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Comment by zevets | Hacker News Reader

I attended a talk by one of the developers of this system, and since earthquake warnings are so short (tens of seconds), it's unlikely that traditional alert mechanisms can be delivered to the general public. As such, the primary consumers of the device will be places like nuclear power plants and major industrial operators who are willing to install special alarms.

The other example he gave was giving doctors performing surgery time to step away from the patient, so that they dont turn things into a real life game of surgeon simulator, an example I personally find to be extremely horrifying and nightmare inducing.

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Cell phone app. Setup something like the reverse-911 system, or even just a downloadable app that can wake your phone from sleep and use the speakers to alert its carrier that an earthquake is on the way.

Hell, maybe this is even a use for "Yo".

How about the delay? The message is not delivered instantly. Plus, such a system would be required to be already scaled up, and stay in that state always, to support sending messages to millions of "subscribers", which would only add additional delay.

If you use broadcast messages, the number of subscribers shouldn't matter. There already exists a system like this in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Mobile_Alert_System

> CMAS will allow federal agencies to accept and aggregate alerts from the President of the United States, the National Weather Service (NWS) and emergency operations centers, and send the alerts to participating wireless providers who will distribute the alerts to their customers with compatible devices via Cell Broadcast, a technology similar to SMS text messages that simultaneously delivers messages to all phones using a cell tower instead of individual recipients.[3][4]

Will CMAS/cell broadcast bypass iOS Amber Alert and Emergency Alert "Government Alert" settings?

No. This would almost assuredly be sent as a level 2 extreme alert. The only alert that can bypass the settings is an alert directly from the president.

Well don't freaking turn off earthquake alerts!

If earthquake alerts are their own category, I probably won't. However, if they're lumped in with much more common events (thunderstorm! non-custodial parent spending time with child!) that I don't care to hear, then I will.

Fromy experience sitting in a movie theater when a NWS storm alert went off, it took well over a minute for all messages to be delivered.

Wouldn't it be possible to use an IPv6 broadcast, thus making messaging of "everybody" trivial?

All that would then be required is that cell phones, pads and computers give some sort of non-mistakeable warning sound upon receiving these packets.

iOS has included this (for Japan at least) since iOS 5[0].

In the US they also do it for AMBER alerts[1]. iPhone has this, not sure about Android though.

[0]: http://9to5mac.com/2011/08/21/ios-5-includes-early-earthquak... [1]: http://www.imore.com/amber-alerts-your-iphone-what-they-are-...

Android does as well. (Source, worked in an Android development company, those alerts are really annoying when you are in the same room as a dozen test devices).

You get them on TV, too: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_(Jap....

That page can use some improvement, as it says:

"It is mandatory for 3G cellular phones that were put on the market after 2007 to receive this service, though overseas manufacturers (Nokia, Apple, HTC, LG, Samsung, etc.) are not supported"

So, is it mandatory, or only for phones made in Japan?

There is tool like that: "Red Alert : Israel". It's available in the App Store, and currently being used for missile launch alerts in Israel.

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