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Cellphones Communications

An Emergency Alert Test Will Sound On All US Cellphones, TVs and Radios On Wednesday (cbsnews.com) 101

Posted by BeauHD from the PSA dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Your electronic devices may alarm you on Wednesday afternoon — but there's a reason for that. A nationwide test of the federal emergency alert system will be broadcast at approximately 2:20 p.m. EDT to cellphones, televisions and radios across the United States at around the same time. Most Americans with wireless cellular devices will receive an emergency alert message, as will most whose televisions or radios are on when the test occurs.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will conduct Wednesday's test in coordination with the Federal Communications Commission. Emergency alert messages that make up the test are divided into two groups -- the Emergency Alert System (EAS) for radios and televisions, and the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) for wireless phones -- although both are scheduled to happen at once. Wednesday will mark the seventh nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System. Six previous tests were conducted over the years between November 2011 and August 2021. This will be the third nationwide test of wireless alerts, and the second nationwide test transmitted to all cellphones, FEMA said in a statement. As the wireless alert tests are sent out to phones, the Emergency Alert System tests will be sent out to televisions and radios.

People can elect not to receive certain emergency alert messages to their cellphones from local authorities, or in some instances, simply decide whether to subscribe or not to a specific set of emergency alerts put out by a particular agency. On the other hand, it is not possible to opt out of the upcoming test of the national wireless alert system. All major wireless providers participate in FEMA's wireless alert system. So, most people whose cellphones are turned on and located within range of an active cell tower during the test should receive a message, the agency said (PDF).
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An Emergency Alert Test Will Sound On All US Cellphones, TVs and Radios On Wednesday More

An Emergency Alert Test Will Sound On All US Cellphones, TVs and Radios On Wednesday

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  • Hmm... (Score:3)

    by dbialac ( 320955 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @08:15AM (#63896475)
    So if you're planning to do something nefarious, Wednesday at 2:20PM EDT is the time to do it.

  • We did this in the UK a few months back (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @08:16AM (#63896479) Homepage

    On mobile phones at least, not T Vand radio. Lots of gormless talking heads on TV and radio complaining how dare the gubbermint hijack their phone to send an emergency message that could save their lives one day along with "how do they know where I am?"

    I mean FFS, where to even start with that paranoid clown mentality. Clearly their knowledge of how cellular phone systems work is the square root of fuck all.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Ophbalance ( 303859 )

      Oh it gets so much worse. The QNutz are out there claiming it'll activate the nano-virus for the vaxed and kill them all. And this is meant to kill all those smart appliances when the call goes out when the respond to the signal to self destruct. And it'll shut down power grids. And whatever else the EMP crowd was talking about last year as well.

    • Thanks for the flashbacks! (*rolls eyes*)
      I lost count of how many times I had to tell some braindead simpleton about how it did (end more importantly, did not) work!
      (I would have used gormless, but you already did)

    • It was funny to us then too. *Us being the people who have their emergency alerts tested monthly along with mobile emergency alerts tested quarterly for the best part of the past decade.

      Honestly the way the UK was going about it made it sound like they were going to test nuclear launch sequences and that the world was going to end. They predicted endless traffic jams and all victims of abuse getting beating for hiding a mobile phone. I'm genuinely not surprised the people in the UK are afraid of their own s

      • well we don't know how many victims of domestic abuse got extra beatings because of this, it's in the nature of the thing.

        But I agree it was altogether a huge anti-climax, my phone didn't even ring at all.

        • I know we don't know, but I'm sure the Daily Mail will be eager to tell you the number was HUGE anyway. Seriously this is a complete non-thing. There are many countries which test emergency alert systems frequently and yet the first time I heard any talk of people having car accidents because they get scared or domestic abuse victims getting beaten is in the UK. And it wasn't just some passing comment either. This discussion dominated the news for days.

          Like WTF.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      > I mean FFS, where to even start with that paranoid clown mentality.

      Start with France I suppose.

      "French Assembly passes bill allowing police to remotely activate phone cameras and microphones for surveillance"
      https://www.engadget.com/frenc... [engadget.com]

      Lawmakers in France's National Assembly have passed a bill that lets police surveil suspects by remotely activating cameras, microphones and GPS location systems on phones and other devices. A judge will have to approve use of the powers, and the recently amended bi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        If you're worried about that sort of thing buy a cheap dumbphone without a camera that can't download apps or be easily hacked.

    • Shame it didnt work.

      Most phones are not even able to react to it. Mine isnt for example and thats a new upgrade I moved to only recently, the phone was made in 2017 and has years left before I move again.

  • I generally hate non-relevant notifications of all types and so I long ago turned off Amber alerts after being woken up in the middle of the night more than once.

    I was going to disable this test notification as well, but it appears that the national alerts are the one alert type that you cannot disable, at least on a Pixel 6 device.

    • The peasant does not silence the King.

    • Wish I could silence the Amber alerts.

      They do not need to wake anyone up. If you're already up you'll get the alert just fine, if you're sleeping the chances you know anything useful is as close to zero as you can get.

      Wake me up for tornados, earth quakes, and other natural disasters that actually put my life at risk, even while I'm sleeping.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rossdee ( 243626 )

        "Wake me up for tornados, earth quakes, and other natural disasters that actually put my life at risk, even while I'm sleeping."

        While we may have advance knowledge of tornadoes on radar, we don't have advance knowledge of earthquakes.

        • Earthquakes have secondary risks that a truck passing by doesn't have.

          Even if an earthquake has woken you it may be important to know it was an earthquake, and not something else.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by jonadab ( 583620 )
            Depending on the magnitude of the earthquake.

            If it's the kind of earthquake we get around here, it's not worth waking anyone up.

            But if it's a 7.something (or higher), then yeah.

            • If its a 7.something, you more than likely got thrown out of the bed, which for most people is going to wake them up big time, no need for an alert on your phone.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by jonadab ( 583620 )
                Hmm. I thought that was more like 8.something, but having lived my entire life in the Midwest, I don't have a whole lot of direct experience with high-magnitude earthquakes. I do still remember the big quake we had back in '89, that dominated the news for a solid week. Absolutely everyone was talking about that one constantly for days, and I personally knew three people who claimed to have _felt_ it.

      • Re: Alerts (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @09:18AM (#63896603)

        Wish I could silence the Amber alerts.

        I live in Canada, where our phones theoretically don't allow Amber Alerts to be disabled. But I was pleased to note that when I installed LineageOS on my Samsung, I could and did disable what were called "Presidential Alerts", and I haven't received any Ambers since.

        Here in Ontario their primary use seems to be by the provincial police sending notifications of missing persons and child abductions. But the information given is so scant that even if I was out driving around at 3AM with time on my hands and a willingness to help, I could do nothing. The notices also cover too broad an area - I've been awakened in the wee hours by notifications for situations three hours away from me. So I've taken to calling them Scamber Alerts.

        • Re: Alerts (Score:5, Interesting)

          by SuiteSisterMary ( 123932 ) <slebrun AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @09:50AM (#63896685) Journal

          We live in Canada, where the CRTC has mandated that all alerts go out as the highest level built into the protocol, often referred to as 'presidential' or 'nuclear war' level. They choose to not use the amber alert level, or the extreme local threat (aka tornado, severe thunderstorm, etc) level.

          This, of course, has lead to alarm fatigue and condition people to, by and large, ignore alerts automatically as they often involve an amber alert hundreds of kilometers away. And that doesn't even get into the fact that the alerts are sometimes sent hours after the child is found, due to various delays.

          • Amber Alerts lost their alert privileges for me when I was awoken at 2am for an abducted child who was taken 16 hours prior over 100 miles away. Why? Just why?

            Later, say 7-8am, and I can keep an eye out during a commute. Earlier and I may see something while commuting home or grabbing dinner, or will have it in mind for the next day. But 2am? The kidnapper could be 900 miles away and I doubt they expect me to hit the streets on the off-chance he was in my neighborhood, so why send it at all?

            And then during

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I live in Canada, where our phones theoretically don't allow Amber Alerts to be disabled. But I was pleased to note that when I installed LineageOS on my Samsung, I could and did disable what were called "Presidential Alerts", and I haven't received any Ambers since.

          Maybe that changed at some point because LineageOS won't let me toggle presidential alerts. It does allow you to turn them all off via "Allow alerts" which from the presentation in the UX I assume also means presidential alerts.

          Here in Ontario their primary use seems to be by the provincial police sending notifications of missing persons and child abductions

          Around here most "child abductions" are custody disputes.

      • ,,,if you're sleeping the chances you know anything useful is as close to zero as you can get.

        Unless you happen to be sleeping with Amber...

    • You need a rooted Android device, the option to disable these alerts exists in Android but is not made available to the user... normally.

    • I was going to disable this test notification as well, but it appears that the national alerts are the one alert type that you cannot disable, at least on a Pixel 6 device.

      In this case you CAN disable it; it is a scheduled alert after all. Just turn off your phone 15 minutes before the scheduled time, and turn it back on 15 minutes after. You can even set alarms to - Oh, wait...

    • I turned off all the alerts I could. They were happening so often that I just stopped paying attention to them anyway.
    • adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.android.cellbroadcastreceiver

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Agreed! The cell alert system has been over-used and mis-used, calling "wolf" over small things or issues in far off locations.

      Do it right or get fucking blocked, sloppasses!

    • I was going to disable this test notification as well, but it appears that the national alerts are the one alert type that you cannot disable, at least on a Pixel 6 device.

      You can if you build the rom yourself. (You just have to patch CellBroadcastConfigService.java and add a preference item to CellBroadcastSettings.java.)

      Of course, IANAL and you should check your local regulations to see if this is legal before doing so.

  • The sirens will be going off anyway

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      That varies from one community to another. Our siren test here is always at local noon on a Friday.

  • So that's what the conspiracy theorists have been going on about.

    Snore.

    • Yes, the government always provides plenty of advance notice when they about to enact their secret plan to activate vaccine nanobots via 5G to turn everyone trans/socialist/zombies. LOL

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Pascoea ( 968200 )
      Thanks. I hadn't heard of this one yet, that's 30 minutes of my life I'll never get back. The US government can't get bottles of water to a stadium during a crisis, but they managed to inject all of us with 5g-activated nanoparticles? Seems reasonable.

      • The US government can't get bottles of water to a stadium during a crisis, but they managed to inject all of us with 5g-activated nanoparticles? Seems reasonable.

        I guess they're trying to be optimistic and guess the REST of the federal govt. is not FEMA.

        ;)

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by jonadab ( 583620 )
        Do you really think they *can't* get bottles of water to a stadium? Are you sure they *wanted* to?

        That theory is wrong, though. The government doesn't even have the technology to create nanoparticles. Even Google barely has nanoparticle technology, and it's not advanced enough for that yet. So it had to be the aliens who did it, obviously. Not sure how anyone missed that point. All the government did was cover it up to hide their incompetence.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Pascoea ( 968200 )
        Figured I'd update: Test was successful and I'm still alive. Nanoparticles and all. Was I holding my phone wrong? Maybe there's a delay? It better hurry up, I have a big meeting in 30 that I didn't prep for because of this.
  • I am tired on constant alerts about lost kids and big thunderstorms.

    • I am tired on constant alerts about lost kids and big thunderstorms.

      You can turn those off you know. I turned off the amber alerts after getting ones from all over the country. There are different levels of alerts, and I'm pretty sure there is one that you can't turn off.

      We had a huge Thunderstorm in my area one winter, with a lot of flooding. My phone which I keep in the kitchen went on a blood curdling screechfest. I suspect it was a good thing for some people.

    • Amber alerts are disabled on my cell phone. My weather radio has a feature where you can enable only the alerts you want - I dont care about a thunderstorm, but I DO care about tornadoes. Flash flood or other types of flood warning mean nothing to me, so I have them turned off too. Basically, I only want to be told about life-threatening conditions (or rather, life threatening while I am inside my house at home). I can go to the weather channel for anything more.

    • You might be able to disable them depending on your phone.

      I don't, because:

          * I live near one of the nation's worst hotspots for child abduction and trafficking.

          * Around here big thunderstorms can turn into tornadoes with little or no warning.

      YMMV.

      • Same here, but I don't have kids so I dont care and if I am somewhere were I would be concerned by storms, the sky would be a much faster indicator of shit going down.

  • Is this when we get our updates??

  • Dear God, let it me nuclear missile incoming warning because someone misstyped alert code in system..

  • For people in domestic abuse situations (Score:5, Informative)

    by nerdonamotorcycle ( 710980 ) on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @10:54AM (#63896843)
    If you live with an abusive partner or parent(s) and have a secret "emergency phone" tucked away somewhere that your abuser doesn't know about, turn it off before this test. Only turn it back on when "safe" (i.e. your abuser is out of the house or you've taken the phone somewhere safe) in case the alert comes through when the phone turns back on.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Also if it's constantly plugged in it's battery will quickly die in swell.

        No it won't. It's 2023 not 2013. 100% and plugged in does not mean overcharging and it doesn't mean cells are at 100% capacity. There is no reason to not leave a device on charge these days.

        Unless you're buying cheap Chinese firework electronics made by idiots who don't understand electronics for idiots who don't understand you shouldn't buy cheap shit.

      • > so that it has power in times of need

        You would think that might be a good idea but how many can hold on in such an emergency situation while the phone slowly boots up as the abuser is chopping down the door?

        What about when you are being abused right at that moment and all you can hope to do is press the SOS button so that a text is sent to whoever will come and save you? I doubt you will have much time while being abused to wait for the phone to start up and then unlock it etc.

        Thats probably why its k

  • Some dumb guys tried to sue the President for such testing. If the guys are consistent and still dumb, they'll sue again. Or was that only targeting the former President?

  • I have these messages turned off (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I have these messages turned off and the reason is government abusing these services. I disabled them after receiving a few annoying messages that had nothing to do with imminent threat. Good job, fuckers.

  • Some rumble video that you want to keep your phone off during this because if you took the Covid-19 shot, there are nano particles that are still in your body encapsulated in some poly mesh substance that when they pulse 18ghz 5G signals will cause those capsulated cells to burst open, giving you a "zombie" virus or some such nonsense.

  • And I'm all out of bubblegum.

  • A new method to annoy people. One thing that the govt is most excellent at doing.

  • First, you can opt out of anything you don't want to receive if you use an FOSS operating system like Android. While some handset mfgs may disable your ability to disable some notices, fully unlocked FOSS systems (e.g. LineageOS) will easily allow this option.

    Secondly, the sources say the "emergency broadcast test" may be pushed back to the 11th if there is bad weather or some nationwide event. It seems to me that an emergency broadcast that can't be sent out due to weather or emergeny suggests the sysem

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • The government can't send agents to force their way into your private home to make announcements.
    But it can force its way onto the "public" transmission medium it claims to safeguard on your behalf.
    If you happen to have a device - such as a radio, TV, or computer - that receives signals via a medium the government claims power over, then they can push whatever content they want to your device.
    If you wish not to receive such messages, the burden is on you to design your own device or modify your purchased de

  • ... on my 5G phone. Shit coverage.

    Thank goodness my car radio still receives AM.

  • I wonder if my phone really does turn off completely when I tell it to. I shall find out, I suppose.
    {^_^}

  • It works on your TV's too?

    How does it work over radio? RDS?

  • Computers are a primary communication technology today. So will the alert show up in video games, web browsers, teleconferencing platforms, Netflix, Youtube, Slack, Teams, email, twitter, facebook, TikTok, Slashdot, Hacker News, Reddit, newspapers, operating systems, pagers, satellite phones, US mail, and Post-It Notes?
  • So strange when we get local news without any local signifiers.

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