Re: Oct. 3, 2018 EAS Presidential Alert test
On Mon, 8 Oct 2018, Aaron C. de Bruyn wrote: Google solved these problems with ~$120 smoke alarm and a decent cell phone app. If they released a new version with weather alerts, I wouldn't think twice about dropping $200 on it. A company already made a combination smoke alarm/weather radio. Halo Smart Labs went out of business earlier this year. https://www.smartthings.com/products/halo-smart-labs-halo-smoke-and-carbon-monoxide-alarm-plus-weather-alerts A $120+ niche silicon valley product is great for the nerds. Whats the business case for everyone else? What's the business case for reaching 126 million households, with a product that is afforable or already part of something they already have. So how is there no business case? No disrespect intended, but you failed to back up that statement. More people own Amazon smart speakers than NEST thermostats. Amazon product people have told me there is no demand for emergency alerts in its Alexa product. Likewise, I've asked Google developers. They said the same thing about adding emergency alerts to their Google assistant product. Perhaps I'm the only one who would spend more than $50 on a weather alert device? Fewer than 5% of households buy weather radios. WEA can reach over 60% of households with cell phones. Its not 100%. Yes, 5% of households are willing to spend $50 on a weather radio. How to reach more than 5%? If you know that Google or Amazon plan to add emergency alerts to its smart assistant products, that would be great news. But so far, their product people have been very clear, they see no business case for supporting government emergency alerts on their "smart" products.
Re: Oct. 3, 2018 EAS Presidential Alert test
On Mon, Oct 8, 2018 at 10:54 AM Sean Donelan wrote: > There is no business case for Amazon, Apple or Google to include emergency > alerts as part of their smart speakers. I have a $50 weather alert radio. Does it have have batteries? Are they charged? Are they almost dead? When did I last hear an alert from it? Does your smoke alarm have batteries? Are they dead? When did you last test it? Google solved these problems with ~$120 smoke alarm and a decent cell phone app. If they released a new version with weather alerts, I wouldn't think twice about dropping $200 on it. So how is there no business case? No disrespect intended, but you failed to back up that statement. Perhaps I'm the only one who would spend more than $50 on a weather alert device? -A
RE: Oct. 3, 2018 EAS Presidential Alert test
On October 8, 2018 at 16:37 s...@donelan.com (Sean Donelan) wrote: > A nation-wide WEA and EAS system helps warn people in both cities and > rural areas. But they still depend on carriers and broadcasters. If there > are no backup batteries in cell towers, or backup transmitters for > broadcasters, you end up with communication blackouts like in Puerto Rico > for months. Which is why it's more relevant to this list than some were grousing since people here are often the ones keeping the infrastructure this has to travel on running. The US govt should pay us all to discuss this! -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die| b...@theworld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*
RE: Oct. 3, 2018 EAS Presidential Alert test
On Mon, 8 Oct 2018, b...@theworld.com wrote: I suppose since every life is precious one can measure the effectiveness based on "land mass" but then one wonders if some sheep out in a field in Idaho really care that the US was just invaded...put better: You do what you can! How quickly we forget. Puerto Rico's catastrophe was only a year ago. Per capita fatalities in rural areas are usually higher than cities after a disaster. Telecommunications are even more important in rural areas because you have fewer disaster response resources than in cities. Rural areas receive warnings later, have fewer emergency responders, fewer advanced trauma hospitals. There are more neighbors helping neighbors in cities, and more potential sources of help in densely populated areas. Telecommunication providers are less likely to spend money hardening infrastructure in rural areas, because there is less business. Its easy to find alternative telecommunications in New York City. Its hard to find backup telecommunications in Idaho. A nation-wide WEA and EAS system helps warn people in both cities and rural areas. But they still depend on carriers and broadcasters. If there are no backup batteries in cell towers, or backup transmitters for broadcasters, you end up with communication blackouts like in Puerto Rico for months.
Re: Oct. 3, 2018 EAS Presidential Alert test
Just as a small point of contention, if you lose the bread basket and the agricultural industries, you might as well have never received an emergency alert in a city where the supplies and fresh food will run out and people will be fighting and killing each other for a Snickers bar. No good saving millions of people if you can't feed more than thousands. Just my $.02. :) On 10/08/2018 12:42 PM, b...@theworld.com wrote: I suppose since every life is precious one can measure the effectiveness based on "land mass" but then one wonders if some sheep out in a field in Idaho really care that the US was just invaded...put better: You do what you can! -- . === -- - -- - - -- - ---. | Nate MethenyDirector, Technology | | Santa Fe Institute office 505.946.2730 | | cell 505.672.8790 fax 505.982.0565 | | http://www.santafe.edu n...@santafe.edu | `--- - -- ---- - = == ===' smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
RE: Oct. 3, 2018 EAS Presidential Alert test
On October 8, 2018 at 03:37 snasl...@medline.com (Naslund, Steve) wrote: > A few cases come to mind. I also think there are lots of alerts > that will not send people screaming into the streets. 9/11 did not > really have that effect in most places and it took quite some time > for word to spread to people who did not have full time media > access. You also have to account for non-urban areas (the majority > of our land mass). In a lot of this country you might not see > anyone other than the ones you live with for many hours or days at > a time. 9/11 literally did send people out into the streets screaming. Even nationwide skyscrapers were evacuated in some cities. In Chicago Sears tower (and I believe the Amoco tower according to some eyewitnesses) were evacuated at about 10AM. So was the IDS tower in Minneapolis (57 stories, tallest in the city.) The White House and Capitol building were evacuated a little earlier, about 9:30AM. And the UN in NYC. At about 10:45AM NYC mayor Rudi Giuliani ordered the total evacuation of all of Lower Manhattan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_for_the_day_of_the_September_11_attacks The article below lists the evacuations of the Coca-Cola and BellSouth buildings, CNN center in Atlanta. And several more in Los Angeles (Citibank tower etc.) Well, read the article, Detroit, the Grand Coulee Dam, etc. http://articles.latimes.com/2001/sep/11/news/ss-44625 I suppose one can go back to the phrase "most places", sure, MOST places even in western Europe weren't bombed in WWII or even affected physically (i.e., by ordnance of any sort.) P.S. Over 80% of the US population is urban. I suppose since every life is precious one can measure the effectiveness based on "land mass" but then one wonders if some sheep out in a field in Idaho really care that the US was just invaded...put better: You do what you can! -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die| b...@theworld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD | 800-THE-WRLD The World: Since 1989 | A Public Information Utility | *oo*
Re: Oct. 3, 2018 EAS Presidential Alert test
On Sat, 6 Oct 2018, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: Since there isn't infinite money to build a system that will reach *everybody*, the only reasonable approach is to cobble together a set of overlapping systems on existing technology that covers the most people while staying inside the funding restrictions. There is also the circular logic of budget cutting. 1. We don't need to fund outdoor sirens, becuase we have E.A.S. on radio/TV/cable. 2. We don't need E.A.S. because we have NOAA weather radio. 3. We don't need NWR because we have Wireless Emergencey Alerts. 4. We don't need WEA, because we have outdoor sirens. 5. Goto 1 There is no business case for Amazon, Apple or Google to include emergency alerts as part of their smart speakers. The majority of cities did not repair/replace their outdoor civil defense sirens when they reached their 40-year lifespan in the 1990s. Tornado Alley likely still has the most working outdoor sirens, but even in that part of the country a majority of cities saved money by not maintaining them. An average outdoor siren costs $25,000 installation, $1,000/year maintenance and only covers 1/2-mile radius -- outdoors. In most places, an outdoor siren won't wake you up indoors. This year's federal budget proposed cutting 20% of NOAA weather readio transmitters to save money. Fewer than 5% of households buy weather radios. Although FCC and FEMA help standardize national disaster response systems, such as 9-1-1, E.A.S. and W.E.A, essentially 100% use of those systems is for local disasters and emergencies. It makes sense for some national consistency for things like stop signs and emergency alerts and 9-1-1. People travel and work in other cities, and aren't ready for lots of local variations during emergencies. Since 2011, EAS and WEA has been used for 33,000 local weather alerts and local emergencies and only 4 national tests (4 for EAS and 1 for WEA). FEMA only has about 15 people to maintain its national warning system 24/7/365. Giving the lack of disaster funding, you are more likely NOT to get any warnings during a disaster than ever seeing any black helicopters flying over your house. Alexa won't say a word.
Re: bloomberg on supermicro: sky is falling
The risks of VPN aren't in the VPN itself, they are in the continuous network connection architecture. 90%+ of VPN interconnects could be handled cleanly, safely, and reliably using HTTPS, without having to get internal network administration involved at all. And the risks of key exposure with HTTPS are exactly the same as the risks of having one end or the other of your VPN compromised. As it is, VPN means trusting the network admins at your peer company. On 10/08/2018 12:15 PM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote: On Mon, 08 Oct 2018 08:53:55 -0500, Daniel Taylor said: Especially when you have companies out there that consider VPN a reasonable way to handle secure data transfer cross-connects with vendors or clients. At some point, you get to balance any inherent security problems with the concept of using a VPN against the fact that while most VPN software has a reasonably robust point-n-drool interface to configure, most VPN alternatives are very much "some assembly required". Which is more likely? That some state-level actor finds a hole in your VPN software, or that somebody mis-configures your VPN alternative so it leaks keys and data all over the place?
Re: bloomberg on supermicro: sky is falling
On Mon, 08 Oct 2018 08:53:55 -0500, Daniel Taylor said: > Especially when you have companies out there that consider VPN a > reasonable way to handle secure data transfer cross-connects with > vendors or clients. At some point, you get to balance any inherent security problems with the concept of using a VPN against the fact that while most VPN software has a reasonably robust point-n-drool interface to configure, most VPN alternatives are very much "some assembly required". Which is more likely? That some state-level actor finds a hole in your VPN software, or that somebody mis-configures your VPN alternative so it leaks keys and data all over the place? pgpgfWgi58nGW.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: bloomberg on supermicro: sky is falling
That would be one way, but a lot of the problem is unplanned cross-access. It's (relatively) easy to isolate network permissions and access at a single location, but once you have multi-site configurations it gets more complex. Especially when you have companies out there that consider VPN a reasonable way to handle secure data transfer cross-connects with vendors or clients. On 10/07/2018 10:53 PM, Naslund, Steve wrote: You just need to fire any contractor that allows a server with sensitive data out to an unknown address on the Internet. Security 101. Steven Naslund From: Eric Kuhnke >many contractors *do* have sensitive data on their networks with a gateway out to the public Internet. -- Daniel Taylor VP OperationsVocal Laboratories, Inc. dtay...@vocalabs.com http://www.vocalabs.com/(612)235-5711
