California fires: smart speakers and emergency alerts
Has anyone heard if the smart speaker companies (Amazon Echo, Google Home) plan to include emergency alert capability? An estimate 10% of households own a smart speaker, and Gartner (well-known for its forecasting accuracy) predicts 75% of US households will have a smart speaker by 2020. Although most silicon valley tech nerds are still in the "invincible" years, were the california fires close enough to silicon valley that smart speaker developers might think an emergency could affect them. And an emergency alert capability in their smart speakers might be important?
I messaged the Nest guys a few weeks ago about that very issue. I think it would be somewhat simple for them to put an RF module in their Protect devices (smoke alarms) and a speaker to alert about the issue. Since they are wifi-enabled, they could probably also arrange a clearer audio feed over the internet with a fallback to RF if the internet is down/power is out. -A On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
Has anyone heard if the smart speaker companies (Amazon Echo, Google Home) plan to include emergency alert capability? An estimate 10% of households own a smart speaker, and Gartner (well-known for its forecasting accuracy) predicts 75% of US households will have a smart speaker by 2020.
Although most silicon valley tech nerds are still in the "invincible" years, were the california fires close enough to silicon valley that smart speaker developers might think an emergency could affect them. And an emergency alert capability in their smart speakers might be important?
I’m quite surprised they didn’t send out a local emergency alert. I’ve gotten these for Tornadoes and amber alerts. Wildfires would be comparable to a Tornado IMO. Jared Mauch
On Oct 13, 2017, at 6:33 PM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
I messaged the Nest guys a few weeks ago about that very issue. I think it would be somewhat simple for them to put an RF module in their Protect devices (smoke alarms) and a speaker to alert about the issue. Since they are wifi-enabled, they could probably also arrange a clearer audio feed over the internet with a fallback to RF if the internet is down/power is out.
-A
On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
Has anyone heard if the smart speaker companies (Amazon Echo, Google Home) plan to include emergency alert capability? An estimate 10% of households own a smart speaker, and Gartner (well-known for its forecasting accuracy) predicts 75% of US households will have a smart speaker by 2020.
Although most silicon valley tech nerds are still in the "invincible" years, were the california fires close enough to silicon valley that smart speaker developers might think an emergency could affect them. And an emergency alert capability in their smart speakers might be important?
On Fri, 13 Oct 2017, Jared Mauch wrote:
I’m quite surprised they didn’t send out a local emergency alert. I’ve gotten these for Tornadoes and amber alerts. Wildfires would be comparable to a Tornado IMO.
Like most news stories, its a little more complicated. Napa, Sonoma sent an evacuation alert by Nixle, SoCoAlert and social media (i.e. Facebook). They also made reverse-911 calls to landlines, and sent police to knock on doors in neighborhoods. Lake County sent an evacuation alert by both EAS and WEA (different from SMStext, like an Amber alert). Orange County sent an evacuation alert by WEA. The National Weather Service will forward alerts from local emergency management officials about evacuations and wildfires on request, but doesn't issue evacuation or wildfire alerts itself. The reason given by emergency management officials was WEA (cell phones) and EAS (cable, radio and TV) would cause public panic and traffic jams because those systems alert everyone in an entire county. One of the biggest challenges for emergency managers is reaching people in the middle of the night at homes as fewer people have landline phones. Smart speakers seem like an interesting way to notify people -- assuming the owner has a working broadband connection, allows "push" notifications, etc. While have a backup RF receiver would be nice, that's what a cell phone or weather alert radio is good at. Many emergency alerts are distributed through the Internet now, i.e. IPAWS, so smart speaker companies don't need to have special EAS receivers anymore. Most of the smart speaker companies aggressively try to get users to add their zip code/postal code to geolocate the unit. In addition to providing local weather and news, I assume it helps the smartspeaker companies target advertising. And since I've already gotten a private email about it, end-user/consumer alerting devices can filter alerts. The user could block the 3am amber alerts, but still allow evacuation, and other extreme alerts. Back to my question - Hey, smart speaker companies... Any plans?
I would think that Amazon knows where my Echo is since it's the same IP that I order (way too much crap) from. Same with Google, maps knows where home is. -- Joe Hamelin, W7COM, Tulalip, WA, +1 (360) 474-7474
On 10/14/17 22:01, valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
On Fri, 13 Oct 2017 18:50:51 -0700, Joe Hamelin said:
I would think that Amazon knows where my Echo is since it's the same IP that I order (way too much crap) from.
It knows the usual delivery address. That's not necessarily the same thing.
It pairs with your phone via bluetooth, also wifi geolocation (e.g. skyhook) tends to be fairly accurate in moderately high density residential environments.
On Sun, 15 Oct 2017, valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
On Fri, 13 Oct 2017 18:50:51 -0700, Joe Hamelin said:
I would think that Amazon knows where my Echo is since it's the same IP that I order (way too much crap) from. It knows the usual delivery address. That's not necessarily the same thing.
First, need to figure out if any smart speaker manufacturers have any plans to add emergency alerts to their product. Only need to solve the other problems if they do, otherwise it doesn't matter. While VOIP phones needed exact addresses for 9-1-1 purposes, emergency alerts are rarely as specific as a city or county. An exact longitude/latitude would be nice to have, but probably not necessary for most emergency alerts. All the smart speakers ask for the user's location, at least a zip code, during the installation. And they seem to use the typical advertising network IP address geolocation. It would be creepy if an emergency alert was too targetted. It may be better to keep it larger than a mile radius, rather than a single house.
Someone do a kickstarter already. I'll contribute. ;) -A On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 7:09 PM, Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
On Sun, 15 Oct 2017, valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
On Fri, 13 Oct 2017 18:50:51 -0700, Joe Hamelin said:
I would think that Amazon knows where my Echo is since it's the same IP that I order (way too much crap) from.
It knows the usual delivery address. That's not necessarily the same thing.
First, need to figure out if any smart speaker manufacturers have any plans to add emergency alerts to their product. Only need to solve the other problems if they do, otherwise it doesn't matter.
While VOIP phones needed exact addresses for 9-1-1 purposes, emergency alerts are rarely as specific as a city or county. An exact longitude/latitude would be nice to have, but probably not necessary for most emergency alerts. All the smart speakers ask for the user's location, at least a zip code, during the installation. And they seem to use the typical advertising network IP address geolocation.
It would be creepy if an emergency alert was too targetted. It may be better to keep it larger than a mile radius, rather than a single house.
It is theoretically simple to: 1. Turn the address of your Smart Speaker into coordinates 2. Receive ALL alerts and only act upon those that apply to your location This way it isn't creepy, because the emergency alert wasn't targeted to you, but your device was aware enough to determine that you are in the warned area. Taking this further, let's have manufacturers build the location awareness into the device, rather than the upstream service (e.g. Amazon, Google, Apple). Your smart speaker receives a stream of ALL the alerts, and if you are in a warned area, and you enable them, they alert you. With the processing power on these speakers, and the likely small quantity and amount of data per alert to determine if it applies, it should be achievable while still protecting your smart speaker location. Beckman On Sun, 15 Oct 2017, Sean Donelan wrote:
It would be creepy if an emergency alert was too targetted. It may be better to keep it larger than a mile radius, rather than a single house.
Jean-Francois Mezei wrote:
So, assuming its Speaker is geolocated, Google would know if an alert is applicable to its location and be able to send it to the unit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman@angryox.com http://www.angryox.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Sun, 15 Oct 2017, Peter Beckman wrote:
It is theoretically simple to:
1. Turn the address of your Smart Speaker into coordinates 2. Receive ALL alerts and only act upon those that apply to your location
This way it isn't creepy, because the emergency alert wasn't targeted to you, but your device was aware enough to determine that you are in the warned area.
A very solid, technical response. Unfortunately, most people don't react that way. The top questions from the public about Wireless Emergency Alerts is How did FEMA get my phone number to send me WEA alerts? The technical response is WEA doesn't use phone numbers, its a cell broadcast to all phones in the area. Its not your individual phone. Non-technical people hear blah-blah-technical-nonense; and still think WEA is someone texting their phone, which means FEMA must know their phone number. A smart speaker suddenly announcing "There is a tornado warning in this area, would you like to hear more?" will probably freak-out those same non-technical people.
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 8:32 AM, Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
A smart speaker suddenly announcing "There is a tornado warning in this area, would you like to hear more?" will probably freak-out those same non-technical people.
Simple programming problem. Speaker: "There is a tornado warning in this area, would you like to hear more?" User: "How did you get my phone number?" Speaker: "You have opted out of tornado warnings" Fast forward to the next tornado and techno-darwinism will take effect. Alternatively you could have the speaker ramble on for 10-15 minutes about how the weather alerting system works and maybe the end-user will hang around long enough listening to the explanation... -A
On Mon, 16 Oct 2017, Aaron C. de Bruyn wrote:
Simple programming problem.
Speaker: "There is a tornado warning in this area, would you like to hear more?"
User: "How did you get my phone number?"
Speaker: "You have opted out of tornado warnings"
Fast forward to the next tornado and techno-darwinism will take effect.
Alternatively you could have the speaker ramble on for 10-15 minutes about how the weather alerting system works and maybe the end-user will hang around long enough listening to the explanation...
Of course, on Amazon's Alexia, it will probably sound like this Alexia: "There is an immediate evacuation due to wildfires in this area, would you like to order N95 facemasks with free shipping for Amazon Prime members?"
On 10/16/2017 09:01 AM, Sean Donelan wrote:
On Mon, 16 Oct 2017, Aaron C. de Bruyn wrote:
Simple programming problem.
Speaker: "There is a tornado warning in this area, would you like to hear more?"
User: "How did you get my phone number?"
Speaker: "You have opted out of tornado warnings"
Fast forward to the next tornado and techno-darwinism will take effect.
I have done what I could to turn off all of these alerts. My first experience with one was several years ago with an amber alert, making my phone emit strange and somewhat unsettling noises I didn't recognize. The amber alert was for an event some 400 miles away from me (I was in northern cal, and this was taking place in los angeles). How useless. So there is a control you can set to make sure you don't get these... everything up to but not including 'presidential alerts'. From what I see, this is really wrong. Yes I would like there to be a broadcast capability with some kind of gps fencing. No, I am not the police nor will I do their job and be their eyes and ears. Yes, I want to know if there is a major fire or other natural disaster in my current area but otherwise, no, don't bother me. Is that too much to ask? Mike-
re: alerts last march, Montréal had a nasty winter storm which resulted in a stretch of highway wheree all exits were blocked for hours (the government had inquiry on what happened). Cars stuck in there in middle of night for 6 hours. Once police woke up, it would have been extremely helpful if they could have broadcasted an alert to all cars in that area, giving them instruction on how to turn around and exit "backwards"). Similarly, in Atlanta, when a piece of highway collapsed, such alerts might have been helpful to all those drivers stuck and unable to proceed (and needing to turn around). But this has to be very targetted to one antenna, not an area. The problem is that people get annoyed by alerts that don't concern them and if they turn it off, then it defeats the purpose for "real" alerts. Last year, where Fort McMurray was hit by forest fires, Canada did not yet have emergency alerts enabled. Twitter and radio were the "official" evacuation orders. (and there were mistakes, underestimating it, mistakes in handling traffic etc). A telling video in case you hadn't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC2iPvXAggM Communications systems become extremely important in such emergency events because of the time critical nature. For instance, in Fort McMurray, one neighbourhood had only road out and it was already in teh fire so people evacuating had to go through it. Yet, at intersection with highway, the first responders were slowing traffic exiting from Beacon hill to let highway traffic through, unaware of what was going on on that one exit from beacon Hill neighbourhood (bad neighbourhood design BTW). Had they stopped highway, they could have evacuated neighbourhood quickly instead of forcing cars to be stuck in traffic with fire all around them. And as a sign of the times, many home cameras ran and kept sending surveillance video to some service provider servers as the house burned down until power cut or camera burned. (and some of the evacuated people were able to get cable company to check iof theyr modem was still "there" as a means to find out if their home had burned or not. And while authorities refused to release real information on what areas were damaged or not, Google released "before/after" satellite images so people could check if their home was still there of not. (the information age defeating politicians fears of releasing information). on lighter note: this past summer while on an Amtrak train south of Wilmington, interesting experience to see everyuone's phone beep at roughly same time in train car due to flash flood alert, followed by skies opening up and dumping an ocean on the train.
On Mon, 16 Oct 2017, Mike wrote:
'presidential alerts'. From what I see, this is really wrong. Yes I would like there to be a broadcast capability with some kind of gps fencing. No, I am not the police nor will I do their job and be their eyes and ears. Yes, I want to know if there is a major fire or other natural disaster in my current area but otherwise, no, don't bother me. Is that too much to ask?
Yes, there are various implementation problems and mistakes. It sometimes feels like companies and agencies deliberately implement alerts badly. Emergency alerts should not sound like a 1950's AM radio with lots of static anymore. And yes, due to lack of funding almost no emergency officials receive any formal training how to prepare public alerts or use emergency alert systems. So they make mistakes over-alerting or under-alerting or creating an understandable message. Those things are out of scope of NANOG. I've participated in the FCC rulemakings on emergency alerts and submitted suggestions things it could do to improve the implementation of emergency alerts (EAS, WEA, etc). I've also written some guidance for emergency managers about using public alerting systems http://www.donelan.com/eas.html Back in scope for network operators and NANOG. There are several things that could update the public alerting system for this century. I'd love to work with any teams that want to make things better. Heck, I got U-Verse to add an "exit" and "weather" button to its emergency alerts, so you can dismiss it instead of waiting for the entire message to play. And the original question -- alerting people at home seems like a natural fit for smart speakers in the home and better intelligent assistants, i.e. don't wake me up at 3am for anything less than an extreme emergency impacting my immediate area. Any of the smart speaker companies have any plans for this kind of feature? I've looked at the publically available SDKs and APIs. They have most of the pieces.
On Sun, Oct 15, 2017 at 7:09 PM, Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
It would be creepy if an emergency alert was too targetted. It may be better to keep it larger than a mile radius, rather than a single house.
Get out! The tornado is calling from your house! -- Joe Hamelin, W7COM, Tulalip, WA, +1 (360) 474-7474
Note: Google Maps shows various alerts applicable to the region you are looking at in maps. So, assuming its Speaker is geolocated, Google would know if an alert is applicable to its location and be able to send it to the unit.
On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 04:59:17PM -0400, Sean Donelan wrote:
Has anyone heard if the smart speaker companies (Amazon Echo, Google Home) plan to include emergency alert capability? An estimate 10% of households own a smart speaker, and Gartner (well-known for its forecasting accuracy) predicts 75% of US households will have a smart speaker by 2020.
How is geolocation achieved on these in-home devices? Is that tied to the ~80% accuracy of general purpose IP geolocation? Do they have GPS? Or is this done via account data in case it contains a street location? This is different from alerts to cellphones "tethered" to a tower where you get a better location info, even for E911 (exclude corner cases where you are on a "mountain" top overlooking silicon Valley and lock onto a tower further away). There you are effectively sending the alert to the tower at a certain location and it multicasts it out to the phones that are attached to it. -andreas
I know with Alexa products they just ask you for a postal code for weather updates. Probably covers 99 percent of cases. On Oct 13, 2017 4:26 PM, "Andreas Ott" <andreas@naund.org> wrote:
Has anyone heard if the smart speaker companies (Amazon Echo, Google Home) plan to include emergency alert capability? An estimate 10% of households own a smart speaker, and Gartner (well-known for its forecasting accuracy) predicts 75% of US households will have a smart speaker by
On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 04:59:17PM -0400, Sean Donelan wrote: 2020.
How is geolocation achieved on these in-home devices? Is that tied to the ~80% accuracy of general purpose IP geolocation? Do they have GPS? Or is this done via account data in case it contains a street location?
This is different from alerts to cellphones "tethered" to a tower where you get a better location info, even for E911 (exclude corner cases where you are on a "mountain" top overlooking silicon Valley and lock onto a tower further away). There you are effectively sending the alert to the tower at a certain location and it multicasts it out to the phones that are attached to it.
-andreas
After wildfires killed 40+ people in northern California last fall, I asked if Amazon and Google had any plans to include emergency alerts in their smart speaker/intelligent assistant products. Smart speakers seem like a way to alert people to imminent life-threatening danger during the night when they may be asleep or not aware of it. Probably not a surprise, the product managers at Amazon and Google didn't see a benefit. Instead of emergency alerts, instead the product improvement roadmap priority is on package tracking and delivery alerts :-) Also shouldn't be a surprise. Senator Schatz and Representative Gabbard have introduced bills to study the feasibility of establishing systems and signalling for emergency alerts to Internet audio and video streaming services. Its just a proposed bill for a study, for now. My opinion is it makes more sense to do emergency alerts at the smart device level (smart speaker, smart tv, smart streaming box) rather than at the content layer (hulu, netflix, spotify). Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Microsoft Cortana want to keep track of everything else in my life, why not if there is an emergency alert at my current location. There is a lot of opportunity to come up with better ways to notify people in ways they want, when they want, beyond tracking their package deliveries. And since its at the voluntary stage now, a chance to shape the discussion. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3238 S. 3238 To improve oversight by the Federal Communications Commission of the wireless and broadcast emergency alert systems. [...] SEC. 8. ONLINE STREAMING SERVICES EMERGENCY ALERT EXAMINATION. (a) Study.—Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Commission shall complete an inquiry to examine the feasibility of establishing systems and signaling to offer Emergency Alert System alerts to audio and video streaming services delivered over the internet. (b) Report.—Not later than 90 days after completing the inquiry under subsection (a), the Commission shall submit a report on the findings and conclusions of the inquiry to— (1) the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate; and (2) the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives.
I can see my way clear to supporting this bill ONLY if it ALSO proposes to enhance the liabilities for officials of agencies who issue a false or disproportionate alert. - Brian On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 12:11:36PM -0400, Sean Donelan wrote:
Also shouldn't be a surprise. Senator Schatz and Representative Gabbard have introduced bills to study the feasibility of establishing systems and signalling for emergency alerts to Internet audio and video streaming services. Its just a proposed bill for a study, for now.
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018, Brian Kantor wrote:
I can see my way clear to supporting this bill ONLY if it ALSO proposes to enhance the liabilities for officials of agencies who issue a false or disproportionate alert.
Section 5 of the proposed bill is about emergency alert best practices. That includes best practices for officials to avoid issuing false alerts. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3238/text For non-weather emergencies, you are far more likely NOT to get any warning during a catastrophe. Almost all of the deaths have occured when emergency officials did not have, did not use or had problems activating warning systems. Local officials don't get a lot of practice issuing public warnings, and tend to be shy about issuing public warnings until its too late. For weather warnings, the National Weather Service tends to issue a lot of warnings. Weather radios let you turn off types of warning messages you aren't interested. I want to be woken up before a tsunami, I don't want to be woken up about coastal flooding. Weather fatalities http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.shtml Yes, false alerts happen. False alerts should be minimized. You are extremelly unlikely to die as the result of a false alert. Lack of warning really sucks when it happens to you. Its even worse than missing your package delivery notification.
On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 9:14 AM Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
Probably not a surprise, the product managers at Amazon and Google didn't see a benefit. Instead of emergency alerts, instead the product improvement roadmap priority is on package tracking and delivery alerts :-)
I'm not aware of a public bug tracker/feature request feature for Google Home, but the devices to support "Ok Google, feedback" (not sure about Alexa). Perhaps if people on this list gave them feedback about emergency alerts they might be able to put an count to the people requesting the feature. My opinion is it makes more sense to do emergency alerts at the smart
device level (smart speaker, smart tv, smart streaming box) rather than at the content layer (hulu, netflix, spotify).
I agree. My TV already automatically switches between Google and Amazon devices automatically using some sort of HDMI trigger when one has a notification--completely interrupting me if I'm watching something on the other device. I can only imagine how convenient it will be for the two devices to fight back-and-forth for control of the display during an emergency. ;) Of course there's also the single-device question of: Will it work if I don't have the Hulu app open? Will Hulu run in the background and preempt? Will Hulu and Netflix start fighting for control because they both have messages?
There is a lot of opportunity to come up with better ways to notify people in ways they want, when they want, beyond tracking their package deliveries. And since its at the voluntary stage now, a chance to shape the discussion.
That's the whole reason I ditched Alexa. All it would do is blink constantly and notify me that ordered had been processed, then shipped, then delivered (I know already, the UPS guy knocked), as well as constantly misunderstanding me and then asking if I wanted to purchase some random product based off the misunderstanding. The NEST guys also didn't seem very receptive to the emergency alert stuff when I contacted them. Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency alerting. Someone with free time should start a kickstarter or something. I'd totally chip in. -A
Almost everyone with a cell phone gets real time alerts too. I am not sure how many more ways we can make people aware of things around them. Seems like yet another government mandate to dictate what a device must do.
People in tornado areas seem to be the most aware that alert radios already exist. No internet access required.
Steven Naslund Chicago IL
On 7/26/18 9:59 AM, Naslund, Steve wrote:
Almost everyone with a cell phone gets real time alerts too. I am not sure how many more ways we can make people aware of things around them. Seems like yet another government mandate to dictate what a device must do.
People in tornado areas seem to be the most aware that alert radios already exist. No internet access required.
The next question would be, was the system used to alert for the wildfires? It already exists and has a code for fires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_Area_Message_Encoding If it wasn't activated for the fires, why not? If it was and people just don't have alert radios, maybe there should be some education to go buy one if you live in wildfire prone areas just like how people that live in tornado prone areas usually have one (or more). They come in portable or fixed, and some have alarms louder than any cell phone.
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:54:10 -0700, Seth Mattinen said:
People in tornado areas seem to be the most aware that alert radios already exist. No internet access required.
Do those use a frequency band that's suitable for cellphones to monitor (antenna size, power, etc)? Because your best chance of getting my attention in an emergency is to make my phone start shrieking. (For what it's worth, I actually did get an Amber Alert on my phone last night, and a phone-based weather alert as well)
No. NWR requires a special radio receiver or scanner capable of picking up the signal. Broadcasts are found in the VHF public service band at these seven frequencies (MHz): 162.400 162.425 162.450 162.475 162.500 162.525 162.550 Although, you can buy a wind-up weather radio receiver for $20 that doesn't require batteries or a charger (really helpful when you have an actual emergency and can't rely on an iDevice, or a congested network, for your information). On 07/26/2018 11:09 AM, valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:54:10 -0700, Seth Mattinen said:
People in tornado areas seem to be the most aware that alert radios already exist. No internet access required.
Do those use a frequency band that's suitable for cellphones to monitor (antenna size, power, etc)? Because your best chance of getting my attention in an emergency is to make my phone start shrieking.
(For what it's worth, I actually did get an Amber Alert on my phone last night, and a phone-based weather alert as well)
-- .==== === -- - -- - - - - - ---. | Nate Metheny Director, Technology | | Santa Fe Institute office 505.946.2730 | | cell 505.672.8790 fax 505.982.0565 | | http://www.santafe.edu nate@santafe.edu | `--- - -- - - -- - = == ==='
On Jul 26, 2018, at 12:09 PM, valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
Do those use a frequency band that's suitable for cellphones to monitor (antenna size, power, etc)? Because your best chance of getting my attention in an emergency is to make my phone start shrieking.
VHF, on 7 frequencies: 162.400 162.425 162.450 162.475 162.500 162.525 162.550 That’s about 1.85 meter wavelength, so a quarter wave antenna would be pretty large. I’m sure the RF engineers can come up with a way to listen effectively without a huge antenna. —Chris
On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 12:31:31PM -0500, Chris Boyd wrote:
That’s about 1.85 meter wavelength, so a quarter wave antenna would be pretty large. I’m sure the RF engineers can come up with a way to listen effectively without a huge antenna.
For 162Mhz, a 1/4 wave antenna would have a vertical radiating element of around 17". However, for receive only purposes, it's not necessary that the antenna be resonant. You can demonstrate this yourself with any FM radio and a paperclip. Cheers, -j
On 07/26/2018 10:31 AM, Chris Boyd wrote:
162.400 162.425 162.450 162.475 162.500 162.525 162.550
That’s about 1.85 meter wavelength, so a quarter wave antenna would be pretty large. I’m sure the RF engineers can come up with a way to listen effectively without a huge antenna. That's what loaded whips are for. My shortwave radio has a loaded whip, with the load switched by band.
Once upon a time, valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu <valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu> said:
Do those use a frequency band that's suitable for cellphones to monitor (antenna size, power, etc)? Because your best chance of getting my attention in an emergency is to make my phone start shrieking.
NOAA Weather Radio frequencies are in the 162 MHz band. I have no idea how well a cell-phone could pick that up, but even if they could, it's going to be a power draw. Also, there are 7 different channels, and the phone would have to know which channel to tune for the local area. For phones, it is much more practical to use the (already provided) notifications from the cell network (which you can mostly opt out of as well). -- Chris Adams <cma@cmadams.net>
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018, valdis.kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
Do those use a frequency band that's suitable for cellphones to monitor (antenna size, power, etc)? Because your best chance of getting my attention in an emergency is to make my phone start shrieking.
15 years ago (way back in 2003), one of the reasons the cellular industry gave for NOT having mobile alerts was everyone had a home landline phone. The cellular industry argument was the best way of getting people's attention at home in an emergency using Reverse-911 to call all the phone numbers in the local exchange. The cellular industry said mobile phone alerts were unneccessary and impractical because they wouldn't know where the cell phone was. Fast forward to today. How many people would answer (or still have) their home landline phones if the local emergency service called in the middle of the night with an emergency message? How many people have moved around the country, and still have a cellular phone number from several cities ago? Now my mobile phone gets emergency alerts based on the phone's current location, not the telephone number exchange from four cities ago.
(For what it's worth, I actually did get an Amber Alert on my phone last night, and a phone-based weather alert as well)
If the cellular industry had successfully avoided mobile emergency alerts 15 years ago, because "everyone" had a landline phone, you might not have gotten an alert last night. Those where minor things, but there may be a big thing in the future. Silicon Valley loves to talk about "disrupting" things, but not about consequence of that disruption. Smart speakers are great, but no more am/fm radios for emergencies. Smart TVs are great, but no more cable/antenna for emergencies. Cell phones are great, but no more landline phones at home. Although, I do admit, I turned off Amber alerts on my cell phone a long time ago because NCMEC always seemed to send them early in the morning while I'm sleeping. A
On Jul 26, 2018, at 11:54 AM, Seth Mattinen <sethm@rollernet.us> wrote:
People in tornado areas seem to be the most aware that alert radios already exist. No internet access required.
For those interested in more info, http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/ Pretty popular service in rural Texas. —Chris
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018, Seth Mattinen wrote:
On 7/26/18 9:51 AM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:
Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency alerting.
People in tornado areas seem to be the most aware that alert radios already exist. No internet access required.
I remember 15 years ago, when the cellular carriers argued they shouldn't be required to build emergency notifications into cell phones (I know OEM make the phones). The carriers said it was unneccessary because of alternative ways to notify the public about emergencies, i.e. radio, outdoor sirens, etc. About 2% to 5% of households have weather alert radios. The 5% is in severe weather (tornado) areas, the rest of the country is less. But catastrophes aren't limited to particular severe weather areas. If we knew where fires would start, we would only put smoke detectors in those places. About 18% (and growing) of households have smart speakers, and about 58% of households have a "connected" device of some kind. The number of households with working am/fm radios is 71% (and declining). Younger generations (15 to 39-year olds) are even less likely to have working am/fm radios in the home (43%). If you are listening to a local radio station streaming over a smart speaker, the streaming channel usually has different ads than the over-the-air radio broadcast and does not include emergency notifications. Televisions households haven't declined as much. However, about 11% of "smart" televisions now are only used for over-the-top internet programming. In other words, 11% of unconnected "smart" televisions do not have a cable coax or an over-the-air antenna connected, and would not get any emergency notifications. If the product managers for smart speakers and smart TVs are successful, and replace am/fm radios and cable/over-the-air TVs in households, eventually there will be a catastrophe. After the catstrophe, the public (and politicians) will likely ask why didn't they get a emergency warning from their smart speakers and smart TVs like they used to get from their old am/fm radios and old TVs?
On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 01:53:21PM -0400, Sean Donelan wrote: <snip>
If the product managers for smart speakers and smart TVs are successful, and replace am/fm radios and cable/over-the-air TVs in households, eventually there will be a catastrophe. After the catstrophe, the public (and politicians) will likely ask why didn't they get a emergency warning from their smart speakers and smart TVs like they used to get from their old am/fm radios and old TVs?
That means I can't use my TV, etc. without agreeing to the manufacturers 'Terms and Conditions' -- -=[L]=- Hand typed on my Remington portable Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, Benchmarks, and Delivery dates.
On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 09:51:04AM -0700, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:
On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 9:14 AM Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
<snip>
The NEST guys also didn't seem very receptive to the emergency alert stuff when I contacted them.
And the NEST folk say there is NO WAY that you will ever be able to connect to your own servers rather than theirs.
Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency alerting.
Someone with free time should start a kickstarter or something. I'd totally chip in.
-A
-- -=[L]=- Composed on an ASR33 "Religion teaches you to be satisfied with nonanswers. It's a sort of crime against childhood." - Richard Dawkins
On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 09:51:04AM -0700, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:
Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency alerting.
Someone with free time should start a kickstarter or something. I'd totally chip in.
-A
It would be helpful if it worked when your celltower was down... http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/info/nwrsame.html
Sometimes they survive forest fires. Here's a video from a WISP in California. Their tower did just that last week. https://www.facebook.com/ShastaBeam/videos/2102541106701276/ ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions Midwest Internet Exchange The Brothers WISP ----- Original Message ----- From: "joel jaeggli" <joelja@bogus.com> To: "Lou Katz" <lou@metron.com>, "Aaron C. de Bruyn" <aaron@heyaaron.com> Cc: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2018 5:19:51 PM Subject: Re: California fires: smart speakers and emergency alerts On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 09:51:04AM -0700, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:
Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency alerting.
Someone with free time should start a kickstarter or something. I'd totally chip in.
-A
It would be helpful if it worked when your celltower was down... http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/info/nwrsame.html
On Fri, 27 Jul 2018, Lou Katz wrote:
The NEST guys also didn't seem very receptive to the emergency alert stuff when I contacted them.
And the NEST folk say there is NO WAY that you will ever be able to connect to your own servers rather than theirs.
For the same reason I don't think Netflix and Spotify is the right place for emergency alerts, but I do think emergency alerts should be part of your smart TV and smart speakers. Or more precisely, part of the intelligent assistant that controls those smart devices. Although NEST is being re-absorbed back into Google, I also agree with the NEST people as far as as their old approach that not part of individual IoT devices. NEST products are mostly "sensor" things. The individual sensors do a single thing, i.e. doorbell, thermostat, etc. Its the "intelligent assistant" that you interact with, through smart TVs and smart speakers, which makes the whole thing "smart." So, not part of the NEST products, but emergency warnings should be part of Google Assistant and the Google Home ecosystem. Product managers love the word ecosystem. Several people have told me about Amazon message notifications. Yes, that is correct. Notifications were added last year. However, Amazon's view of notifications is similar to voice mail message waiting lights. Amazon's user guidelines (really requirements) for notifications are meant to be an unobtrusive light and chime, like old-fashion message waiting on answering machines, not to wake you up. Amazon also has an alarm clock function that is designed to wake you up to music or a news report at a specific time; but third-party apps can't use that to set event-driven alarms. Third-party apps aren't allowed to fake it, and set an alarm clock timer for 1 second from now. Only Amazon's Alexa can directly set alarm timers. If you knew the tornado was going to strike your house at 3:42am before you went to bed, why would you need an emergency notification to wake you up? Several weather companies have had discussions about how to improve severe weather warnings with products in the Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, etc. ecosystems for at least a year, likely longer. Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft just need to search their BizDev files for find them. I get companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft want to control the user experience with their intelligent assistants. They want to control unsolicited commercials for "Pizza's On Its Way" at 110db at 3am and potentially driving consumers away from their products with a bad user experiences. One way to control that, is by making emergency warnings part of the base infrastructure under their control instead of random third-party apps using APIs in all sorts of undesirable ways. Third-parties weather apps could still provide "value added" enhancements.
Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency alerting.
Someone with free time should start a kickstarter or something. I'd totally chip in.
Capitalism has proven time and again to suck at public safety issues. Most safety laws are passed after stupid acts of capitalism, i.e. saving a penny and shocking deaths. Its not always as obvious as chaining exit doors closed in night clubs or disabling automotive safety features while testing self-driving cars on public streets. Last fall, AT&T had a single fiber line in Northern California. AT&T wouldn't install a second fiber route, because of captalism. The local communities paid to subsidize a second fiber line, but AT&T refused to use a competitor fiber to provide a backup fiber route. Guess what happened during the wildfires last fall? The lone AT&T fiber was damaged, and all AT&T service, AT&T cell towers, AT&T internet, etc. went down throughout the region during the wildfires. The Cable Act of 1992, which requires cable companies provide emergency announcements on all channels, was passed after large number of tornado deaths occurred in towns where the local cable companies didn't broadcast weather warnings on cable channels. Survivors reported that they were watching cable TV, and didn't know a tornado was about to destroy their neighborhood. The Warning, Alert and Response Network Act of 2006, which created the mobile cell phone warning system in the U.S., was passed after Hurricane Katrina. The post-Katrina reports didn't necessarily identify specific problems with mobile phones during Katrina, but more general challenges reaching vulnerable populations during emergencies resulted in lots of changes. Apple iOS and Google Android implemented a bare bones cell phone alerting, with the worst cell phone user interface, only after the WARN act was passed. Those companies are well-known for their user interface psychologists and testing. Why does their cell phone alert user interface suck so bad? You would expect them to collect lots of analytics about its performance and improvements. But that's not how capitalism works for safety/compliance features.
As most of you noticed, the domain letsencrypt.org is on clientHold, does anyone have more information as of why this is the case ?
It's just been fixed - see https://letsencrypt.status.io/pages/incident/55957a99e800baa4470002da/5b5f5a.... Edward Dore Freethought Internet On 30/07/2018, 21:01, "NANOG on behalf of Alexander Maassen" <nanog-bounces@nanog.org on behalf of outsider@scarynet.org> wrote: As most of you noticed, the domain letsencrypt.org is on clientHold, does anyone have more information as of why this is the case ?
thanks to all replies both public and offlist about the issue being fixed now, no more replies needed regarding that, only perhaps if you know how and why this happened ;)
Alexander Maassen wrote: As most of you noticed, the domain letsencrypt.org is on clientHold, does anyone have more information as of why this is the case ?
They are aware of it. https://letsencrypt.status.io/ Michel. TSI Disclaimer: This message and any files or text attached to it are intended only for the recipients named above and contain information that may be confidential or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not forward, copy, use or otherwise disclose this communication or the information contained herein. In the event you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by replying to this message, and then delete all copies of it from your system. Thank you!...
Alexander Maassen writes:
As most of you noticed, the domain letsencrypt.org is on clientHold, does anyone have more information as of why this is the case ?
Please see https://letsencrypt.status.io/pages/incident/55957a99e800baa4470002da/5b5f5a... for updates and (eventually) https://community.letsencrypt.org/c/incidents for a postmortem. -- Seth David Schoen <schoen@loyalty.org> | Qué empresa fácil no pensar http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/ | en un tigre, reflexioné. 8F08B027A5DB06ECF993B4660FD4F0CD2B11D2F9 | -- Borges, "El Zahir"
On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 09:51:04AM -0700, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:
Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency alerting.
Please no. The IoT is already a security/privacy dumpster fire of enormous proportions and this will provide yet another vector for attacks. ---rsk
If someone wants that sort of thing... does anyone still make AM transistor radios? On Wed, Aug 1, 2018 at 8:25 AM Rich Kulawiec <rsk@gsp.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 09:51:04AM -0700, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:
Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency alerting.
Please no. The IoT is already a security/privacy dumpster fire of enormous proportions and this will provide yet another vector for attacks.
---rsk
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Heavy sigh. Its not about AM radios, although some tinkers have hooked up raspberry pi's to weather band radio chips. Its a cool hack, but not the point. Today, 99% of emergency alerts are diissiminated via the Internet, in addition to other channels (over the air broadcasters, cable, twitter, even Google maps and Google search show emergency alerts, etc). You don't want a single dissimination method. You want diversity of warning channels. For example, only 77 cell phone companies participate in Wireless Alerts. While you are roaming on another carrier's tower, even if your home carrier participates, your current roaming tower might not transmit any wireless alerts about that wildfire heading your way. https://www.fcc.gov/pshs/docs/services/cmas/WEACarrierRegistry121313.xls Nonparticipating cell phone companies are required to inform customers at the point of sale they do not provide wireless alerts. Roaming customers often don't know. The point of the study in proposed bill is customers of Netflix and Spotify (just to pick on them because everyone seems too) watching videos on "Smart TVs" or listening on "Smart Speakers" may not realize those devices won't get emergency alerts like their old-fashion AM/FM radios and over-the-air TVs. If Netflix or Spotify customers are watching or listening on their "Smart Phones", they do get emergency alerts from the cell phone provider. Much like watching Netflix and listening to Spotify on smart phones, Netflix and Spotify do not control the alert function on Smart TVs and Smart Speakers. The alarm API of smart devices is predominately controlled by Amazon Alexa (34%), Google Assistant (34%), Apple Siri (10%), and others (21%). The message waiting notification API isn't a real substitute for an emergency alert API. Even if you created a new Internet of Thing warning device, that device would still have to work in the ecosystems controlled by Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Siri. The API product managers at Amazon, Google and Apple make those decisions. Netflix and Spotify -- wrong place for emergency alerts, over the top content doesn't know what else is happening with the user interface on the smart device. Internet Service Providers -- wrong place for emergency alerts, too low in communication layers to break in. ISPs keep wanting to insert advertisements in web pages -- bad idea. Smart device APIs (Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Siri) already mediate user interaction. The "intelligent assistant" seems like the best place for the user to control how they receive emergency alerts. On Wed, 1 Aug 2018, Jeff Shultz wrote:
If someone wants that sort of thing... does anyone still make AM transistor radios?
Capitalist solution: Build yet another IoT device that just does emergency alerting. Please no. The IoT is already a security/privacy dumpster fire of enormous proportions and this will provide yet another vector for attacks.
The point of the study in proposed bill is customers of Netflix and Spotify (just to pick on them because everyone seems too) watching videos on "Smart TVs" or listening on "Smart Speakers" may not realize those devices won't get emergency alerts like their old-fashion AM/FM radios and over-the-air TVs. If Netflix or Spotify customers are watching or listening on their "Smart Phones", they do get emergency alerts from the cell phone provider.
I haven't used an "over-the-air" TV in fifty years ...
Much like watching Netflix and listening to Spotify on smart phones, Netflix and Spotify do not control the alert function on Smart TVs and Smart Speakers. The alarm API of smart devices is predominately controlled by Amazon Alexa (34%), Google Assistant (34%), Apple Siri (10%), and others (21%). The message waiting notification API isn't a real substitute for an emergency alert API.
Thank the lord I have none of those things and never intend to have any of those things. Also, I only ever use "stupid" devices. Nary a "Smart" device is permitted anywhere near me or any network I use. --- The fact that there's a Highway to Hell but only a Stairway to Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic volume.
Once upon a time, Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> said:
After wildfires killed 40+ people in northern California last fall, I asked if Amazon and Google had any plans to include emergency alerts in their smart speaker/intelligent assistant products. Smart speakers seem like a way to alert people to imminent life-threatening danger during the night when they may be asleep or not aware of it.
My biggest concern is them making such alerts mandatory. At a minimum they should be opt-out; a one-time notice during setup (or when the functionality is added) to allow opt-in would be better IMHO. You don't know what I might be streaming on that speaker; could be I'm listening to scanner traffic from storm spotters for example. I have been closely watching local TV station radar coverage of a radar-indicated tornado heading towards my home when the cable system takes over my TiVo to play the NWS tornado warning message. That takes a couple of minutes minutes, during which changing the channel is disabled (and there's no way to opt out of such cable-sent alerts). This is highly counter-productive; it just means that now I know when there's dangerous weather headed towards my home, I cannot use TV for tracking it unless I get out an antenna-fed portable TV. -- Chris Adams <cma@cmadams.net>
On Thu, 26 Jul 2018, Chris Adams wrote:
My biggest concern is them making such alerts mandatory. At a minimum they should be opt-out; a one-time notice during setup (or when the functionality is added) to allow opt-in would be better IMHO.
That's a reason to get involved early, when everything is voluntary and the decisions haven't been decided yet. Even though no rule requires it, Google adds emergency alerts to the top of its search result pages. google.org/publicalerts shows government alerts around the world. Google does a nice job of integrating the results, even giving suggestions about what to do for several standard types of alerts. Its possible to create a nice user-focused design. When I was the SBC (now AT&T) u-verse "emergency alert product manager," because no one else wanted that job, I discovered the EAS/WEA rules are very flexible. Lots of things being done by competitors weren't actually required. Instead it was because things had always done that way, not because any rule required it. For example, I added a "dismiss alert" button to u-Verse EAS alert product so you could immediately get ride of alerts you didn't care about or change channels. I also worked with the IPTV middleware vendor to ensure u-verse EAS alerts were not recorded by the DVR, and didn't interrupt the DVR recording. One advantage of not recording the EAS by the u-verse DVR, if EAS came during the game-winning home-run during the World Series, you could hit rewind on the DVR and see/hear what you missed because it was still recording in the background. I've felt that some companies deliberately make the emergency notification product on their cell phones and cable/tv as attrocious as possible as a middle-finger response to the government requiring them to do it. Because almost all emergency notifications are voluntary, company product managers can give you a lot of choice which, when, and how you get emergency notifications. But its easier/cheaper for product managers to treat it as a compliance thing, lobby against it, and not spend any effort on a user-centered design for their alert notifications. I keep expecting after catastrophe happens in pacific northwest or silicon valley, some company executives and product managers will suddenly add emergency notifications to their smart speaker and smart tv product roadmaps.
This just seems like another way to build taxes into cloud based products that are otherwise tax free. I can just see it now, emergency services taxes attached to your Amazon and Google bills. -----Original Message----- From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces+chris=scsalaska.net@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Sean Donelan Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2018 8:12 AM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: California fires: smart speakers and emergency alerts After wildfires killed 40+ people in northern California last fall, I asked if Amazon and Google had any plans to include emergency alerts in their smart speaker/intelligent assistant products. Smart speakers seem like a way to alert people to imminent life-threatening danger during the night when they may be asleep or not aware of it. Probably not a surprise, the product managers at Amazon and Google didn't see a benefit. Instead of emergency alerts, instead the product improvement roadmap priority is on package tracking and delivery alerts :-) Also shouldn't be a surprise. Senator Schatz and Representative Gabbard have introduced bills to study the feasibility of establishing systems and signalling for emergency alerts to Internet audio and video streaming services. Its just a proposed bill for a study, for now. My opinion is it makes more sense to do emergency alerts at the smart device level (smart speaker, smart tv, smart streaming box) rather than at the content layer (hulu, netflix, spotify). Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Microsoft Cortana want to keep track of everything else in my life, why not if there is an emergency alert at my current location. There is a lot of opportunity to come up with better ways to notify people in ways they want, when they want, beyond tracking their package deliveries. And since its at the voluntary stage now, a chance to shape the discussion. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3238 S. 3238 To improve oversight by the Federal Communications Commission of the wireless and broadcast emergency alert systems. [...] SEC. 8. ONLINE STREAMING SERVICES EMERGENCY ALERT EXAMINATION. (a) Study.—Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Commission shall complete an inquiry to examine the feasibility of establishing systems and signaling to offer Emergency Alert System alerts to audio and video streaming services delivered over the internet. (b) Report.—Not later than 90 days after completing the inquiry under subsection (a), the Commission shall submit a report on the findings and conclusions of the inquiry to— (1) the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate; and (2) the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives.
At a recent meeting on space policy a representative from Hughes/Echostar told us that, as they provide satellite connectivity to gas stations in the fire regions, they have been working with emergency services to give fire fighters directions to where they can go to get gas for their trucks, based on their knowledge of which stations are up and have not been sold out. Putting alerts (whether by landline or satellite) on screens at the pumps or in convenience stores does not seem like much of a stretch, but I can't see any indication that this is being done. Regards Marshall On Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 4:59 PM, Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> wrote:
Has anyone heard if the smart speaker companies (Amazon Echo, Google Home) plan to include emergency alert capability? An estimate 10% of households own a smart speaker, and Gartner (well-known for its forecasting accuracy) predicts 75% of US households will have a smart speaker by 2020.
Although most silicon valley tech nerds are still in the "invincible" years, were the california fires close enough to silicon valley that smart speaker developers might think an emergency could affect them. And an emergency alert capability in their smart speakers might be important?
participants (30)
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Aaron C. de Bruyn -
Alexander Maassen -
Andreas Ott -
Brian Kantor -
Chris Adams -
Chris Boyd -
Chris J. Ruschmann -
Edward Dore -
James Downs -
Jared Mauch -
Jean-Francois Mezei -
Jeff Shultz -
Joe Hamelin -
joel jaeggli -
Keith Medcalf -
Lou Katz -
Marshall Eubanks -
Michel Py -
Mike -
Mike Hammett -
Naslund, Steve -
Nate Metheny -
Peter Baldridge -
Peter Beckman -
Rich Kulawiec -
Sean Donelan -
Seth David Schoen -
Seth Mattinen -
Stephen Satchell -
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