Re: <SPAM> Re: emergency alert system

[Valdis Kletnieks <Valdis.Kletnieks () VT EDU>]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:10:42 MDT, Brad Judy said:

> The reality is that most campuses will never use these for active
> shooters, terorrist attacks, bombs, etc.  They will most often be used
> for things like campus closures, threatening weather (tornado warnings,
> hurricane coming, etc) and other more slowly unfolding events.

True enough there.  Randy already gave a pointer to what we've got in place,
so far I've only seen 4 or 5 test messages that were pre-announced.  I fully
expect the first *real* usage of the system to say "Ice storm" (we see the
occasional blizzard or tornado, but ice is the biggest threat weatherwise here).
And for that, if it takes 30 or 45 minutes to get the news out, it's OK.

> As for exploiting such a system to increase casualties in an attack,
> first, this is an extremely unlikely scenario.

Almost every security geek I know reacted to this recent item the same way:

Text Alerts to Cellphones in Emergency Are Approved
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/washington/10alert.html?ref=us

"Wow, I wonder how we could leverage this into an attack form?".

If the security geeks are thinking it, so are the evil doers - the thought
process is the same, it's all a matter of what color hat they wear...

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