on the folly of trusting cell phones

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: gailbracy <gailbracy () homelandhugs org>
Date: September 11, 2005 3:56:30 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: on the folly of trusting cell phones


A little humor about cell phones in dire straits, for an unusually  
dreary
day...



My husband and I were in NYC August 2003, when the lights went out. That
afternoon, a Friday, he had taken the train to Long Island, and I was
browsing about, window-shopping, trying to stay in shade as it was
horrifically hot and muggy. I'd just sat down at an outside café  
across from
Rockefeller Plaza having a cool snack, getting energy to get back to the
Hilton where we were staying on the 27th floor.

Across the plaza was an exhibit of "One Hundred Years of Flight" which
coincided with the Wright Brothers accomplishments. I was raised on the
coast of North Carolina, and even though they were from Ohio, we  
claimed The
Brothers as our own. I'd visited the Wright Brothers museum in Kitty  
Hawk
many times as a child.

As I viewed the various exhibits, I noticed people pouring out of the
buildings in what seemed to me to be droves. It was so odd that so  
many were
coming out at once, but I'm not a New Yorker, and it was after all,  
Friday
afternoon.

But it soon became obvious this wasn't a typical Friday. People  
walking in
the middle of streets, thousands of them, cars jamming into gridlock.  
Wowsa!
I'm thinking. I asked a guy what was going on and found out the power  
went
out, that's all he knew. Then I noticed many fiercely dialing their cell
phones, with no luck. I got worried then hugely spooked. Electric  
adrenaline
shot through my body as I worked my way back to the area where all  
the news
stations were. Maybe the tickers would say something...

For a few dreadful minutes, we were all thinking the same thought: this
maybe another terrorist attack. My blood turned cold but there was  
nothing
to do but wait. My cell phone didn't work either. A street vendor had a
battery-powered radio and hoards of us gathered around to hear scary yet
false reports that a power plant in Jersey was on fire.

Gulp.

But I had my camera and no matter what, I was going down taking  
pictures.
Maybe my camera will endure and some good soul will find it and tell my
story. I accepted my fate, and started snapping.

And then, a call!! It was my son down in North Carolina, asking me  
how I was
doing. He told me the details of the black-out and that he was  
watching it
all on MSNBC. I was standing at the blue CNN sculpture and my son  
could see
that whole area from a camera that was apparently stationed somewhere  
above
me.

I got directly in front of the CNN sculpture and amid the masses,  
started
jumping up and down in my bright red shirt so he could spot me on TV  
and he
did! We then tried to determine where the camera was. He was hanging  
out of
a window on the fourth floor of the NBC building! So, ham that I am,  
told my
son to roll the video tape, I'm going to get this guy's attention.

Across the from the NBC building, I stand on the edge of a fountain,  
with my
working cell phone in hand frantically waving. Sure enough the camera  
guy
sees me, panned in and my son tapes silly me, yukking it up in the  
middle of
chaos.

Then, in one crazy-cool moment, my cell phone slipped from my hand, a  
fatal
"kerplop", and there it goes, drowning in the fountain behind me. I  
trudged
into the water to retrieve it, as New Yorkers around me rolled their  
eyes at
the stupid tourist.

Needless to say, I felt immensely foolish killing off the one working  
cell
phone in Manhattan, but I sure had some great photos.  I got back to the
Hilton, climbed the 27 floors to my still-chilled room, watched the
blackened skyline and thanked my lucky stars above it was "merely" a  
power
failure.

Finally, as New York began blinkering back to life, I heard a frail  
little
chirp from my cell phone, and there in the dark, it came back to life.






-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 3:37 AM
To: Ip Ip
Subject: [IP] Katrina and the folly of trusting cell phones



Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: September 1, 2005 12:27:52 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: Katrina and the folly of trusting cell phones



Dave,

In watching the interviews from the areas devastated by the aftermath
of Katrina, one warning comes through loud and clear, and while it's
not a new one, it's still critically important: Trusting cell phones
to work in many emergency situations can be dangerous or fatal.

Over and over we hear people saying how their cell phones became
useless (except perhaps for snapping photos).  And it wasn't a
"simple" matter of call traffic overloading.  Even in areas where
equipment wasn't flooded, power cutoffs led to microcell batteries
running down within a couple of days.  With so much reliance on
these small, seemingly ubiquitous cell sites, power failures can turn
regional cellular networks into largely useless hardware in short
order.

It's particularly upsetting to hear people noting that this agency or
that organization depended more than ever on inexpensive cell phones
rather than the expensive dedicated radio equipment that they used to
use, and when the cellular network went down their communications
were disrupted in major ways.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () pfir org or lauren () vortex com or lauren () eepi org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, EEPI
   - Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative - http://www.eepi.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com



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