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Comment by RegnisGnaw | Hacker News Reader

There is no such thing as Phone/Mobile AMBER Alerts in Ontario.

The US system has different levels of alerts: Presidential/National Alerts, AMBER Alerts, Extreme Weather Alerts, Dangerous Weather Alerts, etc. On my Pixel 6, everything but the Presidential/National Alerts can be disabled. Same with my wife's Galaxy S22. I assume the same for iPhones.

However the Canadian system (which is heavily based on the American system) is setup differently. All alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alerts'. None of the other alert levels are used.

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> However the Canadian system (which is heavily based on the American system) is setup differently. All alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alerts'. None of the other alert levels are used.

That's the dumbest thing ever. A presidential alert basically means "nukes incoming."

Here in the states, the Trump administration sent one out as "a test". I was not sober at the time and I genuinely was very nervous for the few seconds it took to open my phone and read the message.

> Here in the states, the Trump administration sent one out as "a test". I was not sober at the time and I genuinely was very nervous for the few seconds it took to open my phone and read the message.

That's kind of understandable, though. If the nukes really are incoming, you want to make sure your alert system actually works, and the only way to really do that is to test it.

It was pretty widely publicized before it happened, and I think it even got delayed a few days, during the business day. Honestly, I can't imagine it will ever be used for reals[1], but testing it once seems reasonable.

[1] few disasters, man made or natural, reach national scope. Even a grid failure would likely only reach half the country, but do you need a national alert for that? What useful content could it have?

Many inbound nukes is about all I could see it used for, but I expect that would cause more panic and be less useful than not sending a message... And I'm not convinced a decision to send a message would be made in a reasonable amount of time. State or local messaging seems more likely.

> Many inbound nukes is about all I could see it used for, but I expect that would cause more panic and be less useful than not sending a message..

What now? Sure it would cause less panic--in same the way shooting someone in the head unannounced would cause less panic than giving them warning to duck. If the nukes are incoming, "avoiding panic" is the wrong priority.

> And I'm not convinced a decision to send a message would be made in a reasonable amount of time. State or local messaging seems more likely.

IIRC, they're triggered directly for NORAD (or whatever it's called nowadays). There was actually a false alarm alert in the 70s, and it did get out quickly (google "code word hatefulness").

> There was actually a false alarm alert in the 70s, and it did get out quickly (google "code word hatefulness").

Well it got out quickly, but the cancellation was slow.

I have no doubt that the alerts would go out quickly, if there was a decision to send them (and assuming the means to send them is still around). More and more of these systems has gotten automated so there's no one at the local stations who would need to decide to send or not. I'm just not sure that the 25 minutes or so between detection and impact is enough time to decide to send an alert, amidst all the other activities that would certainly need to be done.

Which provider are you with? They show up as Amber alerts for me and can be disabled from my unlocked pixel (stock os, not rooted) with bell. I have confirmed this by being with other people when an alert happened to go off. Usually though I leave them on and silenced (seems to respect my ringer volume and do not disturb settings).

What province?

Ontario

We have the option to disable 'AMBER Alerts' on both our Pixel and S22 phones. However it does nothing as the alerts all come in as National/Presidential Alerts.

We are on Telus/Videotron.

I wonder then if it's an error on the providers side? Because I had Extreme and Severe on, AMBER and Test off, and Vibration On (under alert preferences for wireless emergency alerts). The only other data points I have are iPhone users (bell and telus) where I am unsure of their configuration, only that they hear the alerts.

Not sure if you'll see this, but I stand corrected, just received a test alert on my new pixel 7 despite having those turned off. I used to not receive those (or they were at least silent, I forget since I didn't receive any in at least a year and now suddenly with my new phone) with my og pixel, both are unlocked and not-rooted with stock android. Only other difference is I also needed a new sim card because for some reason it wasn't working in my new phone. I had that sim for over 10 years, used it in my old pixel and was still registered with bell as belonging to a blackberry.

Ontario does have amber alerts

https://amberalert.opp.ca/

I'm not talking about AMBER Alert in General, I'm talking about the mobile phone warning system.

The Canadian is based on the US system with different levels: National/Presidential Alert, AMBER Alert, Extreme Weather Alert, Dangerous Weather Alert, etc.

However in our system, all alerts are sent as 'National/Presidential Alert'.

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