Public emergency alert - being sent to your phone

Public emergency alert - being sent to your phone

Author
Discussion

Hill92

4,226 posts

189 months

Thursday 30th March 2023
quotequote all
xx99xx said:
I also doubt it. As said previously, most users are nervous at using the system due to the negative reception it will get from a) people like some on here who dislike authority/change and b) people who are/were completely unaware of this system and start complaining 'where did you get my number from' etc.

Get it wrong and it's very damaging to reputations.
Indeed. Who wants to be on the end of a bking from a Minister's office because the Minister was embarrassed in Parliament?

monkfish1

10,874 posts

223 months

Thursday 30th March 2023
quotequote all
We have learnt from this thread its taken 10 years to get this far. 10 years to develop a system thats send out a message. Awesome. And there was me thinking we developed that tech decades ago.

But apparantly, done by people unpaid. Yeah, right.

Anyone know how many millions (billions) we have spent thus far?

The road traffic signs are a fantastic example of a well intentioned idea being abused by the morons charged with operating it. No longer used for important traffic info. Just broadcasting pointless PC messages about cycling and not being tired. Oh, and fog. On a day with clear blue sunny skies, when there was no fog, nor was there going to be any fog.

Its not new news, that if you clutter up such things with drivel, people dont notice the important stuff.

Its 100% inevitable this will go the same way. They simpy cant help themselves.

xx99xx

1,892 posts

72 months

Thursday 30th March 2023
quotequote all
monkfish1 said:
We have learnt from this thread its taken 10 years to get this far. 10 years to develop a system thats send out a message. Awesome. And there was me thinking we developed that tech decades ago.

But apparantly, done by people unpaid. Yeah, right.

Anyone know how many millions (billions) we have spent thus far?

The road traffic signs are a fantastic example of a well intentioned idea being abused by the morons charged with operating it. No longer used for important traffic info. Just broadcasting pointless PC messages about cycling and not being tired. Oh, and fog. On a day with clear blue sunny skies, when there was no fog, nor was there going to be any fog.

Its not new news, that if you clutter up such things with drivel, people dont notice the important stuff.

Its 100% inevitable this will go the same way. They simpy cant help themselves.
Developing the system has not been done by people unpaid. No-one has even suggested that.

People who respond to emergencies do so (usually) for no extra reward as they're already in paid roles within their organisations. However, most responders have multiple roles, a day job and an emergency response role. The reward for the response role is covered by the day job salary and is only performed when there is an emergency. E.g. a police chief constable has a busy and varied day job but may take charge of a multi agency emergency response, and then revert back to the day job when the incident is over.

Call it a saving of you like, for those of you so interested in economics, as we're therefore not paying for people to sit around doing nothing waiting for an emergency to happen.

Your cynicism is outstanding but your knowledge of managing civil emergencies is lacking substance.

dvs_dave

8,581 posts

224 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
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Just got this through from the emergency alert system where I am right now (Chicago). Useful info I’d say. I went and battened down the proverbial hatches, put the cars in garage, etc.

But then I got incandescent with rage that I had succumbed like a sheeple to the commands of the oppressive Orwellian local liberal elites in power, having such an affront to force feed me information that may be for my own good, but really only serves their narrative, wether I choose to act upon it or not. I then smashed my phone in a spittle spattering fury, and put my cars back out on the drive because it’s my right to choose risking them getting damaged by storm blown debris, warned or not, GODDAMN IT…..DONT TREAD ON ME! [violently overturns desk and roars with rage]


johnboy1975

8,355 posts

107 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
dvs_dave said:


Just got this through from the emergency alert system where I am right now (Chicago). Useful info I’d say. I went and battened down the proverbial hatches, put the cars in garage, etc.

But then I got incandescent with rage that I had succumbed like a sheeple to the commands of the oppressive Orwellian local liberal elites in power, having such an affront to force feed me information that may be for my own good, but really only serves their narrative, wether I choose to act upon it or not. I then smashed my phone in a spittle spattering fury, and put my cars back out on the drive because it’s my right to choose risking them getting damaged by storm blown debris, warned or not, GODDAMN IT…..DONT TREAD ON ME! [violently overturns desk and roars with rage]
Did 2m sirens go off?

Govt video linked in the OP's BBC link. Interestingly there's a covid like symbol to depict one of the possible emergencies scratchchin

https://youtu.be/9yLd2AjGzYI

From the comments

"This could have been incredibly useful over the past year or so..."

BTW - The video is a year old. Has this been delayed?

Catastrophic Poo

4,225 posts

185 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
johnboy1975 said:
Interestingly there's a covid like symbol to depict one of the possible emergencies scratchchin
You’re referring to the microbe emoji, it’ll really make your covid conspiracy nerves tingle when you know it was first approved into Unicode and published in 2018 eek

Maybe this was part of Bill’s great reset plan rofl

bitchstewie

50,767 posts

209 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
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Imagine actually being surprised that one of the emergencies the Government might want to use an emergency alert system to alert people about is a public health emergency.

fking hell hehe

V1nce Fox

5,508 posts

67 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
bhstewie said:
Imagine actually being surprised that one of the emergencies the Government might want to use an emergency alert system to alert people about is a public health emergency.

fking hell hehe
Imagine trusting them to be truthful and accurate.

768

13,600 posts

95 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
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Imagine wanting them to piss away more money on pointless IT projects.

Catastrophic Poo

4,225 posts

185 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
bhstewie said:
Imagine actually being surprised that one of the emergencies the Government might want to use an emergency alert system to alert people about is a public health emergency.

fking hell hehe
hehe

Getragdogleg

8,736 posts

182 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all

bitchstewie

50,767 posts

209 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
Was that an actual emergency alert sent by the Emergency Alert system or an appallingly judged ad campaign sent by text including a video made to look and sound an emergency alert?

Getragdogleg

8,736 posts

182 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
bhstewie said:
Was that an actual emergency alert sent by the Emergency Alert system or an appallingly judged ad campaign sent by text including a video made to look and sound an emergency alert?
Apparently the fcc are looking into it, it's probably a spoof, but they did manage to mass send it with the siren alert and all.

So, it's possible to mass send. Without being a govt agency. So why has it taken "10 years to set up" here if some thick trumpers can do it?

Eta; I originally thought it was an April fool joke or something and only posted here for the fun of it but it is looking real...

Edited by Getragdogleg on Saturday 1st April 12:16

bitchstewie

50,767 posts

209 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
The way I'm reading it it just sounds like a mass SMS advertising campaign that probably broke some laws around what kind of thing you can do in advertising campaigns.

https://eu.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2023/0...

Far as I know the actual emergency alert service isn't SMS it's cell broadcast which is completely different.

eharding

13,597 posts

283 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
Getragdogleg said:
Apparently the fcc are looking into it, it's probably a spoof, but they did manage to mass send it with the siren alert and all.

So, it's possible to mass send. Without being a govt agency. So why has it taken "10 years to set up" here if some thick trumpers can do it?
Because, as has been pointed out numerous times, the real Emergency Alert system uses Cell Broadcast to send messages to handsets within a specific geographic location rather than individual telephone numbers as is the case with standard messages. The thick trumpers were just using a standard mass SMS service, presumably with a list of phone numbers from some tele-marketing outfit, and just crafted the message to look like an emergency alert, skating on very thin legal ice in the process.

You'll note that if the UK Government wanted to send a standard message to every phone in the country, they've long been able to do that - as in fact they did at the start of the first lockdown. The whole point of the Emergency Alert system is to be able to send directed messages to handsets in specific locations, and make it patently obvious through the UI that it's something different than a standard text message. The reason it's taken "10 years to set up" is largely down to initial government inertia after the first trials - it hasn't been 10 years of continuous development - and most of the technology was already in place in the mobile OS and cell operating systems when the current system was commissioned in 2020 (although, ironically, ensuring handset OS compatibility is a lot more simple than it was ten years ago, since you don't have to worry about things like Symbian, Windows Mobile, Blackberry etc - it's really just Android and iOS). It's largely been a co-ordination exercise between the mobile providers and the emergency services.

Disastrous

10,072 posts

216 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
dvs_dave said:


Just got this through from the emergency alert system where I am right now (Chicago). Useful info I’d say. I went and battened down the proverbial hatches, put the cars in garage, etc.

But then I got incandescent with rage that I had succumbed like a sheeple to the commands of the oppressive Orwellian local liberal elites in power, having such an affront to force feed me information that may be for my own good, but really only serves their narrative, wether I choose to act upon it or not. I then smashed my phone in a spittle spattering fury, and put my cars back out on the drive because it’s my right to choose risking them getting damaged by storm blown debris, warned or not, GODDAMN IT…..DONT TREAD ON ME! [violently overturns desk and roars with rage]
I get that you’re being just hilarious there, but genuinely, did you not know about a 90mph storm heading your way??

Honestly feels massively weird to me that people feel they need extra alerts about weather on a device that already has access to all the meteorological data anyone could ever want.

johnboy1975

8,355 posts

107 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
bhstewie said:
Imagine actually being surprised that one of the emergencies the Government might want to use an emergency alert system to alert people about is a public health emergency.

fking hell hehe
Let's say this warning system came in 4 years ago. How do you envisage it being used during the covid years?

A: Everytime the case rate went over 2000 cases per 100,00 people, area specific? (You could find this info out, sans sirens, if you were minded to do so)

B: Just for the initial lockdown? (Most of the population were aware Boris was doing a broadcast)

C: Carefully so as to avoid panic? rofl (You're aware of the plan, as such, to force compliance through fear?) https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegrap...

said:
SPI-B warned in March last year that ministers needed to increase “the perceived level of personal threat” from Covid-19 because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”.
You're not a Boris fan, I seem to recall...yet you trust him to use it judiciously??

And (important to this thread) - how would it have added to our "armoury"?


gregs656

10,818 posts

180 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
We get these occasionally in Ontario. I had no idea people could have such strong feelings about it. They’re really not that exciting.

RizzoTheRat

25,084 posts

191 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
johnboy1975 said:
bhstewie said:
Imagine actually being surprised that one of the emergencies the Government might want to use an emergency alert system to alert people about is a public health emergency.

fking hell hehe
Let's say this warning system came in 4 years ago. How do you envisage it being used during the covid years?

A: Everytime the case rate went over 2000 cases per 100,00 people, area specific? (You could find this info out, sans sirens, if you were minded to do so)

B: Just for the initial lockdown? (Most of the population were aware Boris was doing a broadcast)

C: Carefully so as to avoid panic? rofl (You're aware of the plan, as such, to force compliance through fear?) https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegrap...
I live in a country that already has a warning system. The answer was B.


Grumps.

5,961 posts

35 months

Saturday 1st April 2023
quotequote all
johnboy1975 said:
bhstewie said:
Imagine actually being surprised that one of the emergencies the Government might want to use an emergency alert system to alert people about is a public health emergency.

fking hell hehe
Let's say this warning system came in 4 years ago. How do you envisage it being used during the covid years?

A: Everytime the case rate went over 2000 cases per 100,00 people, area specific? (You could find this info out, sans sirens, if you were minded to do so)

B: Just for the initial lockdown? (Most of the population were aware Boris was doing a broadcast)

C: Carefully so as to avoid panic? rofl (You're aware of the plan, as such, to force compliance through fear?) https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegrap...

said:
SPI-B warned in March last year that ministers needed to increase “the perceived level of personal threat” from Covid-19 because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”.
You're not a Boris fan, I seem to recall...yet you trust him to use it judiciously??

And (important to this thread) - how would it have added to our "armoury"?
Good to see you are infecting yet another thread with your usual wibble.

laugh