----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Ferguson" <fergdawgster@gmail.com>
As to the emergency broadcast system, yeah, that's going to lose.
Didn't we already replace that with twitter?
quake/tsunami warnings flow via email rather quickly.
Old skool.
Twitter is much faster:
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/government-disaster-advisors-twitter-ha cked-used-to-send-tsunami-warning/408447
Ok, let's go here. The problem, as a few seconds thought would reveal, is one of *provenance*. You could call it authentication if you wanted to, but to the *end-user*, what the authentication *authenticates* is the provenance. And anti-spoofing is pretty important, when the message might be "run for the hills; the bombers is comin'!" Well, ok, more to the point: "This is the Pinellas County Emergency Manager; I'm declaring an official Level 3 evacuation ahead of Hurricane Guillermo." You can put it on Twitter... but you can't *only* put it on Twitter. Cheers, -- jra