Slashdot Mirror
First California AMBER Alert Shows AT&T's Emergency Alerts Are a Mess
Mark Gibbs writes "AT&T's implementation of the FCC's Emergency Alerts System provides minimally useful information in an untimely fashion with little geolocational relevance. ... Yesterday California got its first AMBER alert and my notification arrived at 10:54pm. It came up as panel over my lock screen and here's what it looked like on my notifications screen: 'Boulevard, CA AMBER Alert UPDATE: LIC/6WCU986 (CA) Blue Nissan Versa 4 door.' The problem with this it that's all there is! You can stab away at the message as much as you like but that's all you get, there's no link to any detail and considering the event it related to occurred over 240 miles away from me near to the Mexican border, the WEA service seems to be poorly implemented. Indeed, many Californians were annoyed and confused by the alert and according to the LA Times 'Some cellphones received only a text message, others buzzed and beeped. Some people got more than one alert.' I got a second copy of the alert at 2:22am and other subscribers reported not receiving any alert until late this morning."
It seems to have gone down about as well as New York's.
Company phones.
Personal phones.
Kids phones....
WHAT a RACKET!
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
On the other hand, some of us have decided not to live our lives as totally selfish assholes.
It does no good whatsoever to send out the alerts unless you push them out to a meaningful radius. Yes the chance that YOU may see something is slim, but the chance SOMEONE will see something goes up dramatically with a wide enough search radius. It would literally do zero good whatsoever to send the alert to a 10 mile radius because in pretty much every case of child kidnapping ever the person is far away from that zone.
Happily you can simply turn off the alert on your phone and remove any random chance you might save someones life, so can can avoid a slightly annoying buzzing that lasts for a few seconds.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's not just the loudness it sounds like (having never heard such an alert) but the suddenness and unfamiliarity.
On one hand, I think these alerts are stupid and the way they were handled is stupid. On the other hand, if a sudden and unfamiliar noise from your cellphone makes you drive unsafely, then you should get off the fucking road and let the competent people drive.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I dont care about someone's missing kid in a world of SEVEN BILLION PEOPLE. Its jsut not a concern of mine at all. If it was, i would add notifications to my phone. That is the point, dont recruit me AND MY PROPERTY, i will come to you if the need arises.
Good-bye