[196298] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: California fires: smart speakers and emergency alerts
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Tue Oct 17 04:38:00 2017
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2017 11:32:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com>
To: Peter Beckman <beckman@angryox.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.20.1710152301340.90609@nog2.angryox.com>
Cc: NANOG mailing list <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On Sun, 15 Oct 2017, Peter Beckman wrote:
> It is theoretically simple to:
>
> 1. Turn the address of your Smart Speaker into coordinates
> 2. Receive ALL alerts and only act upon those that apply to your
> location
>
> This way it isn't creepy, because the emergency alert wasn't targeted to
> you, but your device was aware enough to determine that you are in the
> warned area.
A very solid, technical response. Unfortunately, most people don't react
that way. The top questions from the public about Wireless Emergency
Alerts is
How did FEMA get my phone number to send me WEA alerts?
The technical response is WEA doesn't use phone numbers, its a cell
broadcast to all phones in the area. Its not your individual phone.
Non-technical people hear blah-blah-technical-nonense; and still think
WEA is someone texting their phone, which means FEMA must know their
phone number.
A smart speaker suddenly announcing "There is a tornado warning in this
area, would you like to hear more?" will probably freak-out those same
non-technical people.
