Technology

Problem 1: They make the same DTMF tones that severe weather alerts do. That particular tone should mean "Immediate risk to YOUR life" such as a flash flood, severe thunderstorm or tornado. Using the same tone for amber alerts (or silver alerts, for missing old people) is just crying wolf. How many people are going to go "FOR FUCK'S SAKE I'M IN BED I'M NOT JOINING A MANHUNT" and mute such an alert without reading it, and then it's gonna be about a tornado?

Side problem: I learned something from Technology Connections a month or two ago that I've known since I was four. Almost all fire alarms sound a cadence of three short bursts. When I was in kindergarten, our school used the normal bells for the emergency alarm system, we were taught that groups of 3 short bursts on the bell was the fire alarm, but they taught it as if that's how it works at this school and not universally. I bet the alert noises your phone makes, you know the government screeches? I bet those carry meaning they haven't even tried to teach the public, in either the exact tone or beep sequence.

Problem 2: It seems to assume that every adult in half a state is going to drop what they're doing and fod walk the world looking for this kid (or geezer). Almost no one is, in large part because no one has been trained as to how. I guess the idea is you're supposed to be out driving, get that alert, remember the details including the license plate number of the vehicle, and then call 911. Has that ever even once happened? Especially since:

Problem 3: The message isn't persistent or retrievable. It's a push notification. If you dismiss it, possibly to get it to stop making noise so you can concentrate on reading it, it vanishes. There's no message history to find it in, no real way to go "Hey wait a second, is that the car the amber alert was talking about?" 22 minutes later.

It does kind of come off as a very political "I am assembling a task force to create a solution to these dastardly crimes" solution.

The only members of the public who might reasonably be expected to offer some help finding a license plate are driving, and aren't supposed to be messing around with phones.

This built-in contradiction has always bothered me.

These days there are ALPR cameras everywhere, and it's very hard to imagine John Q. Public is going to have a hot tip before our dystopian AI panopticon does. It has seemed obvious to me that, whatever their intention, the Amber alerts primarily function as copaganda: Persuading us that we live in a dangerous, unpredictable world, and that only the police can save us. By asking us for help locating license plates, while we're at home asleep at 3AM.

I live in New Hampshire and Maine was so terrible with their amber/safety alerts that I shut them off entirely on my phone. I remember getting woken up at 2 or 3am for an abducted child, they knew it was a parent. Later they sent out an ‘extreme’ (whatever the highest level is) threat to human life after a road rage incident where 1 guy shot another guy at an intersection. I was 150 miles away. That is a heck of a radius to set for one guy with a pistol. They ought to save extreme for when a meteor is headed for us or something.

My main issue with Amber Alerts is that they're not mutable. If my phone is screaming at me, I'm going to hit mute before reading what's on the phone. When I hit mute, the alert is gone. It's simply nowhere to be found. I can't read it in my notifications panel. It's gone.

It needs to show up as both an alert AND a notification. It's crazy that this isn't standard (in android, at least).

Shut mine off the first time it warned me in the middle of the night about something happening 400 miles away.

Police gotta stop crying wolf.

As per the article, in Canada, Amber Alerts are sent at the top level. Meaning even if your phone lets you set different sounds for different levels of government alert, Amber Alerts are sent at the "Your life is in imminent danger if you don't take immediate action" level every time.

I "hacked" my phone to disable the system, then downloaded an app that sends me equivalent notifications with the sound effects of my choosing.

Í live in Fort Worth, why the hell do I get amber alerts for Houston!? That's a 6 hour drive at least..

I haven't got an amber alert in a long time. Probably because the first woke everyone up at two AM. Next morning the child was found safe with the parent who had legal custody the whole time. Now they have so many checks in place that the alerts are almost never worth sending

Luckily the alerts can be turned off in the US. I don't want to be woken up for something hundreds of miles away.

Yes for other children, it didn’t for us (but wasn’t amber alert that failed though, it was failure of police investigation.)

Anywho if you get an Amber alert, see a child/person in severe distress. Reach out or at least take note of what’s going on. It’s important.

Some regions have stopped observing standard time because of the accident risk with so many drivers, surgeons, and heavy equipment operators, for instance, working on a circadian rhythm issue. Yet, we cause sleep deprivation to a huge number of people more often each year with little concrete benefit we can tie causally to the amber alerts.

Whom do we sue for loved ones injured by amber alerts and sleep-deprivation?

Now i see why the uk got one about not lighting barbeques, they were copying all of you.

I turned it off