5 ms·

I was in Dallas when this happened. I can attest to the eeriness of sirens going off all over town with no idea what they mean. In Texas we're accustomed to tor

I was in Dallas when this happened. I can attest to the eeriness of sirens going off all over town with no idea what they mean. In Texas we're accustomed to tornado sirens, but when the skies are clear and they are going off, makes you wonder what might be happening - especially when it lasts for over an hour. But what really struck me was how much we expect instant information these days. Took over 30 minutes to figure out what was happening. No coverage on local news, no "reverse 911" alerts indicating a problem (or lack thereof). Google eventually surfaced a tweet by the Dallas Morning News indicating it was a false alarm and they were asking city hall for answers. Not sure what the protocol is for alerting people not to mind the blaring alarms, but seems like something should have happened given that 311 and 911 were overwhelmed with inquiries.

cyanotic 10y ago
Part of me suspects that there might be something in this related to current events. If I were to spitball ideas about motives and modus operandi, it feels like the kind of thing a state actor would tamper with, and in terms of style I'd gravitate toward looking in North Korea's direction, since it feels like their style. Why do it? Raising noise with false alarms, desensitizes the intended signal of an alarm, ruining signal-to-noise, as people slack off about responding to alerts. It also serves as a probe to see what an actual outcome would look like. There's no profit (no money), and no incentive to whip emergency responders up into a confused state, for most non-state actors. Even SWATTING is usually more targeted, with the prank being played on a specific person. Sometimes SWATTING serves to distract the target from something under their control. That doesn't seem to be present here. North Korea's hacks usually come across as sort of impish in a lot of ways. They seem to like the attention of getting into the news. Messing with something reminiscent of air raid warnings seems to fit the personality of their general profile, given their ballistic missile ambitions. Other state actors in the news lately, probably wouldn't be as interested in domestic civil defense systems in the U.S. They (whomsoever is responsible) might be motivated to do something like this (if it were a North Korean team) given some of the sabre rattling going around this season. It rings of something that would score points with Dear Leader. But then again, yeah, maybe this is just the typical sort of "because it's there" hack, and some script kiddie found his way into another cookie jar.
- pluma 10y ago
  I was going to joke that I'm surprised this wasn't posed as "Russian hackers set of sirens" considering that the US currently tries to pin everything on them but it seems you beat me to it -- and with Poe's law in full effect, too.
  - hsod 10y ago
    I don't know, I think Americans are right to be concerned about and sensitive to Russian cyberattacks: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
- Retr0spectrum 10y ago
  I can almost guarantee this was just a kid messing around. There's no real motive for anyone else.
  - bdavisx 10y ago
    I'm not saying that I agree that it was a foreign power that did this, but there are motives. If you can turn the sirens on and keep them on for a while, you can probably turn them off and keep them off for a while. That could be bad in a situation where they really, really needed to be turned on.
  - foota 10y ago
    The nation state actor who cried "BWOOOOOOOOOO"? That is, if you turn on the sirens often enough, maybe they'll be ignored in an emergency.
    - lightbyte 10y ago
      That might be more plausible when it starts happening repeatedly. It's hard to compare it to the boy who cried wolf when we only have a single occurrence.
  - ivyirwin 10y ago
wcummings 10y ago
Tbh it might be best to not have protocols for ignoring sirens.
- freehunter 10y ago
  I think it's less "ignoring sirens" and more "communicating about emergency alerts". Even if the siren legitimately went off during clear skies, people would be confused and you'd want a way to communicate why the sirens are going off. In most places around the US, they use the Emergency Alert System for that, pushing the message to TVs, radios, and cell phones. Already the EAS is set up with a protocol to let you know it's safe to ignore this alert, they test the alerts and say "this is only a test". And they already set off sirens that they expect you to ignore, in my area it's every Friday at noon.
- jedimastert 10y ago
  I had the same thought. IF hackers can get into the sirens themselves, what would stop someone from telling people to ignore sirens in an actual emergency.
bfuller 10y ago
It was pretty eerie walking outside past midnight to clear skies and sirens all around but it only took about 2 minutes for me to find a tweet about what was happening

cyanotic 10y ago

Part of me suspects that there might be something in this related to current events. If I were to spitball ideas about motives and modus operandi, it feels like the kind of thing a state actor would tamper with, and in terms of style I'd gravitate toward looking in North Korea's direction, since it feels like their style. Why do it? Raising noise with false alarms, desensitizes the intended signal of an alarm, ruining signal-to-noise, as people slack off about responding to alerts. It also serves as a probe to see what an actual outcome would look like. There's no profit (no money), and no incentive to whip emergency responders up into a confused state, for most non-state actors. Even SWATTING is usually more targeted, with the prank being played on a specific person. Sometimes SWATTING serves to distract the target from something under their control. That doesn't seem to be present here. North Korea's hacks usually come across as sort of impish in a lot of ways. They seem to like the attention of getting into the news. Messing with something reminiscent of air raid warnings seems to fit the personality of their general profile, given their ballistic missile ambitions. Other state actors in the news lately, probably wouldn't be as interested in domestic civil defense systems in the U.S. They (whomsoever is responsible) might be motivated to do something like this (if it were a North Korean team) given some of the sabre rattling going around this season. It rings of something that would score points with Dear Leader. But then again, yeah, maybe this is just the typical sort of "because it's there" hack, and some script kiddie found his way into another cookie jar.

pluma 10y ago
I was going to joke that I'm surprised this wasn't posed as "Russian hackers set of sirens" considering that the US currently tries to pin everything on them but it seems you beat me to it -- and with Poe's law in full effect, too.
- hsod 10y ago
  I don't know, I think Americans are right to be concerned about and sensitive to Russian cyberattacks: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
Retr0spectrum 10y ago
I can almost guarantee this was just a kid messing around. There's no real motive for anyone else.
- bdavisx 10y ago
  I'm not saying that I agree that it was a foreign power that did this, but there are motives. If you can turn the sirens on and keep them on for a while, you can probably turn them off and keep them off for a while. That could be bad in a situation where they really, really needed to be turned on.
- foota 10y ago
  The nation state actor who cried "BWOOOOOOOOOO"? That is, if you turn on the sirens often enough, maybe they'll be ignored in an emergency.
  - lightbyte 10y ago
    That might be more plausible when it starts happening repeatedly. It's hard to compare it to the boy who cried wolf when we only have a single occurrence.
- ivyirwin 10y ago

wcummings 10y ago

Tbh it might be best to not have protocols for ignoring sirens.

freehunter 10y ago
I think it's less "ignoring sirens" and more "communicating about emergency alerts". Even if the siren legitimately went off during clear skies, people would be confused and you'd want a way to communicate why the sirens are going off. In most places around the US, they use the Emergency Alert System for that, pushing the message to TVs, radios, and cell phones. Already the EAS is set up with a protocol to let you know it's safe to ignore this alert, they test the alerts and say "this is only a test". And they already set off sirens that they expect you to ignore, in my area it's every Friday at noon.
jedimastert 10y ago
I had the same thought. IF hackers can get into the sirens themselves, what would stop someone from telling people to ignore sirens in an actual emergency.

bfuller 10y ago

It was pretty eerie walking outside past midnight to clear skies and sirens all around but it only took about 2 minutes for me to find a tweet about what was happening