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Cellphones Across the US Will Receive a 'Presidential Alert' at 2:18 pm Eastern Today (nytimes.com)
At 2:18 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, cellphones across the United States will emit the ominous ring of an emergency presidential alert. From a report: It will be the first nationwide test of a wireless emergency alert system, designed to warn people of a dire threat, like a terror attack, pandemic or natural disaster. There is no opting out, which has already prompted a lawsuit. "THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System," it will read. "No action is needed." Two minutes later, televisions and radios will show test alerts. There is no notification plan for landlines. Officials say they believe that the wireless test will reach about 75 percent of the cellphones in the country, though they hope the number is higher. It could take up to 30 minutes for the alerts to be transmitted to all devices.
Some things that could interfere: ongoing phone calls or data transmission, a device that is turned off or out of range, and smaller cellphone providers that are not participating in the program. The test, originally planned for last month but delayed by Hurricane Florence, is the culmination of many years of work. The federal government developed a system to issue the alerts, which are scripted in coordination with numerous government agencies. They are limited to 90 characters, but will be expanded to 360 in the future. The Communications Act of 1934 gives the president the power to use communications systems in case of an emergency, and a 2006 law called for the Federal Communications Commission to work with the wireless industry to transmit such messages.
Some things that could interfere: ongoing phone calls or data transmission, a device that is turned off or out of range, and smaller cellphone providers that are not participating in the program. The test, originally planned for last month but delayed by Hurricane Florence, is the culmination of many years of work. The federal government developed a system to issue the alerts, which are scripted in coordination with numerous government agencies. They are limited to 90 characters, but will be expanded to 360 in the future. The Communications Act of 1934 gives the president the power to use communications systems in case of an emergency, and a 2006 law called for the Federal Communications Commission to work with the wireless industry to transmit such messages.
This was implemented during under Obama:
WEA was established in 2008 pursuant to the Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) Act and became operational in 2012.
This is a test, it is not a real emergency. Democrats are meanies and poopie heads - sad
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Let's hope it works better than the Hawaii test.
Will need to research which carriers are "not participating" and consider their plans for my future contract...
covfefe
the orange moron just found the button for SuperTwitter...
How do they plan to measure this number? That worries me WAY more than the fact that we get an alert. Is there some process built into phone software and.or the cell network that will report this, and if so what else can it report regarding my activity?
...and in several static bags.
I've uninstalled twitter because I didn't want to have to read presidential tweets and now this.
Wireless Emergency Alert System - Covfefe
If it bothers you that much, turn your phone off for a few minutes- it's not like they haven't been warning us about this for weeks,
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I don't want to see Yeti Toad.
Bigly.
Of course the sirens will be going off at 2pm eastern anyway, its the first wednesday of the month.
What happens if your phone is in airplane mode?
2pm EDT (1pm CDT) is sleep time for me - I work nights
Remember when in 2006 the law was updated every was certain Bush would use to spam their cellphones with unblockable political spam? Then when cell companies started turning on the feature, how Obama was certain to use it for political spam?
/. Keep the dream alive!
Don't disappoint me
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
The test, originally planned for last month but delayed by Hurricane Florence, is the culmination of many years of work.
LOL.
Will it be delayed when the real thing comes?
The GSM protocol includes a broadcasting feature that overrides all other transmissions in order to deliver emergency messages to all cellphones simultaneously. Why then the delays?
the three times a week emergency test on my TV.
Or the amber alerts that are from somewhere else in my state 400 miles away,
The real test of their system will be the ability to block /s
Reply All to the messages.
Here's Carl Orff's "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana. For best results, start plating at 2:17:36 Eastern, preferably in an environment with a lot of cell phones.
Then sit back and brace for the Toad pic to come.
Yep. Phones are just like radios. If yours is switched off when this is sent then you'll never see it.
No sig today...
This wouldn't seem to be at all useful in a pandemic. It's not like they spread that fast.
If you are in the affected area of a earthquake you would already know, but for an incoming tsunami it would certainly be useful. I sure hope they don't go crazy with this. I turned off the other alerts due to too many stupid alarms. 35 mph does not rate a high wind warning.
It could take up to 30 minutes for the alerts to be transmitted to all devices.
Two questions:
1. Have we flushed broadcast messages THAT far down the architectural memory hole?
2. Who in the world designed a system for this sort of purpose with that sort of potential latency?
...blah blah blah...
Good idea. There are plenty of excellent alternatives with a similar flavor but less of the artificial ingredients.
Have you ever noticed that when you turn your phone on after it has been off all day, you receive texts that were sent hours earlier? That's because the carrier doesn't just send it out to you and hope that you got it, the phone acknowledges receiving the message. Until the message is acknowledged as received, the carrier keeps it to retry later.
Leave my fucking phone off that afternoon.
If the president is able to use this at his discretion, without supervision, we all need to prepare ourselves for a whole lot of pain. That orange buffoon won't be able to resist the urge to constantly inundate all cell phone users with an endless stream of what he deems "important information" but is really just a constant spouting of nonsense.
You realize this is a test of an existing system, right? The alerts have been around on radio and TV going back to before most of us were born and on cell phones since 2013.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
That's the same argument spammers came up with years ago and continue to use to this day. Fuck that.
Why not use the existing features in the standard?
Back when the GSM standard was designed, people (companies/countries?) contributed ideas. Japan requested a broadcast system and it made it into the standard. It's there but nobody outside of Japan really thought about it.
Fast forward to March 2011. A major earthquake hit off the coast of Japan. Sensors at the bottom detected the earthquake and now a high speed race started. An earthquake moves at the speed of sound. Optic fiber connections transfers at the speed of light. The information is forwarded to the phone system and antennas goes into broadcast mod and transmit the message "major earthquake approaching". The phone system doens't have the capacity to send an sms to each phone. Instead it transmit a specially encoded sms message, which is received by any phone within range, like multiple TVs all receiving the same signal from the same TV transmitter.
This system warned people, but also machines. Elevators stopped, opened the doors and pushed thick metal rods into the walls, ensuring that they wouldn't drop even if the cable failed. Trains went into emergency braking and so on. This worked and with everything important in safety mode when the earthquake hit land, the damage was minimal.
Next the broadcast system was used again, this time to warn about a tsunami. Most of the damage and possibly all deaths were caused by water, not the earthquake itself. Still it could have been much worse if people haven't been warned as it resulted in lots of people running for the hills.
This made people outside of Japan aware of GSM broadcast and started questioning why only Japan used it. It's in the standard and everybody should be able to use it.
Now more than 7 years later, we should be impressed by a system, which use 30 minutes to alert people?
Awaiting Trump's first abuse of this system in five.. four.. three.. two.. one....
That's the same argument spammers came up with years ago and continue to use to this day. Fuck that.
It's one message years after this was created and advertised that it would happen weeks in advance. It's really not that big a deal.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
All Hail Hypnotoad.
You must comply with his message at 11:18 PDT.
Turn your phone off at 2:17 pm.
PDT? That's the time zone for Redmond, Washington, right? If "Hypnotoad" is in any way related to Stormy Daniels' nickname for the President's intimate body part, then I can think of one company in Redmond that won't be impressed. And it isn't Microsoft.
cellphones across the country that run stock roms will receive this alert. anyone running lineageOS or other roms can disable the presidential alert.
And im sure ill get a shitstorm of people telling me this isnt wise, but let me clarify. after Amber alerts basically turned EAS into a carnival of CYA by local cops hoping to keep their budget another year, I decided to disable them on my EAS receiver, where I can also disable presidential alerts.
Good people go to bed earlier.
The saddest part of all that is that while I expect liberals to maybe disagree (or at least be ambivalent) about that, I sure as fuck expect conservatives to be 100% behind your statement without the slightest hesitation. IMHO it's the very core of conservativism, moreso than even "low taxes" or "states' rights." It's right up there with preferring free markets over central planning, since it's a variant of the same underlying idea: mistrust of power, fear of arrogant power.
But Republicans disagree with you, and worse, they disagree even more than Democrats do. It's one of the reasons (among several, especially since 2016) I'd plot 'em as being left of Democrats.
You know what grinds my gears? When Republicans say they're conservative. That's just a plain lie. Republicans, stop fucking lying about being right-wing. You're not. If you were right-wing, you'd either be voting Libertarian or Democrat. Embrace your radical liberalism, Republicans. Come out of the closet. I guarantee that Democrats will let you use "their" bathroom.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
This system had better be secure, because how much chaos could be achieved by 'bad actor' if they were able to broadcast a fake message (like an impending nuclear strike)? I suppose it'll keep the NK and Russian hackers busy for a while...
return 0; }
No, I never turn my phone off!
Get up!
You had to read presidential tweets?
I can see signing up for it, perhaps twitter even turning it on by default for some misguided reason akin to emergency messages, but not that you couldn't turn off tracking of it!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Are you saying distrust of concentrated power means I'm a closet liberal?
I'm the guy with the reversed right/left axis?!
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Sarcasm noted. But you missed the point. One metric that will be measured is how quickly the message is received, and if a bunch of people turn off their phones, this metric will be skewed towards a longer delay. This will send a big "screw you" message to... somebody.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
What I don't understand about such a system is that you can't trust it by itself, so its worth seems dubious. No matter what it tells you, you pretty much have to confirm the information in another way - it seems too easily hack-able or prone to error (whether it really is or not). And talk about a single point of failure/Russian hacking concerns...
I fear this system will cause more problems than it's worth.
Actually this is the first I've heard of it. If only we had some way to send a message to every phone in the country to inform us about the test...
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
... I'm going dark at that time.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Thank you for that insightful and informative reply. You're 100% right. My LineageOS 15 phone will -not- be displaying any orange messages today or any other day.
Thank you Free and Open Source Software for allowing US to decide what to do with OUR device. I did not "purchase a public address speaker" for our elected criminals.
E
The Amber Alert system already gets abused all the time, why wouldn't this be abused as well?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
wonder how many people will be fired today for sneaking in phones into their workplace.
wonder how many people will run off the road because some high pitch sound startled them while driving.
wonder how many people will drop their phone because they were scared silly by a high pitch sound.
it is going to get interesting...they really did not do a good job advertising the test.
The Amber Alert system already gets abused all the time, why wouldn't this be abused as well?
That probably depends on where you are. I don't feel like the Amber Alert system is abused where I am. I've probably had four amber alerts in the last year.
As for, will this be abused: hasn't this been in place since Obama era- and this is the very first test of it? So far it doesn't look like it is being abused. Maybe that will change... I will worry about it when that happens.
I'm not a fan of Trump, but there is no indication this will become his "new twitter". An alert system that can warn of a national threat is not a bad idea. An abused one is- but so far no evidence of abuse.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
That was strangely freakin' cool.
This space unintentionally left blank.
KILL ALL HUMANS
I disabled all Emergency Alerts on my Pixel XL (Pie) and the test alert did not come through. I left Emergency Alerts activated on my 8+ and got the alert. If Twitter perma-bans Trump, you know what will happen :-)
Phone made noise but not horrible. Basic message this is a test with no need to respond. phew, at least not a long screaming diatribe about Hillary and Obama.
mfwright@batnet.com
You've wallpapered over an important distinction. For radio and tv, the test was for the broadcaster. It was not a test to see if every radio and tv in the country was capable of receiving the broadcast signal. Nobody forced all tv and radio users to turn on their tvs and radios at test time. This is the first time the cell system has been tested nationwide, and cell phones are on almost all the time, so that makes it a fundamentally different test. And one that might get the orange pencildick's attention.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
There's nothing leftist about authoritarianism. You're using 1-dimensional political thinking in a political world that has at least 2 dimensions. Today's Republicans and "conservatives" are even further right than they were in 2015, but also much, MUCH more authoritarian.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm locked out of my Twitter account!!!
Requiem for the American Dream
But Republicans disagree with you, and worse, they disagree even more than Democrats do. It's one of the reasons (among several, especially since 2016) I'd plot 'em as being left of Democrats.
This is the problem with trying to put all possible political ideologies/practices on a single spectrum. When it comes to economic issues, the Republican party is still farther to the right than the Democratic party (the Democratic party, or at least its leaders and politicians, hasn't been left of center for a few decades, though the voters appear to be pulling back to the left). Republicans are generally still more opposed to corporate regulation than Democrats are, and generally want the tax rate to be lower, which puts them to the right of Democrats.
Authoritarianism in regards to things other than taxes and commerce is a separate issue. The Republican party tends to be more authoritarian than the Democratic party when it comes to regulating individual, personal behaviors, but, as you point out, both parties are quite happy to increase government power.
Lucky for us we live in a two-dimensional world otherwise politics would be of no use.
Requiem for the American Dream
No, and you don't either. Because they DID.
Really? Bush and Obama both used the national presidential alert system to send political messages? Are you sure it wasn't just the CIA beaming then directly to your brain from their satellite?
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I feel all left out.
Was it something I posted on Slashdot?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My stock, unrooted, unmodified Android phone did not get the alert, so I recommend you upgrade to Android version 4.4.4.
This test was a test of the cell providers equipment. No one forced anyone to turn their phones on during the test. You are also glossing over the fact that radio and TV were far more ubiquitous in the past before the internet and streaming. A president would have a captive audience of almost every household during US prime time when TV shows could get cancelled for having viewer numbers higher than the major networks get in total in a broadcast week these days. Nearly everyone in the nation would be watching TV or, before that, listening to the radio in the evenings. And stations have no discretion in airing these alerts. Heck for the past, what, 4 decades or so they didn't even have a choice, the system installed is automated.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
He said handheld PCs, so he means phones/tablets. Those DO force your loss of control. Open source phone systems are not feasible yet, but they should eventually be. Maybe. If we legislate the manufacturers stop locking bootloaders. The only way to disable those 3am amber alerts is to root your phone and disable that alert app which for normal folks is not very easy. The legality is also questionable. I don't give 2 shits. I root all my phones and delete that annoying app. I don't care if the pres needs to get that info out there, as you put it. I'm not stopping him. But I sure as fuck DO NOT HAVE TO LISTEN TO HIM!
TLDR: As supplied by your carrier, you DO NOT have autonomy over the operation, monitoring, or performance of your portable personal computing device.
Buried in your rant is the key: If your device communicates via cell tower and can make a POTS call, it's subject to the various relevant FCC regulations here, which are basically just extrapolations from the FCC's regulations on licensed radio spectrum for TV and radio broadcast. Your iPod Touch, Amazon Kindle, or iPad *without* cell/SIM connectivity is unaffected by this --- *those* are "handheld PC's" from a regulatory perspective. Cell phones are not. If you don't like that, replace your smartphone with a dumb "regular" phone and purchase a tablet/phablet/handheld device that doesn't have a CDMA/GSM/cell radio transmitter.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
> Yep... up in Ontario we recently had a similar emergency alert system
> put in place recently. The very first alert sent out was an amber alert
Correction; it was sent at "Presidential Alert" level ("Emergency Alert" in Canada) being (ab)used to send an "Amber Alert" message. They cannot be turned off in a phone with a stock ROM. My phone has the following alert levels...
* Emergency (cannot turn off)
* Extreme
* Severe
* AMBER
* WPAS Test alerts
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Consider recent liberal issues: Police Brutality (Black lives matter), legalization of marijuana use, releasing government restrictions on who can get married (IE, Homosexuals with each other). Can you, with a straight face, frame these as centralizing power?
Odd you left out the defining liberal issue of the past ten years, Healthcare, which is, at itâ(TM)s core, about centralizing power by defining what must be covered, what premiums can be charged, and how profitable insurance companies can be.
Ken