[US] A nationwide emergency alert will be sent to all U.S. cellphones Wednesday
[US] A nationwide emergency alert will be sent to all U.S. cellphones Wednesday
The test of the national alert system is mandated to take place every three years.
A nationwide test of the emergency and wireless alert systems will be conducted Wednesday at 2:20 p.m. ET, when a message will be sent to all cellphones, TVs and radios.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said in a news release in August that a message that reads, “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed,” will be sent to all phones. A Spanish version of the message will be displayed depending on the language settings of the devices.
A separate message will be sent to radios and televisions, saying, "This is a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, covering the United States from 14:20 to 14:50 hours ET. This is only a test. No action is required by the public."
The test is a joint operation between FEMA and the Federal Communications Commission, meant to “ensure that the systems continue to be effective means of warning the public about emergencies, particularly those on the national level,” according to the August news release.
If anyone has a powered cell phone they don't want someone in their household to know about, power it off.
And leave it off at least until the end of the hour, until the alerts have timed out
If it's being sent over the cell phone carrier signal, does that mean if you're at home, or otherwise connected to Wi-Fi, that you won't get it?
No, even on WiFi your phone maintains its cellular signal, even data depending on your settings (it's just not actively used as wifi will be considered superior).
why would someone have that?
To expand on the abusive relationship aspect, say your partner, parents, etc. want to keep you from contacting people, maybe your family/friends, maybe the police, maybe your doctor (for example to seek abortion services, or maybe treatment for a health issue they've been trying to withhold medication from you for) they may check your phone to see who you've been contacting or even take your phone from you to prevent you from using it.
There's also of course less savory reasons, cheating, dealing drugs, or other illegal activities.
And somewhat less likely, undercover officers, FBI agents, investigative journalists, etc. whose cover could potentially be compromised if the wrong people are around and that second phone goes off.
Abusive relationships.
And wrap it in tinfoil. Even "off" phones can be woken up and forced to display messages.
That's absolutely not true
I'm a little over 40 years old, which means I've experienced a number of situations where such an emergency broadcast system would have been a helpful way to disseminate information and quell panic. We've had tests of these systems for as long as I can remember.
I also cannot remember it ever actually being used.
I'm in Hawaii. I can remember one being used. To create panic. Twitter was where the best attempt at quelling the panic was done.
Really? You've never heard EAS interruptions on the TV or radio for weather, or gotten an AMBER alert on your phone?
Not for every phone everywhere in the country.
My state used it when a natural gas plant had an explosion to ask people to lower their thermostats. They also used it for a handful of covid updates that felt like the incorrect use of such a system.
Adding to that, didn't we JUST have a different system send a nationwide alert about 4 or 5 years ago?
Alex Jones is going to freak the fuck out.
Here for it.
We should change the text to "THIS IS A JUST A TEST FOR ALEX"
I shit you not my mother in law sent out texts to everyone this morning telling us to turn off our phones from 150-215 so the government wouldn't be able to implant the detection signal at 2pm....
I can only imagine the Jones has something to do with that.
Sure. That's just what they want you to think.
Is the message going to be "test2" ?
Report to nearest FEMA concentration camp (John please edit/review, I think concentration camp sounds too strong)
FYI:
On GrapheneOS, you can fully disable emergency alerts in Settings → Safety emergency → Wireless emergency alerts since we add a toggle for Presidential alerts. The naming of the alert types varies based on country which is determined by the carrier's country code not language.
Source: [Nitter link] [Twitter link]
This totally sounds like the start of a horror SCP anomaly.
Edit: except the horror is the actual nature of our current reality we are currently experiencing, so nm
This is why PCs were so badass.
We actually had control over shit like this.
I guess that's why the powers that be made certain that the average person no longer uses a PC.
You can turn them off on iOS and Android, too.
I'm sure if Microsoft wanted to send a message to everyone they could.
Good thing you don't need to rely on microsoft to use a PC!
A Spanish version of the message will be displayed depending on the language settings of the devices.To me this is the most disturbing line from this post. How can the sender of a message probe your phone's settings? What other information can be queried from the device this way? Can we now remotely determine someone ethnicity from just a phone number?
Both versions are sent to everyone. Your phone will decide which version to display based on its language setting. You can put the pitchfork down.
Permanently Deleted
Could be that both texts are provided to the phone, which would then pick the appropriate version. Seems more reasonable than trying to keep track or query millions of phones of different make and manufacturer for a language setting.
Indeed that would make more sense.