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Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

cnn.com

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Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

#131

Post by fc417fc802 »

kaikai wrote: post #123
inigyou wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What emergency alerts would BigCo push to people on its campus? There would be no consent btw, they'd just fire anyone who didn't enable the alerts.

Active shooter, chemical spill, any kind of building emergency like water stoppages. And then if it wasn’t tightly controlled and carefully managed, probably things like social events with free snacks, company all hands announcements, and single cars blocking someone into a parking spot. I see the usefulness of more fine-grained subscription, but also see the abuse potential from giving more people access.

> but also see the abuse potential from giving more people access.

If the end user has full control over subscriptions then spam will simply result in silencing or unsubscribing. As opposed to right now where it's all or nothing and it isn't even authenticated. So for example either I get spammed with amber alerts from 100 miles away or I opt out of wildfire warnings. Not a great trade off.

Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

#133

Post by jcgrillo »

inigyou wrote: post #107
fc417fc802 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not a technical problem. I agree. It's a lack of technical proficiency on the part of the world's government's problem, which is another way of saying it's a political problem. > And the problem is that it’s not centralized. It is, though. The implementation might not be uniform but the architecture is inherently centralized. Subscribers do not get to pick and choose sources, that is decided by the network ope…

What emergency alerts would BigCo push to people on its campus? There would be no consent btw, they'd just fire anyone who didn't enable the alerts.

PSA: do not forget to properly format the cover of your TPS reports

Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

#134

Post by antonymoose »

ck2 wrote: post #132

USA has that new "Presidential Alert" right? wonder how that will be abused by 2029, at least once https://www.aau.edu/research-scholarship/featured-research-t...

My state introduced Blue Alerts for crimes against police. I’ve been woken up at 0200 for an officer shot 200 miles away, as if I’m going to gather up a posse and ride on the scallywags responsible.

Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

#135

Post by Scoundreller »

darepublic wrote: post #122
alister wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disabling alerts is the second thing I do to a new handset Except you can't in Canada. The Canadian government has made the alerts mandatory. The option to disable alerts in not present in settings menu (at least on iPhones). You can disable alerts in Brazil. So in one sense, Brazil is more free than Canada.

Shortly before COVID there was a string of amber alerts arriving in the wee hours of the morning in Ontario regarding missing children. Didn't matter where in the province (larger than many European countries) it happened the alerts would to out regardless. A mix of people complaining about it and social media about why you're a bad person if you don't welcome these alerts. But inevitably they went away by and large.…

For a while, I automated my phone to drop to 3G (no alerts there) at night to get around this.

Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

#136

Post by colonCapitalDee »

inigyou wrote: post #108
numpad0 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 4G/5G Public Warning System is fundamentally designed for instantaneous earthquake and tsunami response. It's a bit like modern day equivalent of air raid sirens, or incoming nuke alerts, even. And as such, it's just unfit for things that don't require immediate and full alert. AMBER alerts are just not good use of it.

It's another instance of: give a politician a fish and watch him smear it on the walls to stink up the place, throw it in the garbage and then complain he's still hungry.

Hey, that's what the people want

Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

#137

Post by danillonunes »

left-struck wrote: post #128
hdgvhicv wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they’re turned off presumably the alarm wouldn’t go off

I read this as the implication being that at least some people’s phones would still be on them, and it would suddenly be very obvious. Which incidentally, how do you enforce a rule like this without serious security like pat downs or metal detectors? Because otherwise you could easily sneak a phone in through the sophisticated hack of owning two phones…

Yes, I meant that not everyone actually turn their phones off, most just switch it to dot not disturb mode, which is overridden by those emergencies alerts.

And as for enforcement, yeah there isn't an effort in trying to avoid anyone sneaking in an extra phone, it's basically grounded on good faith and the fact that if they catch your phone with you (or even if it rings in the bag), you're eliminated from the exam. That's where I think the chaos would arise. If everyone's phones alerted at the same time, the examiner wouldn't know what to do.

Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

#138

Post by danillonunes »

denysvitali wrote: post #125

There's a video [1] from the "hacker" sending the message. The hacker allegedly [2] stole the VPN credentials (of an employee and two colleagues, because they were doing credentials sharing apparently) from a personal computer ("RGB gaming PC") running Windows 7 (EOL), w/o antivirus and reportedly having search for Windows activators for Windows 10 and Office 2019. Cherry on top: the malware seems to have dropped via…

The funniest thing is that apparently "misantropia" is just the hacker's nickname. People were making wholes theories about the meaning of the message, but most likely it was just a signature.

Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

#139

Post by harrall »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #86
harrall wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a technical problem. And the problem is that it’s not centralized. Everyone and their mom has their own system, managed by different people with different standards. It’s like USB cables — yes there are strict technical standards but when you have a million different manufacturers, they all do it differently and some cut corners and bend the rules how they want to. Look at how two different cities handle the…

> It’s not a technical problem. I agree. It's a lack of technical proficiency on the part of the world's government's problem, which is another way of saying it's a political problem. > And the problem is that it’s not centralized. It is, though. The implementation might not be uniform but the architecture is inherently centralized. Subscribers do not get to pick and choose sources, that is decided by the network ope…

But the architecture doesn’t matter as much as the implementation. You can write standards however strict but Bob might not care.

Now you could try to enforce more onerous requirements but then people will simply just find an alternative — my own area has its own alerts on top of whatever else is already there.

Technical solutions are important but past some point, you’re dealing with a product or people problem and further technical improvements bring marginal benefit.

Re: Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil

#140

Post by sidewndr46 »

Onavo wrote: post #87
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #66

Disabling alerts is the second thing I do to a new handset (after rooting) - including Presidential alerts. The Amber alerts I got were often hundreds of miles away. But even if they were closer - say only 25 mi away, I'm still not going to be any help. Weather alerts weren't much better. Having my device sound the klaxons over Red Flag warnings conditioned me to ignore all alerts.

The biggest issue is that Amber alerts are abused for both kidnappings and abductions. In a lot of jurisdictions, the term "abduction" is used for cases of domestic disputes e.g the divorced mom left the state with the kid when she wasn't supposed to etc. I really disagree with Amber alerts being issued in cases where there's no immediate risk of harm to the child, and especially if the child is a teenager. They can…

Have you ever been involved in a child custody dispute? It goes way beyond "mom left the state with the kid"
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