[EAS] Being a constructive warning stake-holder

[Alex Hartman]

Richard, 

Even with the best of intentions, the government has really mishandled this whole design. Quite honestly, i've seen half-assed internet providers set up better than this. There's no reason for an offline-maintenance window, especially with the budget and resources available to FEMA and the Feds as a whole. There's no reason for it at all. This should have been in the initial design, not an afterthought. Everyone knows what happens with afterthoughts, they're tacked in haphazardly to "make it work" not to "make it work correctly".

It's data transmissions, it's not rocket science to know how these things are designed. Several agencies at the federal level have quite the computer knowledge, and where the system is flawed is at the very fundamental level. While great thought was given to the warnings and methodology, it seems that absolutely zero thought was given to the back-end part of the system. 

I have offered several suggestions to remedy these very large pitfalls in the design only to be ignored and told "you have no idea", but when things like a registrar blows up, or a maintenance window that few knew about happen, or god forbid verizon looses a router, i really have to say "I told you so". They did NOT think these things through from an IT level, only a human level. 

The purpose is sound, it's implementation is junk. 

Why solicit feedback when you choose to ignore it?

--
Alex Hartman

On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 2:45 PM, Richard Rudman <rar01 at mac.com> wrote:
>With all due respect, I take issue with comments on this list and others that denigrate efforts to improve public warnings.  Such comments are not in the spirit of constructive criticism. I believe constructive criticism is at the heart of what we in the engineering community should be practicing in all aspects of our professional lives, including public warnings.

>As many of you know, the Common Alerting Protocol came out of work done by the Partnership for Public Warning (PPW) after September 11 that identified two key needs -- a Common Alerting Protocol and an overall national warning strategy.

>CPA is now an internationally recognized non-proprietary open standard that makes it possible for emergency management to initiate warnings on all types of systems - including EAS. The national overall warning strategy is still bery much in the early stages of a work in progress.

>I am sure in a perfect world the initial roll-out of IPAWS OPEN would have had several levels of backup/redundancy, as well as solid ways to deal with the well-known fragility and vulnerability of the public Internet.

>So:

>1. This ain't a perfect world
>2. There are good people working for and with FEMA who are trying their best to improve CAP IPAWS OPEN

>We encourage all subscribers on this list to feel free to offer constructive criticism to FEMA and the other Federal warning partners so we can get closer to accomplishing what the PPW set out to promote as a goal in 2002:

>Bring better and more timely warnings to people at risk with the goal of triggering that at-risk population to take protective actions in that help save more lives and property, and thereby bring emergency incidents to faster and better outcomes.

>Yours for a constructive warning future,

>Richard Rudman
>BWWG Core Member

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