[EAS] Strict Time

[Dave Kline]

Allowing for all preceding arguments being viable and being respectful of everyones opinions about the state of EAS, I would like to remind everyone, of what started this whole conversation in the first place.
Someone, and not by accident, aired a recorded copy of an EAN in a syndicated program that went out to many other stations! 
It was an old alert, used probably out of convenience that it was already an existing recording, and done simply to make a point.

Regardless of how broken the system may or may not be.
Regardless of how much technology we throw at it.
If someone wants to intentionally put together an EAN and run it in a time frame that makes it a current, and technically valid alert that gets through even the Strict Time filters, what is to stop them?
And why is this discussion so focussed on the technology and not on those who, not through an accident, first aired the alert?

We are all technical people at some level or another, and being so, our first reaction is to fix the technology.
In that same thread, I would like to make a couple of comments regarding technical fixes.

I really like the idea of a virtual Red Envelope built into the system.
I think that would go a long way towards preventing what happened last month from snowballing throughout other stations.
I'm not smart enough to figure out how one would do that, but it seems we have plenty of folks in our field who are.

My other thought is this:
Everybody's EAS box is capable of originating an EAN and putting it on the air.
Yet none of us are authorized to issue such an alert.
So why is it possible for everyone's box to be able to do so?
Again, I'm not smart enough to figure it out myself, but it seems that someone out there should be able to come up with a way to neuter the EAN origination in all of those boxes, except for the one or two or few that are controlled by those who are authorized to issue the EAN. Assuming an EAN is even issued from the same type of box that we all have at our stations. Everybody's box will still be able to relay an EAN, but it would be physically impossible to generate one.

It does not fix the problem that occurred a couple of weeks ago. But it sure seems it would go a long way towards preventing the one thing that hasn't happened and that everyone fears most of all. Someone hacking an EAS box to deliberately issue an EAN. 

Dave
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Dave Kline   UNO-TV / KVNO
University of Nebraska at Omaha
6001 Dodge St. Omaha, NE  68182  CPACS 200