UK phones to get emergency alert with test in April | Hacker News Reader

UK phones to get emergency alert with test in April

bbc.co.uk

6 pointsdjaychela12 comments

I hope this can be turned off.

That picture is recreated multiple times a year here in York. The Romans built it at the junction of two rivers and developers like to bribe our council for permission to build housing on the surrounding flood plains.

If this crap stops me using my phone as an alarm, or interrupts my sleep I'll be absolutely digging into the forbidden blobs in my Pinephone to disable this, and throwing my Androids away.

Save us from this nanny state madness, LineageOS!

You can, but bear in mind that an alert will only be issued when the Environment Agency issue a Severe Flood Warning. As they describe it: "A severe flood warning means there is danger to life: you must act now."

> like flooding or wildfires

most people in the UK don't suffer from these, and there are good models to predict and assess the damage of those that do (i worked for a bit on one of the flooding models). to spam everyone from scotland to cornwall is simply daft.

The article says the following:

"The messages will include details of the area impacted and instructions about how to respond. They will only be sent where there is an immediate risk to life and many people may not receive an alert for months or years."

Geographically contextual alerts it would appear.

i may have misread the article but .... there are no flooding threats in the uk at present (damp, but not too wet winter). and no wildfires ever in march or april (too damp) so who the heck is going to get these things??

At the time of writing, there's one flood warning and 15 flood alerts across England alone[1].

[1] https://check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk

> Geographically contextual alerts it would appear.

This is correct.

Way back when, in the height (1960s) of the Cold War they used to test the 4-minute warning sirens that infested the UK back then. What you were supposed to do in those 4 minutes was never clear. Later, in Thatcher's regime, you were supposed to hide under a table.

All such things are very frightening. If you have ever heard a full wing of Vulcan nuclear bombers (my dad was a Vulcan captain) taking off when you didn't expect it (which you didn't, because of the Official Secrets Act) you will also know what dread is like.

I hope this isn't some bloody anti-Putin meaningless gesture by our ridiculous government, but I expect it is.

PS I am anti-Putin.

This has nothing to do with the invasion of Ukraine. The catalyst for this developed about a decade ago.

and i mentioned

> invasion of Ukraine.

exactly ... where?

What else would be the catalyst event for such a system related to Putin?

Well, everywhere to be frank, because everything he does, internally or externally, is criminal.

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