[EAS] Where attention needs to be

[Dave Turnmire]

On 2/15/2013 3:55 PM, Barry Mishkind wrote:

>...
>Question: Should stations with their EAS or transmitter remote control exposed to the Internet be given NALs and fined, until they lock things down, at least minimally?

If it is wide-open to the internet using the factory default pw... yes.  Having a decent password is the minimum one should do and it doesn't cost money or require IT skills.  That being said, the manufacturers can help by essentially forcing the user to change from the defaults the way is done so many other places.

>Question 2: Short of returning to the hated "daisy chain," what viable alternatives are there for getting EAS from LP to local stations without prankers getting access?

Short of going to a satellite based system, I don't know what you'd do.  I can't see spending the money for a parallel private network to every broadcaster and cable company in the country.  But... I'm not convinced that the public internet is as bad as its being made out to be:

1. Out of all the emergency alerts generated for EAS in the USA in a given year, what portion of them are generated AFTER the infrastructure got destroyed?  0.1%?  less?  For the rest of the time we get the benefits of better audio quality and bypassing the daisy chain system we spent the last few decades thinking was a lousy way of doing EAS (and EBS)
2. The issue isn't whether the internet is ALWAYS reliable... or only 90% of the time... it is whether it isn't working AT THE TIME OF THE ALERT...
3. I for one think we should keep the "legacy" system in place for the foreseeable future.  We all know the pitfalls of the daisy chain system... but it IS independent of whatever is happening to the internet.  And when the crap hits the fan, we has broadcast engineers typically have limited capacity to do anything about an internet failure.  But... at the same time it is our highest priority to get OUR stations on the air or keep them there.  And the legacy EAS system comes along for the ride.  And in portions of the country like where I live, the things that threaten NWR and FM broadcast stations tend to be different than those that threaten the internet because one tends to be on mountain tops (with backup generators) and the other in the valleys.
4. As for the security aspects of the internet... there ARE solutions out there and they don't necessarily cost much money.  The interested parties (broadcasters, vendors, FEMA, etc) just need to expend some effort to identify those and implement them.
5. "Perfect is the enemy of the good"

Dave