There is an interesting 2019 academic paper out of CU Boulder, on the topic of spoofing 4G WEA alerts. I wouldn't recommend doing this, but it's very interesting to understand the technical aspects of WEA, CMAS, and other non-standard mobile comms channels that are involved.<p>"This is Your President Speaking: Spoofing Alerts in 4G LTE Networks"<p>[PDF] <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3307334.3326082" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3307334.3326082</a>
For the Canadians in the audience, we have our tests in November (and May):<p>* <a href="https://www.alertready.ca/testing-schedule/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.alertready.ca/testing-schedule/</a>
I am very surprised to find out that people are still unaware that this is happening, I had to mention it to my partner this morning who had no idea (or forgot) since he mentioned having a call 10 minutes after it was supposed to happen.<p>This seemed like one of those things that has been communicated extremely well? Or am I being shocked by being in the tech bubble once again?<p>Also I just don't get all the conspiracy theories about this. I mean how long has Amber alerts existed? Or whether emergency alerts existed? This really isn't that much different but is just national instead of more locally based. As long as it isn't abused I feel like this is a good thing to have in place.<p>One of those, well hope we never need to use it but if/when it becomes a necessity we will be glad it exists.
<a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/102516" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://support.apple.com/en-us/102516</a><p>> When your iPhone is connected to a carrier in the United States—using a U.S. SIM or while roaming in the U.S.—you can enable Test Emergency Alerts. By default, this is turned off.<p>> Turn Government Alerts on or off<p>Seems like test alerts are turned off by default and real alerts can be turned off for iOS?
I really hope to see someone trace and deconstruct the level of bizarre conspiracy theory generation around this event.<p>For those not aware, I've seen (mostly through semi-related posts on e.g. Reddit) a lot of people forwarding and subscribing to all kinds of absolute nonsense ideas about this event "broadcasting a signal to activate the Marburg virus" or "being particularly painful for the vaccinated to hear", or "likely to start many small fires in modern devices".<p>I bet that kind of stuff goes around about lots of events -- but I am curious if this one has become so popularly expected to result in bizarre catastrophes just because it's national? Or are people just _much_ more gullible this year?
It's not clear to me how they assert the success of their test from reading. If some large percentage, say a percent, didn't get the alert would they know? Didn't see anything on IPAWS from a quick search, but maybe someone here knows? Are there read-receipts for these alerts?
This will be fun for my wife who's in the hospital right now. And everyone else in hospitals trying to rest.<p>Also, will this go off on cellular watches? I'm sure schoolteachers are going to LOVE this... :-/
> <i>2:20 p.m. ET</i><p>Amused at "ET".<p>I guess they didn't want to confuse people with EDT (which we're currently 'in') and EST ('winter time', which will be 'entered' on November 5).
Last year, here in Ukraine, we had something like that. A couple of times, I saw those alerts on my phone. At some point, they stopped doing it. Maybe it didn't work out as the government planned.
If you live in a situation where the presence of your phone needs to stay secret, turn it OFF, really OFF... now.<p>I wonder how many battered women will die because of this test.
I must admit, it is slightly unsettling knowing that there is a communications side channel out there which could effectively DDOS every mobile phone.<p>Not for nothing, I understand why it is useful to be able to broadcast messages/alerts like this and you can just click OK, the message goes away and you get your phone back. But people are really bandying about conspiracy theories that this will activate Marburg virus (what is this, the X-Files?) or be painful if you're vaccinated? FEMA (more X-Files!) is going to literally demonstrate its capability to control your phone.<p>I need to hang up this tin foil hat.