On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 11:57 AM Michael Thomas <mike@mtcc.com> wrote:
> Yes, that's exactly my point: it should just be a requirement of the
> hardware platform to implement this. Just like e911. Enumerating the
> types of devices that are required to implement this is way easier than
> enumerating the types of apps/sites that need to implement it. All the
> government needs to do is set up the server infrastructure to source the
> alerts.

Hi Mike,

In many cases, only the foreground app has a clear understanding of the state of the screen. Not the OS and definitely not the hardware platform. I'd be super pissed if I died in Overwatch because the BIOS tried to take over the screen to display an amber alert.

But if you're about to be incinerated in real life -- Paradise -- you want the alert. We're not talking BIOS here, we're just talking a normal IP client program that has elevated privileges to take over the outputs as necessary. And, of course, we want to be able to prioritize things like Amber alerts to zero when we're sitting at home watching tv. Really, this is nothing more than Biff over IP.

Mike