Re: NDAA passed: Internet and Online Streaming Services Emergency Alert Study

[Matthew Petach <mpetach () netflight com>]

On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 7:11 PM Billy Crook <BCrook () unrealservers net> wrote:

> Then again how many people would benefit from adding this to online
> streaming, but don't already have cellphones that have emergency alert
> popups that get their attention.  The kind of people who don't have
> smartphones are going to be the ones still watching bunny ears television
> anyway.  In other words, you're not going to reach the people who *don't *have
> smartphones by ADDING more technology.

/* begin semi-annoyed and frustrated rant */

That would be incorrect.
My partner is one of the more tech-savvy people on the planet; she's
contributed code to the core sendmail implementation,
she's single-handedly torn down and completely rebuilt the entire
infrastructure for
a silicon valley company in a matter of days following a compromise,
she's written software for monitoring millions of devices within global
networks.
She consumes information voraciously online.
She doesn't wiggle bunny ears on the television.

And she's never bought a cell phone.

If we're going to postulate every citizen of the country having a cell
phone,
then we should first postulate the system whereby the government provides
them free to every citizen, with a minimum level of access provided free to
all users.

*Then* you might be able to start making broad, sweeping claims about
who has cell phones, and who doesn't.

Otherwise, you're kinda talking out your backside, saying "well, I own a
cell phone,
and I can't possibly imagine anyone like me not owning a cell phone,
therefore they
must not exist."

The failure happening here is your ability to imagine the existence of
people unlike yourself,
not the failure of such people to actually exist.

Up to now, they've simply fallen through the cracks.

The Alert Study in question is simply asking "is there a way we can
use technology so they no longer fall through the cracks?"

It's a valid question to ask, and as I'm sitting scarcely a dozen feet
from one of the people that explicitly falls into the category the study
seeks to address, I can vouch that it is a non-zero population, and it
is a population that is indeed missed by our current alerting systems.

We may eventually decide it's too technologically challenging to serve
them, and decide to let them continue falling through the cracks.

But let's at least do the exercise of looking to see if a solution exists,
rather than simply claiming the problem doesn't exist.
Because I can personally attest that yes, there are technically savvy
people who consume online content who have never bought a cell
phone, and have no interest in paying dozens of dollars a month to
a company for a device they have no desire to ever use.

/* end rant */

Thank you for your time and patience in reading,
or at least your silence in your use of the d key,

Matt