Re: Should Netflix and Hulu give you emergency alerts?

[Michael Thomas <mike () mtcc com>]

On 3/12/19 1:45 PM, William Herrin wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 11:57 AM Michael Thomas <mike () mtcc com 
> <mailto:mike () mtcc com>> wrote:
> > Yes, that's exactly my point: it should just be a requirement of the
> > hardware platform to implement this. Just like e911. Enumerating the
> > types of devices that are required to implement this is way easier than
> > enumerating the types of apps/sites that need to implement it. All the
> > government needs to do is set up the server infrastructure to source the
> > alerts.
>
> Hi Mike,
>
> In many cases, only the foreground app has a clear understanding of 
> the state of the screen. Not the OS and definitely not the hardware 
> platform. I'd be super pissed if I died in Overwatch because the BIOS 
> tried to take over the screen to display an amber alert.


But if you're about to be incinerated in real life -- Paradise -- you 
want the alert. We're not talking BIOS here, we're just talking a normal 
IP client program that has elevated privileges to take over the outputs 
as necessary. And, of course, we want to be able to prioritize things 
like Amber alerts to zero when we're sitting at home watching tv. 
Really, this is nothing more than Biff over IP.

Mike