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Nationwide Test of the Emergency Broadcast System
First time accepted submitter PattonPending writes "Mark your calendars! On November 9th national communications will be disrupted for around 3 minutes during the first nationwide test of the emergency broadcast system. From the article: 'On November 9, at 2 PM EST, FEMA will transmit the EAS code for national level emergencies to Primary Entry Point (PEP) stations in the national level of the EAS. The PEP stations will then rebroadcast the alert to the general public in their broadcast vicinity, as well as to the next level of EAS Participants monitoring them. This should continue through all levels of the system, until the national alert has been distributed throughout the entire country.'"
Cue inevitable future headline "Anonymous Hacks FEMA System, Broadcasts Godzilla Attack Warning Across U.S."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Did they pick 11/9 for this on purpose?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Just like when I was a kid, I wondered what would happen if the Russians launched a strike at noon on a Wednesday, which is when the Civil Defense siren on top of our school was tested.
Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the earth with enormous velocity. Professor Pierson of the Observatory at Princeton confirms Farrell's observation, and describes the phenomenon as (quote) like a jet of blue flame shot from a gun (unquote). We now return you to the music of RamÃn Raquello, playing for you in the Meridian Room of the Park Plaza Hotel, situated in downtown New York.
There's a /. button on THEIR PAGE.
Cereal Killer: I kinda feel like God.
On November 9th national communications will be disrupted...
A communications disruption can mean only one thing...
...Obama wants it ready for when he declares martial law! I kid, I kid (at least I think I'm kidding...)
Why aren't they hooked to e.g. youtube (interrupt and replace all running video streams), and cell networks (at least send everyone a broadcast text message, could have a link to the video for smartphones).
"This is a test. This is only a test. If this had been an actual emergency, you would have been writhing on the ground in unspeakable pain, bleeding from every orifice, while your skin peeled off in long, black, ragged strips. This was only a test." (Unknown)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I have to wonder whether this system has lost its effectiveness today. In the 1960s, the combination of radio and television would reach a pretty big percentage of the population; during the day someone in any given house or office was probably watching TV or listening to the radio. But with more people listening to music on iPods and watching video on DVD/DVR - to say nothing of streaming services over IP - that's a lot more gaps in the system.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Not everyone here is American, you know.
How kind of them to notify us of when the entire warning system will be disrupted. If I wanted to stage an attack, this would be the perfect chance. All levels of emergency services will be 'confused' and not know what is real and what is fake.
Add the frightened sheep to the mix and it is a perfect chance for an act of terror.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
This is the internet. What nation are you referring to?
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
It seems like the system would be greatly enhanced by simply requiring the cellular providers to send a free text message to every subscriber. It could contain the essential information and/or a link to more info, or simply say, "Turn on the radio or TV"
Typical government initiative - the nationwide system is finally ready 22 years after the end of the cold war, and 60 years after the threat was established.
Can we please cancel this program (we have the CNN and the Internet now) and take the useless TSA with it too?
In 2008 the FCC mandated an emergency alert system for cell phones, which would send a text message to everyone in the affected region. This is being rolled out now but isn't yet ready nation-wide.
FEMA and the FCC had a big display for a solution to this problem at this year's National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas. The system is called IPAWS or Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. It augments traditional broadcast-based EAS infrastructure with IP-based infrastructure and mobile using the Common Alerting Protocol. The FEMA guy told me that this is an ongoing effort to integrate all these systems but that it is recognized and it will take a few years, especially on integration with over-the-top content delivery. The press release is here: http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=52880
I guarantee text messages would reach everyone else.
slightly off topic, but I remember when I was younger there would be tv 'commercials' on Saturdays which would have these on. To give a time reference, this would have been during the very early 80's. (i know...get off my lawn, yada yada yada...) and it would have been in Michigan, but I am guessing it would have been a nationwide sort of thing. But now to think of it, I haven't seen one of these in ages! I am guessing they must have changed the requirements on this or something. Does anyone remember when the last time they saw one or what happened that they actually stopped this? Or is it possible that it still goes on, but now its just sandwiched between infomercials late at night?
This is different than the current test procedures. those are generated locally to make sure the stations equipment works. this going to be a live test. they are actually activating the new AES system as if there was an actual emergency.
the big difference over this new system is that it has better penetration. rather than relying on broasdcast stations alone, cable/satellite operators now have AES equipnent. when an alert is sent, it will interrupt whatever youre watching and throw your box over to a channel. so, unlike before if youre watching dvr or on demand and would miss these alerts, your viewing is interrupted. Verizon ran a test test the other morning at about 3am....dvr viewing was stopped...the box flashed AES on its display and i was shown a computer generated text screen. theyre even talking about being able to activate the system on things like hulu, netflix, xbox, but those are in the works (and may be implemented now).
I know, that in this environment of increasing paranoia, I'm probably not the first person to think that announcing a nationwide test of the emergency broadcast system and giving the exact date and time of the test could potentially be a bad plan. It seems to me that perhaps someone wishing to perform any sort of nationwide nefarious activities would plan to do so on a day like that. I can see it now...
"Did you hear that there is a "
"Oh, don't worry about it, they were just testing the emergency broadcast system today. Nothing to worry about."
Just my $0.02 though.
If you're looking here for something insightful or thought provoking, you're probably looking in the wrong place.
Disrupt the idle couch potatoing of a large enough number of Americans and they may elect Ron Paul to get rid of FEMA!
... crackle, crackle...
For twelve years you've been asking "Who is John Galt?" This is John Galt speaking. I'm the man who's taken away your victims and thus destroyed your world. You've heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that Man's sins are destroying the world. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice, and you've demanded more sacrifices at every disaster. You've sacrificed justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why should you be afraid of the world around you?
I always thought the emergency broadcast system was one of the coolest things our government could provide. It involves everyone in the broadcast business working together to convey information solely to help the public.
But then, this summer, one quarter of Burnet County burned nearby. At the same time other fires were spreading in Steiner Ranch, Cedar Park, and Pflugerville, all of which threatened or destroyed homes. And they never activated the emergency broadcast system. Sure the local TV networks had scrolls on the bottom of the screen, but they didn't cut from network content. The first night, only one local AM radio station (KLBJ FM) and twitter were providing any information at all.
So I have to ask: if apocalyptic fires aren't enough to activate the system, what is? I already know tornadoes aren't sufficient; it's never been used for those, either. Is it just a hurricane/volcano/nuclear war warning system? Why bother with it nationwide if that's all it's good for?
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
This brilliant story does not say it ;-)
I'm glad I ditched satellite TV last month. Now I'll have to remember not to listen to the radio that day...
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
All my radio engineers who had their EAS point of origin change with little announcement say yeeeeah. But seriously, this whole EAS "upgrade" thing has been nothing but a thorn in my side for the last couple weeks. Can't wait for it to be done with.
Indulge me for a moment. Is there any way they could do a test of this system which would not cause you to make that empty, cynical remark?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The summary never mentions that the country in question is the USA.
OMG, YOU'RE RIGHT! If the system fails to reach even one person, the government is going to start rounding up people off the street and tossing them into forced labour camps. After all, it's for the children!
This message was brought to you by the Emergency Hysteria System (EHS).
The Emergency Broadcast System hasn't existing since 1997. This is the first nationwide test of EAS.
Another Election Day, another national emergency.
The perfect time for an updated radioplay of War of the Worlds.
Actually, TiVos get disrupted by EBS signals. Honestly, it's super annoying! It seems that if any channel runs a EBS test, the Tivo responds by kicking you out of whatever you're watching and showing a large banner across the screen for a few minutes. There's no way to stop it or make it go back to playing your recording until it's done. Usually, it happens during the middle of the day. But, this is when I'm on my treadmill watching TiVo shows, so I get annoyed by this about once a month.
I still think you make a good point otherwise, but TiVos do try to play along (maybe they are required by law?).
America is another name for the United States.
9/11 had also some military exercices as a cover up, for crreating confusion "this is an exercice"
aaaaaaa
...so nationally we can be ready for any zombie apocalypse! ;D
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
The cable card may be forceing the EBS
Activating this at 2:00PM is a show of power. At test could be conducted at 3:00 AM where it wouldn't have the fear impact.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Just look into local disasters; especially those not in a major city. Katrina was that states major city and they didn't get jack except from a tiny local station that was more of a hobby project of a few people which they eventually allowed to up the radio power.
Remote controlled stations owned by corps not even in the city (or country) with nobody paying attention... If you are in a smaller area you don't even get noticed and just take feeds from the bigger place near bye-- the only thing customized is some of the advertizing; maybe. Local laws may make things better or maybe some corp put in some effort to handle such things for various reasons but unless forced or split up in to smaller businesses it is rather pointless.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
cable systems need to use the out of band data channel to send the info to the cable boxes.
since this is primarily an US run website, i can only assume that this article is about brazil.
For a moment there, I was incredibly excited that electronics might be disrupted and we'd be plunged into a primitive dark age once again.
Then I realized it was over, and nothing really happened. :( Yesterday, it'd have been greatly appreciated...
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
A national EAS test... What could possibly go wrong? The problems with EAS insecurity have been know for a long time and the FCC has failed to do anything about it. See the following SecurityFocus stories: http://www.securityfocus.com/news/613 http://www.securityfocus.com/news/9324
The poster is modded troll, and these responses are labeled insightful? Really?
You cant think of a program based on a false premise that didn't work all that well, and governement decided the logical solution was more funding?
You cant think of a program that nibbled away at personal freedoms in the name of idiot-proofing society?
You cant imagine those two things ever being coupled?
In the case of this emergency broadcast system, I predict an eventual mechanism that will cut into any use of a television (whether cable/satellite/DVR or otherwise), cut into cell phone calls, etc. You might think it's important that every person can be reached at every moment of every day, I dont. I actually see that as a violation of my privacy and autonomy, and people who need to constantly be connected as having an unhealthy obsession with what everyone else is doing. And while you might have every confidence that this President and his administration would never use the system against the best interests of the people (I question that, but...) can you say with certainty that you will fully trust the next President? Or the one after that? What do you propose to do when you dont trust the administration?
Power gained by a nation state is rarely given back, and never done so freely.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
This is John Connor from the Crystal Peak..
First? No. XM Satellite Radio was the first, way back in 2006.
Kriston
The most interesting thing (to me, anyway) is that they will not be transmitting this via weather radio. Many (if not most) weather radios these days constantly listen for the EAS SAME tones (the ominous sounding tones that repeat three times at before the message starts), and can sound an audible and visual alarm when it occurs.
For example, if a tornado warning is issued for an area, you can receive the alert with your weather radio, whether it's "turned on" or not, unlike with TV and radio, where you must be listening to find out.
Weather Radios do have the ability to display messages for civil emergencies - for example, the one I use can display things like "nuclear emergency" and other types of non-weather messages.
Apparently, there's no way for them to get this to the national weather service for rebroadcast. Unfortunate.
Why, no, I haven't meta-moderated lately. Thanks for asking!
The Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) was decommissioned in 1997, it was replaced with the Emergency Alert System (EAS) which has never been tested until now. The two should not be confused.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
If anybody's interested, I'm developing a GTK+ app that gets alerts from IPAWS pushed to it. Its not quite ready to be useful yet (I need to get certified to pull from the IPAWS production server rather than just their dev server), but I'm getting there; I expect I'll have a usable beta out in a month.
https://github.com/talisein/Stormee
Feedback is welcome
"The right to do something does not mean doing it is right." William Safire
Best alert ever. And no confusing it with an actual emergency.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Are they going to be broadcasting over the internet? 'Cause, I don't know, are there still a lot of you guys who use old-fashioned TVs and radios? Who, exactly, is even going to know about the "emergency"?
I would guess a good percentage of the Slashdot community worked in college radio (seems the nerdly thing to do). But for those who didn't, let me tell you about the old Emergency Broadcast System...
The radio station DJs were taught to take the EBS equipment in the studio very seriously. Our studio was located in an actual fallout shelter... thick concrete walls and no windows... we even had the cool fallout shelter sign outside the door. If one needed to take shelter from nuclear fallout there was plenty of vinyl to keep you company but not much else. The space was tiny.
We had to know the procedures for handling both an automatic EBS test (triggered at random times) and a manual test which we performed weekly. More importantly we had to know the procedure in the event of an actual emergency.
The automatic test would just happen randomly in the middle of your show any time of day or night (I don't recall how frequently this happened). My normal broadcast would get hijacked by the EBS equipment (which was connected to the transmitter) and the alert system would begin broadcasting the test message, followed by the tone, followed by closing message. After this test we had to manually reset the EBS equipment by pressing a button (or power cycling the damned thing) in order to regain control of the local broadcast from the studio.
The manual test was performed weekly by the DJs (we did it at 6AM on Monday). I'd play a cart with the opening message, "This is a test..." and then I'd have to press a button on the EBS to play the tone. It tested the system's ability to interrupt my broadcast. At the end of the tone I hit the reset (or as previously mentioned, power cycled it) and then played a second cart with the closing message "this concludes a test of the Emergency Broadcast System..."
In both test cases I had to log the time of the test (or risk going to FCC, bang you in the ass, prison??).
If the message turned out NOT to be a test I was to tear open the special red envelope hanging by the equipment. Sadly, I never got to do this. The envelope contained a codeword. One would compare the code transmitted to the EBS with the code in the envelope. If it was a match there were further instructions in the envelope which remain a mystery to me (although someone once told me that since we were a small station we would likely be instructed to shut down our transmitter while stations with more kilowatts would be instructed to boost their signal).
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
I get these every other night. Yay, now I can get an Amber alert from California, or a tornado warning from Kansas. Seriously, if a nationwide alert was required, we would all be just running amuck and panicking. And then die.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
We don't often get catastrophes that affect the whole US, but we frequently get ones that affect 1/4 of the country - hurricanes on the East Coast or the Gulf, floods on the Mississippi, power grid blackouts that take down the West Coast or the Northeast, or problems of that scale. Not only does the network need to be tested everywhere to make sure all the parts work (so it's much simpler for everybody to do it all at once), but it needs to be tested at full scale to make sure it doesn't choke at smaller scales (e.g. 10% of the country.)
But yeah, the first time I heard the EBS saying "This is not a test, repeat not a test", I nearly freaked out - I'd grown up in the Cold War, when the system was designed for the "kiss your ass goodbye" message, and it was the first time I'd heard them using it for normal emergencies like floods from the big rainstorm that was going on.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The headline's not very clear - this is the new EAS, not the old EBS. EBS got tested nationally all the time - that's why radio stations would have the Tuesday morning squawking noise followed by "This is only a test", and TV stations would carry a test pattern and the same announcement. This one's probably a lot more complex and expensive, but can probably also do a better job of announcing local problems like floods as well as national-scale problems like Global Thermonuclear War.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Because the Patriot Act wasn't martial law at all, nor were the orders for all immigrants from Muslim countries to come in and talk to the authorities after 9/11, nor sending in the National Guard to shoot looters during Katrina instead of putting people on boats and busses to get them out of town.
And at least he had the decency to lie to Congress to get them to declare war on Iraq, instead of just announcing that he had the power to do so, like Obama did with Libya. On the other hand, if he wanted American citizens assassinated overseas, he just had his people do it quietly, instead of announcing that the White House lawyers had written up a legal justification for him to do it, which we're not allowed to see, the way Obama did.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The South seceded because they thought the North was going to take away their slaves (though the war is also called "The Slaveholders' Revolt", because it was the rich slave owners deciding to secede, without a clear majority of support from the rest of the population, and there were places like Eastern Tennessee that opposed the secession on a large scale.)
Lincoln invaded the South for reasons of nationalism. If he'd really been doing it because he cared about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation would have happened in 1861, not in 1863 when the war was going badly and he needed to boost his ratings in the polls. America wasn't going to be able to complete its conquest of the West if it lost the South, or do any of the rest of that Manifest Destiny nonsense.
Another wrong side were the New York draft rioters, who didn't want to be drafted to fight in the war, especially when rich people could buy their way out of the draft. They weren't doing this because they were a bunch of hippies or Quakers - they were mostly immigrant laborers who didn't want to have to compete with free black people moving up to the big city after the North won the war.
There were probably other wrong sides as well, but over a million people got killed in that war, and there were other ways to have ended slavery.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Ladies and gentlemen:
Mr. Thompson will not speak to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over. You were to hear a report on the world crisis. That is what you are going to hear.
For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing—you who dread knowledge—I am the man who will now tell you.
Step 1 - Send a message to all Facebook users.
Step 2 - done
I love how the poster saw no need to mention which country or nation was doing this test. Must be Brazil. After all, there aren't any other countries connected to the internet, are there?