Worry Over VZW, Sprint Phones' 911 Alarm

[TheBORG] writes "An Austin woman who dialed 911 recently discovered what she said could be a fatal flaw in some new cell phones. She called for help when she arrived at some vacant property she owns in east Austin and found her security chain gone. She grabbed her new Verizon Wireless Casio G'zOne phone, which to her horror made an audible alarm when she called 911. Fearing vandals were still on the property, she hung up and hid, then put her hand over the earpiece and dialed again to muffle the sounds. A Verizon Wireless spokesperson says it's mandatory according to Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act. The FCC says Section 255 of the Telecommunications Code requires that phones let a caller know a 911 call is underway, but does not require an audible alarm. This thread on Howardforums.com mentions that the alarm is present on new Sprint phones too."

Well, duh.

[NeuralAbyss (12335)]

There's her problem. She's using Verizon.

Seriously.. are there /any/ mobile telcos in the US that don't suck in one way or another? I hated dealing with them for a month as a tourist, let alone for any longer period.

Re:

[jamar0303 (896820)]

There isn't any one perfect carrier but T-Mobile and Helio come the closest (depends on what you want- if it's freedom to use a foreign phone and great customer service go T-Mobile; if it's Korean input or the Ocean go Helio).

Re:Well, duh.

[snowraver1 (1052510)]

I wonder how much this really has to do with the carrier. Personally, I would think that it has more to do with the phone manufacturer. I know that my cell phone (LG Chocolate flip) makes a sound when you dial 911.

I'm pretty sure that when the phone companies make a contract with a carrier, they just slap some crappy branding all over it, and (for me on Telus anyways) disable every feature that they possibly can, then charge you to use thier "service" (ie. disabling bluetooth file transfer so that you can't put ring tones on without paying them; Making it so that mp3's you store on the memory card cannot be copied to the phone internal memory, again so that they can bend you over for $3.00 + download fee for a ring tone.) I fucking HATE Telus.

Re:

[jamar0303 (896820)]

No, I'm used to using 112 for emergencies- it's the universal emergency number. Again, that was an accident when I put it down and let some kid fool with it. Of course, the call dropping before it could connect kind of shattered my confidence.

Re:Well, duh.

[joto (134244)]

How would that work given in China it's 119? Something about the Chinese government hates the US that stupidly.

Yes, I agree that it's a good idea to know the local emergency number. But I disagree that having a different emergency number than 911 should indicate that you hate the US. In fact, most of the countries of the world, do not have 911 as emergency number. [sccfd.org]. Moreover, many countries still "unofficially" route 911 to the local emergency number to take care of idiots, american tourists, and people raised on Hollywood movies (some of these categories may overlap).

Re:Well, duh.

[GreyPoopon (411036)]

What we need is some good European style competition!

Could you describe what, exactly, the European brands have to offer that solves our problem? Somehow, I don't think paying a whopping premium to call a mobile number from my landline is a solution. If that happens, I'll just stop calling mobile numbers altogether. I'm perfectly happy with T-Mobile except for the lack of a PDA-phone that performs well enough to make it usable, and the lack of UMTS. Both of those are supposed to be fixed early next year. I'd like to see any European plan that provides me with 700+ minutes of unlimited calling and a data plan for two PDA phones at less than $100 per month.

I'm not taunting you or trying to argue. I just really want to know what it is the European competition offers that I'm missing.

Re:Well, duh.

[GuldKalle (1065310)]

OK, i'll bite

I'm a European (from Denmark, specifically) , and from what I know about how the US system works, I'm happy it's not that way here.

First off, you are not charged if someone calls you (except if you're in another country).
Second, there are no "branded" phones that artificially limits what you can do to it.
Third, a lot of subsidized phones. My phone will cost me around 500$ with all expenses, and on top of that I get ~700min/month for six months (oh, and the max. vendor-lock time here is six months). If I were to buy the phone without subsidization it would have been ~$450

For the landline premium, I agree it sucks. But instead of not calling to a mobile, most people just stop calling from a landline.
Another downside is that data is quite expensive, about .50$/MB
(btw, what do you mean by 700+ mins of unlimited calling?)

Re:

[webmaster404 (1148909)]

Not really... either you get good rates but horrible service outside your city, or you get great service anywhere in the US (its a big country) but get charged sky high rates for simple things such as texting.

Re:Well, duh.

[moosesocks (264553)]

Well, yes. Verizon is generally crap.

However, in this case, their incompetence is borderline criminal. They need to push out a mandatory firmware update that removes this behavior immediately, or issue a recall. This comes to mind as being *extremely* dangerous.

Re:

[NeuralAbyss (12335)]

Absolutely. You've just got to wonder what sort of idiot did the requirements analysis for this sort of functionality.

I mean, sure, companies try to cover their arse from the FCC.. but wouldn't an ordinary person think "hang on.. we might be sued if the alarm goes off when a violent intruder hears a customer calling 911!"? I'd go as far to say it's beyond borderline criminal, it's outright malicious.

Re:Well, duh.

[by Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately it would be criminal to remove it, thanks to Congress.

Now the article says the FCC doesn't require a loud tone, which is technically true. Unfortunately the Telecommunications Act DOES require a loud noise of some type, so that blind people are aware that they've dialed 911.

This is a mandated "accessibility" feature. The FCC says they're free to remove the "alarm" but at best they could replace it with a loud voice announcing "you're calling 911!" which I don't think would help.

In this case Congress deserves the blame for passing a law without thinking of the consequences. They demanded that all phones make it clear to blind people that they had dialed 911, and the only way to do that on phones without a Braille interface is a loud noise of some form. No matter what the FCC says about the alarm not being "required," some form of loud noise IS required.

Re:Well, duh.

[jandrese (485)]

Why not just put a "blind person mode" on the phone (probably with a more PC name)? This mode would emphasize voice dialing and whatnot and have the 911 alarm, but could be turned off by people who do not need it. In fact it could be off by default and turned on by the representative at the store if the person buying the phone needs it.

Re:Well, duh.

[UncleTogie (1004853)]

This mode would emphasize voice dialing and whatnot and have the 911 alarm, but could be turned off by people who do not need it.

What amuses me is that they call a loud SOUND an "accessibility feature" for the disabled, ignoring the fact that it does us deaf folks no good... In fact, it might be MORE dangerous; I might not have heard the "alarm" and left it going... and for those asking what a deaf guy has a phone for, 911 is it. Even if I can't hear the operator, I can keep repeating the important info {location, problem, situation} until someone shows... assuming the bad guys don't hear me or my phone first.

If the jerks had really considered the entire subset of disabled, they might have realized that a "vibrate" pulse every 3-5 seconds is the only solution for both deaf and blind people.

I'm not asking them to bend over backwards for me; I'm just asking the FCC to put more thought into these regulations.

Re:Well, duh.

[Asmor (775910)]

I think the point is more about when a phone is dialed accidentally... For example, I used to have a phone which would dial 911 if you held down the 1 key for a couple seconds, and there was no way to change that.

Re:

[Achromatic1978 (916097)]

Blind people can feel.

You forgot to end that sentence with "... you insensitive clod!"

In a closet!

[courteaudotbiz (1191083)]

Very practical, when you're hidden in a closet because a criminal comes in with a weapon... I'm sure he won't mind you witness his crime.

Re:In a closet!

[HexaByte (817350)]

But now that you know it's there, use it to your advantage!

Scenario: Criminal breaks in. You hide behind/under the bed, dial 911 and throw cell phone into closet. It yells "I'm dialing 911". Criminal yells, "No, I'll kill you first", goes for closet. You shoot the bastard, saving your tax dollars being wasted on a trial. It's all caught on the 911 tape, and investigators conclude you were in direct fear for your life and acted appropriately.

Next, you sue the Cell phone company for putting you in danger and giving you the emotional distress of having to kill a human being, resulting in your retirement fund being fully funded early, and you moving to the Bahamas to live a life of ease.

Very Dangerous

[fixer007 (851350)]

What if she had been in a bank or restaurant that was being held up? The alarm would alert the theives and the person could easily be put in danger.
I know a woman this happened to, she was behind the counter when theives broke into a bar to rob it. She hid behind the counter and called 911. If she had this phone, she would most likely be dead.

Already happened

[by Anonymous Coward]

This has already happened [findarticles.com] to Esther Green, wife of New York Jet Victor Green. She was carjacked and kidnapped along with her 11-month old baby in 1999. While the carjacker was driving them God-knows-where, Green discreetly reached into the diaper bag and SILENTLY dialed 911, while continuing to engage the kidnapper in conversation. A smart 911 dispatcher listened in and figured out what was going on and sent a cop, using information Green provided in her conversation.

With an audible alarm, Green and her baby would very likely have been dead.

Re:Very Dangerous

[Rogerborg (306625)]

I'm sure the people who designed this feature were bright enough to consider how it might be used, and when.

Hello. I work for and with "those people". And no, they're not bright enough. I mean the people who actually make the decisions really, really aren't. They may ask their lawyers whether they're more likely to be sued for not doing it than for doing it, but they won't take you or my best interests into consideration for one second. Really, they won't.

Re:Very Dangerous

[mav[LAG] (31387)]

In other words, if X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one...

Re:

[mpe (36238)]

I'm sure the people who designed this feature were bright enough to consider how it might be used, and when. I suspect that there is a great body of evidence showing that attracting attention to a bad situation is a very good strategy: scream for help, wave your arms, sound an alarm. These strategies are effective in a great majority of cases.

Whilst there might be an argument for having a phone be capable of operating as a siren/ELB/etc. It's hard to see any situation where you'd want it to do this at the

Re:

[sumdumass (711423)]

Drawing attention only works in areas where people are likely to be and when there isn't some mental issue with the attacker and he/she is still able to tell right from wrong.

Cops use whistles to direct traffic not stop criminals caught in the act. They know what works best and what is the safest when in a situation. I agree that you can't always carry a weapon that would be effective at protecting yourself. So hiding and calling for help is probably the safest thing to do in a lot of situations outside of

WTF?

[jamar0303 (896820)]

Who thought that putting an alarm on a phone dialing 911 was a smart idea? It's not always about alerting anyone nearby to the fact that something's wrong- sometimes you don't want anybody to notice you, like when you're home and someone's broken in. Better to err on the side of caution. Eh, glad I know of shops where I live that can get Korean phones onto the Verizon network- I don't have this issue.

Nice way to let the perps know where you are!

[tomhudson (43916)]

" requires that phones let a caller know a 911 call is underway, but does not require an audible alarm."

So now don't bother trying to call 911 the next time there's a school massacre - you'll just be targetting yourself and earning bonus points for your Darwin Award. Fucktards strike again.

wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[LordKronos (470910)]

I can kind of see the point of this, with all the people who've accidentally dialed 911 while the phone was in their pocket/purse. However, I think this may be the wrong way to go about solving the problem. I don't have any evidence to back up my theory, but I suspect most accidental calls don't actually dial the full 911. I've seen several cell phones before where simply holding down the 9 key will dial 911. If that isn't an accident waiting to happen, I don't know what is. Eliminate that, and I wonder how many accidental calls will be left.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[CoolVibe (11466)]

In the Netherlands we have a similar service (we dial 112 instead of 911), which sometimes gets called accidentally. A human picks up the call, hears nobody on the other side, and hangs up. The caller gets an SMS that notifies him that he/she dialed 112 accidentally. Way better system.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[hjf (703092)]

unless you're in a car crash and passed out just after you dialed 112. yeah, way better system.

Re:wrong way to eliminate accidental 911 calls

[dmatos (232892)]

The way it works in NA, IIRC, is that if 911 is called and the operator doesn't hear anyone, they have to assume the worst and send fire, police and ambulance to the address of the phone (if it's a land line). Not sure how it works for cell phones.

Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[httpamphibio.us (579491)]

I call 911 on a regular basis to report out of control drivers and street fights (I live in Boston, there are tons of both of these). All my Verizon phones (I've had three) go into "Emergency Mode" when you call 911 and stay in this mode for several minutes after the conversation has ended then make a loud chirp when going back into non-emergency mode.

Two semi-related notes... first, a couple months ago my battery died when I was reporting a street fight. When I checked my voicemail after it was done charging I had an irate message from a cop yelling, "DO NOT HANG UP ON THE BOSTON POLICE!" and threatening me with arrest!

Second... on Nokia candy bar phones when the keypad is locked you can key in 911 and it'll automatically come out of the locked mode. Also, 112 does the same. Can anyone tell me what 112 is?

112 is the GSM international emergency number

[Chrisq (894406)]

It is the GSM international emergency number, and the European emergency number. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-1-2 [wikipedia.org]

Re:112 is the GSM international emergency number

[JMZero (449047)]

Except in England, where it's: 0118-999-881-999-119-7253.

Re:112 is the GSM international emergency number

[VGPowerlord (621254)]

In case someone doesn't know what that's in reference to, watch this video [youtube.com] from The IT Crowd [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[A beautiful mind (821714)]

Since absolutely noone mentioned it before, 112 is the european emergency number aswell as the international GSM emergency number. Glad to be able to tell you this important bit of information first!

Re:Post-call Alarm "Emergency Mode", Boston, 112.

[squiggleslash (241428)]

112 is the GSM emergency number. The GSM standard mandates that it should work no matter where you take your GSM phone.

It happens to also be European wide emergency number for all lines, landline and mobile, (though many member states have their own number, and have implemented 112 as an alias - for example, in the UK 999 is considered the emergency number; but that's not relevant here. The context is mobile phones, and 112 is the GSM mobile emergency number. It works in Europe, it works in Korea, it works in Australia, it works in the US - on GSM networks.

Slashdotted!

[Bazman (4849)]

Right now the US emergency services are being slashdotted by slashdotters calling 911 to see if their phones go into this mode! Go on, call 911 now and you'll hear that all the operators are busy, and would you hold while they play you some Vivaldi...

Audible alarm?

[Forkenhoppen (16574)]

Does a giant exclamation mark appear over your head too?

Doh!

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

This is the kind of story that shows up in Risks Digest [ncl.ac.uk] all the time - an email digest that ought to be mandatory reading for anyone involved in technological development.

Clearly the goal is to reduce bogus 911 calls that occur when a cell phone's keys get accidentally pushed, like in a purse or someone's pocket. But the first question that should have been asked is just how much of a problem are such calls? Yes, we get the occasional anecdote [google.com] of cell phones gone wild, but is it really such an overwhelming problem that it needs to be fixed at all?

Second, presuming it is so common that 'something must be done' -- then they should have come up with an escalating alarm - like say more than 5 consecutive calls to 911 or more than 10 minutes air-time connected to 911 and the phone plays a short recorded message through the phone so both parties can hear it saying that it is going to start making noise in a few more minutes unless the user - or the 911 operator on the other end - types in a short number to disarm it. Even if the user doesn't know what to do in response to the message, the 911 people will quickly become familiar with such warnings that they will know what to do. (I'm assuming that 911 operators have actual keypads at their stations, that might not be the case.)

Re:

[imipak (254310)]

RISKS Digest recommendation thirded with alacrity. It should be a must read for virtually everyone technical, designers, developers, architects, sysadmins,.. in fact I wish the general public read it as well, sometimes. Might set their expectations a bit more realistically when they're planning things like ID card systems, working on the assumption that computers are like the ones in Star Trek in being omniscient and virtually error-proof.

Blackberries - designed to call 911 accidentally

[CKW (409971)]

> should have been asked is just how much of a problem are such calls?

It will become a problem if designers (or their idiot pointy haired managers) keep making dumb decisions.

Blackberries that have the scroll wheel and/or the pearl are extremely prone to accidentally dialing 911. If the scroll wheel is *touch* or moved in any way - a dialog pops up with three options:

    Unlock
    Emergency Call (aka Dial 911)
    Cancel

So if the scrollwheel was scrolled down a tiny bit (50% of the time!), now all that's needed to call 911 is two presses in a row of the scrollwheel - (there is a confirm dialog, and it defaults to yes please call) - and hey we already know that it's getting mucked with because it got moved!

Guess what the Blackberry/Rogers techs had to say when I phoned them to ask how to disable that? "Putting the phone in your pocket or your purse *IS NOT SUPPORTED* - you are NOT supposed to do that." They claim that blackberries are only being used "as designed" when they are in their crappy shitty uncomfortable holsters*. RIM has clearly heard tons of people bitch to them about it, because they were immediately defensive and angry and very cross for me not keeping it in the holster 24/7 - clearly a canned "oh we need to blame the customer for our screw-up" kind of response.

What kind of stupid idiot designer uses *one button* to create an emergency dialing system? At the very least all other phones require you to press two seperate buttons in a particular order (9 - 1 - 1) without pressing any other buttons within the reset/re-lockout period. I have never EVER pulled my cell out of my pocket to find it ready to call or calling 911. EVERYONE I know has pulled their blackberry out of their purse or pocket to find that it was one button press away from calling 911, and I was walking with another friend on a street when he got a call back from 911 saying "what's the problem, you just called us".

The laws may say the phone has to be able to make emergency calls, but it doesn't say the designers need to be daft idiots.

Someday I'll get around to writing a letter to the chief of police in my city and province, and to the attorney general - and pointing out that all the dead calls they are getting are likely from Blackberries, and that they should sic the dogs on RIM.

(*) Holsters that for one reason or another continuously hold down buttons and keep the screen on.

What's the Alarm?

[rodney dill (631059)]

Danger Will Robinson, Danger

Wrong sound

[Deadstick (535032)]

Perhaps they could offer a new alarm tone: SHUCKSHUCK.

rj

I hate automatic systems like this

[Just Some Guy (3352)]

I don't like automated "helper" systems like this that can't be overridden. It's my nature to try to come up with a situation where they'll do more harm than good. My pet anti-favorite is always-on headlights on cars. I imagine a scenario where you're in the middle of nowhere and trying to get away from the bad guys before they can find you. You ease the keys into the ignition of your silent-running electric car, take a deep breath, and turn it on - only to see your lights^Wbeacons come on. The bad guys jump out and shoot you.

Safety features are great, but they must be overrideable.

Re:911 Abuse

[dattaway (3088)]

Maybe the first thing she should do is put the non-emergency police number on her phone so she doesn't have to tie up an emergency line with this bs.

We have the non-emergency police number programmed, just because we want to talk to a real officer and not put on hold to talk with some dumb 911 operator who makes us repeat our address 10 times and other dumb questions. We had a house burn down in front of ours, because it took 911 over 15 minutes to answer. I could have walked to the fire station quicker. We then discovered the non-emergency number and can get an officer here less than a minute any time. Its a real pleasure to talk with a real officer who has a clue what I need help with too. 911 operators don't have that quality.

Re:

[imipak (254310)]

....that's LOOPY. When it's easier / quicker / better to phone the cops down the road rather than go via the official 911 / 999 / 211 service, something somewhere is profoundly fucked. (Incidental anecdote: my 97 year old grandmother lives next door to an ambulance station. In the past, when she's had a call, relatives have knocked them up - and received service from them - but they absolutely *insist* that you call 999 and jump through the official hoops at the same time (when control call them they just

Re:

[deniable (76198)]

I know a while back in Australia, 000, directory assistance and IIRC faults were the same people. Mates called Telstra for something and got put on hold for emergency calls.

Re:911 Abuse

[eck011219 (851729)]

Hm, a woman alone on vacant property with the suspicion that there are bad people there? Yeah, you're right, there's no potential for emergency there. Honestly, sometimes I wish Slashdot didn't allow AC posts. It would solve a lot of hot wind problems like this one.

I have had several police officers in several different municipalities (even Chicago, which is quite understaffed and full of very real crime) tell me when I call the non-emergency line to call 911. They say that they would much rather respond quickly to even what seems like a minor problem so it doesn't become a major problem.

If I had mod points I'd mod you troll. I hardly ever do that, but really, you're just picking a dumb fight.

Of course, I'm the putz who bit on it ...

Re:911 Abuse

[by Anonymous Coward]

>Honestly, sometimes I wish Slashdot didn't allow AC posts. It would solve a lot of hot wind problems like this one.

It may not be obvious to you, but AC posts are vital to slashdot IMHO. I often post things from work AC that are about my employer, or contain relatively privileged information that I would like the community to know without being readily traceable to me. Yes they are also used for abuse, but these are quickly modded -1.

When I have mod points I specifically look for insightful or informative AC posts, as I have to post AC for some of my best comments.

Re:

[zippthorne (748122)]

No, she did the right thing. The non-emergency numbers are for non-emergencies. One clue that you're not having an emergency is that it seems like a reasonable idea to go to the phone book and skim through a few blue-pages until you find the right number. Obviously, if you have reason to believe you might have to put yourself in physical danger to even get to the phone book, you're not having a non-emergency.

It's important not to abuse the emergency numbers, but it's also just as important not to be nerv

Re:

[sribe (304414)]

So why wasn't she carrying her pistol?

Even if she had been carrying a pistol, dialing 911 should still have been (at least nearly) her first act. And her phone should not have started making noise.