Critical - an attack is expected imminently
Severe - an attack is highly likely
Substantial - an attack is a strong possibility
Moderate - an attack is possible, but not likely
Low - an attack is unlikely
The Colours should have immediately obvious meanings.
For Example: Threat level Pink - LGBT Terrorist attacks imminent. Threat level Amber - we are being attacked by missing children. Threat level Plaid - Scottish Terrorists are about to play bagpipes at us.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
What's humorous is that the avian flu, which this guy cites, is actually down to a 3, from a 5 when his post was written.
The "alert level" was Orange August 2006 until now. It was just an excuse to implement far-reaching "security" measures to strip people of their freedom in exchange for the illusion of security.
The odds of dying from cancer caused by the X-ray backscatter systems are higher than the odds of being killed by a terrorist on a flight. I'd rather take my chances with the terrorists.
'...that communicates nothing'
They're disbanding Home Land Security AND the TSA?
It's the other 80% of the population under 100 that is too stupid to realize these facts.
This isn't about intelligence, though. It is about fear. Fear is an emotional state and not tied at all to intelligence. There are lots of very intelligent people who know the same facts that we do, and are still scared of a terrorist attack because they have visions of planes flying into buildings. Is it irrational? Sure. But fear has nothing to do with rationality because it is an emotional response. People will go for anything that makes them feel less afraid. Intrusive searches and security levels tend to make people feel safe even when those same people know that these things are mostly pointless.
Y'know, I realize you're trying to be facetious, but by definition, 50% of the population has an IQ under 100.
Of course, IQ is a meaningless number as it is. It really doesn't mean anything when expressed as a number like that. It *could* have some meaning when expressed as +/- standard deviations (though it still isn't an accurate measure of your ability to actually use that knowledge), but that'll never happen, because that would require that the population as a whole have at least a basic understanding of statistics.
On topic, there isn't really much point in having a terror threat level. The old Defcon system (which is still in use) was much more meaningful, because it expressed the state of readiness of the military to go to total war... the problem is, we've been at war for the better part of the last decade. Actual combat. So that number wouldn't change either: we'd be at Defcon 2, and the only way to reach Defcon 1 would be if a nuclear exchange started. For the general population, it'd become yet another completely meaningless number.
Le sigh. We live in interesting times.
If the above is not true, then why do women choose to date assholes while they want all nice guys to die alone? Something to think about before you idealize them.
Because most self-described "nice" guys are nothing of the sort. They're just boring guys without a personality whose only positive virtue is this so called "niceness"... a pretense that is quickly dropped once the girl they're trying to get with starts dating someone else.
As am I. Green is the hypothetical color we'll never see again -- think September 10, 2001.
You wouldn't have seen green back then anyway, or any other color for that matter, the color-coding system was introduced March 11, 2002; nobody thought it was necessary before that point.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
If the above is not true, then why do women choose to date assholes while they want all nice guys to die alone? Something to think about before you idealize them.
Because most self-described "nice" guys are nothing of the sort. They're just boring guys without a personality whose only positive virtue is this so called "niceness"... a pretense that is quickly dropped once the girl they're trying to get with starts dating someone else.
Read this and behold your lack of understanding.
You have broken a commandment of not being a douchebag: THOU SHALT NOT SPEAK OF THINGS ABOUT WHICH YE KNOW NOTHING.
Bruce Schneier had a few thoughts a while back when Britain "adopted" the same threat levels to match America
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Now can we work on that awkward name which sounds a little too much like "Department of Fatherland Security"? How about Domestic Security Service or Dept. of Domestic Security? Or State Security Department? "Homeland" sounds far too much like something George Bush thought of while he was playing with his Al Qaeda and G.I. Joe figurines.
I think the entire thing is off base because it does not relate to real life in any meaningful way.
Call something: level Brown and people will understand - Brown is when you shit yourself.
Level Yellow is when you piss yourself.
Level Blue - that's when you have no air left and will die from suffocation.
Etc. Things like that.
You can't handle the truth.
And ending the crisis would constitute the government surrendering power back to the people, which they don't want to do.
Give me a god damned break. The "people" have never lost power in this country, except by their own failure to use it. If you want to end stupid shit then STOP ELECTING STUPID POLITICIANS. Seriously, I know the slashdot-accepted wisdom is that all politicians are stupid, and the government is always wrong, but this is easy to prove false (hell, we are only talking about this because of technology the GOVERNMENT developed).
So instead of being endlessly cynical about politics why don't you stand up and DO something? If the people running for office in your area suck, THEN RUN YOURSELF. Start WORKING to make a difference, rather than sitting back and blaming everyone else.
tl;dr: YOU GET THE GOVERNMENT YOU DESERVE
Stop winging.
At "green" condition in the days when I was living in Brezhnev's Soviet Union at the age of 10 (year 4 in their school system) I was supposed to know all the first aid stuff, be able to disassemble an AK47, service it and reassemble it in under 3 minutes, know how to use a gas mask, shoot at least 70+ score (1-10 additive, 10 shots) with a sport .22 or an air rifle as well as know all civil defence codes. I left around that time, however based on what I was told by my ex-classmates it actually got worse during Andropov's days with kids at the age of 12-13 being trained to use AK and PK for real and drills in schools.
The modern western world has not seen what a "forever war" means just yet. It has a long way to go to that and even longer to get to the Stalin's "war against the Trust" of the 1930-es.
It also is yet to see the real effect on the population of "not giving a f*ck". We are still far off from the days of "Brezhnev's despair". We are getting there though. It looks like some of the candidates to rule the biggest powers of the western world are demonstrating his educational level and IQ.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
A great (or at least, silly) man once said that if he were to replace the colored threat level system, he would do it with only two levels:
And now, people know what to do when the threat level is elevated.
Also, they call him "Tater Salad."
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
The last time flew into Denver from Canada, they kept saying over the loudspeaker in the airport that we were at Threat Level Orange. I assumed this was something new and that I should brace for even worse security.
<voice accent="british" type="male robotic overlo^W^H">
"May I have your attention please. Please do not leave cases or parcels unattended anywhere on the station. Any unattended articles are likely to be removed without warning."
"Please do not leave cases or parcels unattended anywhere on the station. Any unattended articles are likely to be removed and may be destroyed by the security services."
</voice>
<voice accent="british" type="female robotic mistress">
"Please keep your belongings with you at all times. Unattended articles may cause a delay to your service."
</voice>
I probably first heard this before my first birthday, and I've heard it most times I've waited more than five minutes for a train ever since. I've never left my luggage unattended though...
Ummm .... in Soviet Russia ... er ... ummm ... WTF?
God, I hope this isn't what we all have to look forward to. Why do I feel an urge to go down a bottle of vodka all of a sudden?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The actual point of the colors were to make sure that the lowest 2 would never be used. It was basically a constant "Everyone, live in fear!" sign. It was ignored and/or mocked by the public because pretty much everyone realized this. I can't find the graph, but someone charted the 8 years of Bush's approval rating, with the color chart on the background of graph, and it matches up almost perfectly, to the surprise of basically no one.
I'd be great if this were a 1-party thing, since then we could simply vote for the other guys, but that simply isn't the case. The Patriot Act passed with nearly unanimous approval, and while many predicted a gradual dropping of its measures under Obama, that simply hasn't happened... indeed, it's only gotten worse.
Unfortunately, while I'd love to say them finally axing this system is a sign that they realize a rational response instead of a fear-based one is what we need, I think they've simply decided that the TSA does a far more effective job of keeping everyone in fear that a silly color chart ever could. I don't know a single person that stopped flying due to terrorism. People recognized that while odds of dying to terrorists have gone up *slightly*, it's a trivial risk, much like swimming in the ocean may get you attacked by a shark, but almost certainly won't.
On the other hand, quite a few people have stopped flying because they don't want the choice of unnecessary radiation exposure or sexual assault to get on a plane. The TSA has accomplished what the terrorists only wish they could.
That's not to say we shouldn't be keeping an eye on terrorist organizations, and disrupting them when we can, but that requires actual intelligence work. The TSA is pure security theater.
And - it's right here:
http://www.geekandproud.net/terror/
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Any lower level alert will never be used because by design the war on terror is a perpetual war . And ending the crisis would constitute the government surrendering power back to the people, which they don't want to do.
Well, that's the obligatory cynical take on it. The more obvious reason is: if and when the next terror attack occurs, whomever was responsible for lowering the alert status most recently would inevitably be sacked for "taking their eye off the ball". And nobody wants to be the one holding that hot potato.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The "friend zone" is the other excused by whiners who can't get laid in addition to the "friend zone".
Bah in addition to the "nice guy myth"
It takes eight years of public mockery for the TSA to drop a useless system. Not hate, mockery.
So drop the hate and up the mockery for the rapey-scan machines, and you might be able to fly in or out of the US without the TSA looking at or touching your private parts by 2018!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I think the "nuclear apocalypse clock" or whatever it's called has moved back and forth quite a bit...although always close to the highest setting.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I always thought the terror alert system should use rubber duckies. This one's name is Englebert, he says "quack quack"...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It may not be about intelligence, but it certainly is all about stupidity and ignorance - traits that enhance a person's susceptibility to self-destructive fear and political manipulation.
So, how will they manage to divert attention every time a political scandal happens in the US or UK?
As usual, Schneier a voice of sanity in a sea of insanity w/r/t such issues.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Simple, we go to Def Con 5!
That has some weight to it and it was used in War Games.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
In fact, they joked about it because it had ceased to be meaningful in any way.
I was never quite clear what the I was supposed to do with the threat level information anyway.
"Threat level orange? Well then I'm going to report the guy with a stick of dynamite in his back pocket. Were it threat level green, I'd just assume he was just being prepared for some emergency demolition."
Reserved for epic Katrina-level FEMA failures. Brownie did a heck of a job.
I absolutely HATE being in Orlando International Airport and hearing a steady drone of how the current threat level is "orange." It's been that way for YEARS which proves two things: 1) it's completely inaccurate and 2) the creators never read The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
"Simple, we go to Def Con 5!"
We already are at DefCon 5.
Please turn in your Geek card now.
Actually that's not funny if you read the post. He is contrasting the WHO flu warnings which actually work to the public alert systems like the DHS color alerts which don't. That the avian flu warning has gone down since his post while the DHS alert is still at orange (for flights) backs up his point exactly.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
...at the time the tests were last normalized. If American's are getting dumber at a fast enough rate his numbers could very well be correct.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
After all, airports have been at code orange permanently ever since the code system was introduced. Yet for some reason every airport in the US plays the same announcement that is worded to make it sound as if the TSA just changed it to Orange this morning. Hell, I've heard that announcement so many times I can usually recite it from memory ... I guess we are retiring this system because the new machines at the airport now make us all dramatically safer from terrorist threat?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The "threat level orange" was getting pretty ridiculous, and political chances of the "threat level" ever returning to "green" or even "yellow" seemed awfully remote.
Technically, it was only the airports in the US that were permanently frozen at "threat level orange". Of course, most people never heard the threat level announced anywhere else, so they never realized that the threat level for the rest of the country was indeed variable.
I point this out not to defend the system - which sucks beyond any potential defense - but rather because I was myself surprised when I found this out.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I also note that on 9/11/2001 there were no Emergency Broadcast System alerts issued, even in NYC, or in DC, as both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were violently attacked. Despite several generations of Americans being trained that such an attack would be followed by such an alert, "in the event of an actual emergency".
I wonder if those nuke warheads even work.
--
make install -not war
They should replace the color alert system with a list of personal intrusions the TSA will visit upon airline passengers' bodies. Yellow = junk grab; orange = strip search; red = body cavity search.
I'm pretty sure I'm getting friend-zoned after sleeping with a chick for a couple of weeks. She's feeling guilty about cheating on her absentee boyfriend, but still wants to keep seeing me. At least it was a good couple of weeks.
Only 16777215? Or is that white alert? All alerts at once? Can we please upgrade to 32bit alerts, and have a plan to go 64bit in the near future?
Maybe you aren't over 100 IQ. You do know that by IQ is calculated using normal distribution, and by the very definition half the people are over 100, right? And as people as a whole get smarter the bar for 100 moves.... And not only that, you go on to make up some sort of statistic on the spot using the universal giveaway of 80%. This not only paints you as a BS artist, but also a moron. So if you are part of a magical 20%, I would say it is not the top, but rather the bottom.
All of this from a Doctor Who joke? Wow.
By definition: Only slightly above ~50% of the population is below or equal to 100?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
have they read The Boy Who Cried "Wolf"?
I much prefer
http://www.geekandproud.net/terror/
to 'Wargames' DefCon displays...:-)
DHS ought to stuff the airport pat-downs & porno-picture crapola as well. But it won't - it's only a matter of time before every form of US public transportation adopts these security measures. It's the only way the US will improve
You realize that IQ is a normal distribution normalized such that 100 is its mean so only ~50% of the population has an IQ below 100?
I thought that the definition was that 50% of the population has an IQ under 100. That's of Scare Level Orange all by itself.
I'm not a coward by any name.
That being said it does seem to have had an impact on some things.
Take Final Fantasy XIII for instance (copied from TVTropes):
Colour Coded For Your Inconvenience: The Palamecia's colored security codes in Chapter 9 don't make any sense. First an intruder alert causes Code Red, which later escalates to Code Green, and after the prisoners escape to Code Purple. Hope wonders aloud what the heck it all means, and then it's completely lampshaded when Colonel Nabaat starts having her epic Villainous Breakdown, shouting "This means we have a Code Blue! Or maybe Code Yellow. Or maybe Code Orange. If it was Code Orange that would mean...?" But then Primarch Dysley puts an end to it and remarks that "Desperate times demand flexibility: [beat] Code White!"
I noticed in the last few weeks that TSA is looking to change is face with the world, better PR.
I just got back from a business trip from NY to LA and have to say that the TSA was at their best. To tell you the truth, I preferred dealing with the TSA than the Delta staff.
About the lack of opt-outs, I have not seen the body scanner's being used. I think they shelved them for a week or two in the hope that the NEWS goes away. Have a 12 year old on the NEWS being stripped was a little too much for them. They are smart enough to know when you pull back till the smoke clears.
They will return for now happy travels.
Oceana is the Americas, Australia, GB and shifting territory around the equator. Eurasia is- Eurasia minus china, plus the shifting territory. Eastasia is china, japan, the pacific that's not oceana and shifting territories.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Janet Negropontie and her lap-dog Pistole are as useless as an asshole on the elbow (see Kill Bill pt 2).
And they both wear shit-kickers hats!
A true asshole needs to be usefull. These twerps are much less than assholes.
"Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb."
Y'know, I realize you're trying to be facetious, but by definition, 50% of the population has an IQ under 100.
Because IQ score was originally based on a relative measure, used to compare the intelligence of people statistically against average intelligence of the population.
If the intelligence of the public as a whole went down, and the country became an Idiocracy, your IQ could go up without you getting smarter, if the IQ test taker score sampling and percentiles are recomputed, because of the lower average intelligence of the public.
So there could be a false perception that older people are smarter, if their intelligence just stayed the same, but massive numbers of idiots were born
Damn. I just used up my mod points on the Android Mind Control article.
If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
Can we go to 11?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Of course, the color alerts weren't originally designed as a public alert system. They were designed to be noticed by law enforcement and specific industries that have to deal with security. These organizations have specific operational plans that go into effect at different levels. They only became a 'public alert system' after the public and media complained that the general population was being kept out of the loop. Out of the loop in this case apparently meant checking a website. After that, media began to continually report the current color.
Does that mean they're gonna be grayscale alerts now ?
What a depressingly stupid machine.
It was a not well thought out system that was really meant to make people think things had dropped in danger actually. The reality with all of the groups we've picked on in the last couple years, we should have always been on the brink.
It was just an effort to make the populous show the government was at least doing something, but they never intended to change the danger level.
They are switching to a grope and irradiation factor rating.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Woohoo, it'll only be a matter of time before my IQ qualifies me for Mensa now because yes people are getting dumber and that was the point I was trying to make by equating 100 IQ with only 20% of the population.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
Two comedians brought in to the forefront like this:
Conan O’Brien joked, “Champagne-fuchsia means we’re being attacked by Martha Stewart.”
Jay Leno said, “They added a plaid in case we were ever attacked by Scotland.”