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You better believe it! EAS is no joke, and FCC is right to take a hard line. Not very many people know that tone contains data. (It's pretty interesting, reall

You better believe it! EAS is no joke, and FCC is right to take a hard line. Not very many people know that tone contains data. (It's pretty interesting, really; see wiki link below.) Broadcasters have an EAS box that listens for alert tones on other frequencies and repeats it over the broadcast frequency (and others may listen, etc). Among other things, the data in the tone affects how far it propagates, so if someone plays a tone over the air that's set to propagate nationwide, it's kind of a problem. This isn't the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. Source: I worked on the engineering team at my college radio station (WSBF-FM Clemson). EAS header: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#EAS_header https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#EAS_hea...

eckza 7y ago
This is why in-band signaling is very, very bad. See also: phone phreaking.
- finnthehuman 7y ago
  > This is why in-band signaling is very, very bad. The system was designed for resilience in the face of disasters up to and including nuclear attack. In this case low complexity in a single channel is a feature, not a bug.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Adding even just a data time stamp would easily let you filter accidental bad data.
    - jjoonathan 7y ago
      I sincerely hope that none of my equipment would filter an emergency message with a "bad" timestamp.
    - tantalor 7y ago
      Ever see a VCR blinking "12:00"?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - eckza 7y ago
    That’s a strong argument. I rescind my statement.
- tenebrisalietum 7y ago
  But it's better than nothing when you have a wide network already in place and are too cheap to extend it. For one-way wide area communications it might not be a bad tradeoff. AT&T had an issue with blueboxing because people were making free calls on it.
schoen 7y ago
Could people create a synthetic simulated EAS tone that contains no data and couldn't be decoded by any EAS equipment, but that would still remind a human viewer of the EAS tone? Would that be OK with the FCC, or are they also concerned with human listeners recognizing the sound and believing that an alert is imminent? I worked on the engineering team for my high school radio station, but we didn't learn much about how EAS worked, other than that it was mandatory and was replacing EBS. :-)
- pqoef 7y ago
  ¶4 from the article: To protect the purpose of the warning system, the agency has a rule against use of EAS tones or their simulations -- except in actual emergencies, authorized tests or qualified public service announcements. ¶1 from the linked order: To preserve and protect the unique purpose of the EAS Tones, the Commission enforces laws prohibiting the use of the tones, or simulations of them, except in actual emergencies, authorized tests of the EAS, or qualified PSAs. Answer to your question, no, the FCC is not okay with simulations of the EAS tone.
  - schoen 7y ago
    Thanks!
- finnthehuman 7y ago
  >Could people create a synthetic simulated EAS tone that contains no data and couldn't be decoded by any EAS equipment, Yup, you could generate two different sine waves that would seem reminiscent of the EAS two-tone alert and be near indistinguishable to all but an FM engineer and forwarding hardware. The SAME header could be invalid data, for a non-existent region code, or out of spec in some other way. > Would that be OK with the FCC, or are they also concerned with human listeners recognizing the sound and believing that an alert is imminent? No, if it was meant to be confused with the EAS tone, it's just as if you used the EAS tone. The FCC is a step ahead of "clever" ways of skirting important rules. WiFi deauth attacks are still "malicious interference" even though they're layer 2 attacks that don't "jam" the band.
thrill 7y ago
WizzBiff! - one of my favorite late night stations oh so long ago.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
malandrew 7y ago
If tones contain data and data is speech, does that not protect their use for entertainment purposes on free speech grounds? This seems analogous to the free speech issues over the RSA encryption/decryption algorithms during the 90s.
- haxton 7y ago
  No. For the same reason why you cannot go into a crowded movie theatre and yell "FIRE!"
  - tantalor 7y ago
    The EAS case here is more analagous to the original "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    How does broadcasting this tone create a clear and present danger? It's merely a call to attention and then you need to listen to and process the subsequent message. The tone itself does not create a clear and present danger, but the subsequent message may. There's no notion of panic or stampede with this tone, it only communicates "hey, listen up, there's something that may be important for you to know about". I'm sure that many of those living in America on HN have been subject to EAS messages that were not of serious concern since it's used pretty liberally for even minor concerns like a tropical storm. It's also worth know about the Supreme Court case (Schenck v United States) that lead to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr's opinion that lead to this legal test, since the issue at hand in that case would most likely be protected by the 1st amendment today. Furthermore, Holmes eventually reversed his position in Abrams v United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the... No reasonable person would look at any of the examples where a fine has been issued over use of the EAS signal and conclude that any of those artistic statements were even close to creating a clear and present danger.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      "How does broadcasting this tone create a clear and present danger? It's merely a call to attention and then you need to listen to and process the subsequent message." False alarms can create a danger because they condition people not to take an alarm seriously. Even if people are pretty conscientious about treating alarms as if they are real, very few of them will continue doing so against peer pressure.
nickpsecurity 7y ago
I agree they should. One time I looked at the TV hearing that with full attention. It was a local lawyer doing a Superbowl ad or something using it exactly for that purpose. We shouldn't treat some extremely-important warnings in a way that creates a mistrust of them. I thought that day he should be fined large enough to absorb the winnings of the cases it brought him. Also, I halfway gave his team props for clever marketing. It worked...
- underwater 7y ago
  There is an irony in a lawyer flagrantly breaking the law to attract customers.
iforgotpassword 7y ago
So I assume in all those cases it was really just the sound without the header, otherwise that would have gone hilariously wrong. How come this happens again and again though? I'd assume someone who does research on how to generate that tone would also learn that it's illegal to broadcast it. Or if it's in some sfx database the channel or studio has access to, you'd assume it would have an according warning notice attached to it.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  They may have literally pulled the sound from a recording on YouTube, though.

eckza 7y ago

This is why in-band signaling is very, very bad. See also: phone phreaking.

finnthehuman 7y ago
> This is why in-band signaling is very, very bad. The system was designed for resilience in the face of disasters up to and including nuclear attack. In this case low complexity in a single channel is a feature, not a bug.
- Retric 7y ago
  Adding even just a data time stamp would easily let you filter accidental bad data.
  - jjoonathan 7y ago
    I sincerely hope that none of my equipment would filter an emergency message with a "bad" timestamp.
  - tantalor 7y ago
    Ever see a VCR blinking "12:00"?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- eckza 7y ago
  That’s a strong argument. I rescind my statement.
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
But it's better than nothing when you have a wide network already in place and are too cheap to extend it. For one-way wide area communications it might not be a bad tradeoff. AT&T had an issue with blueboxing because people were making free calls on it.

schoen 7y ago

Could people create a synthetic simulated EAS tone that contains no data and couldn't be decoded by any EAS equipment, but that would still remind a human viewer of the EAS tone? Would that be OK with the FCC, or are they also concerned with human listeners recognizing the sound and believing that an alert is imminent? I worked on the engineering team for my high school radio station, but we didn't learn much about how EAS worked, other than that it was mandatory and was replacing EBS. :-)

pqoef 7y ago
¶4 from the article: To protect the purpose of the warning system, the agency has a rule against use of EAS tones or their simulations -- except in actual emergencies, authorized tests or qualified public service announcements. ¶1 from the linked order: To preserve and protect the unique purpose of the EAS Tones, the Commission enforces laws prohibiting the use of the tones, or simulations of them, except in actual emergencies, authorized tests of the EAS, or qualified PSAs. Answer to your question, no, the FCC is not okay with simulations of the EAS tone.
- schoen 7y ago
  Thanks!
finnthehuman 7y ago
>Could people create a synthetic simulated EAS tone that contains no data and couldn't be decoded by any EAS equipment, Yup, you could generate two different sine waves that would seem reminiscent of the EAS two-tone alert and be near indistinguishable to all but an FM engineer and forwarding hardware. The SAME header could be invalid data, for a non-existent region code, or out of spec in some other way. > Would that be OK with the FCC, or are they also concerned with human listeners recognizing the sound and believing that an alert is imminent? No, if it was meant to be confused with the EAS tone, it's just as if you used the EAS tone. The FCC is a step ahead of "clever" ways of skirting important rules. WiFi deauth attacks are still "malicious interference" even though they're layer 2 attacks that don't "jam" the band.

thrill 7y ago

WizzBiff! - one of my favorite late night stations oh so long ago.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

malandrew 7y ago

If tones contain data and data is speech, does that not protect their use for entertainment purposes on free speech grounds? This seems analogous to the free speech issues over the RSA encryption/decryption algorithms during the 90s.

haxton 7y ago
No. For the same reason why you cannot go into a crowded movie theatre and yell "FIRE!"
- tantalor 7y ago
  The EAS case here is more analagous to the original "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast.
- malandrew 7y ago
  How does broadcasting this tone create a clear and present danger? It's merely a call to attention and then you need to listen to and process the subsequent message. The tone itself does not create a clear and present danger, but the subsequent message may. There's no notion of panic or stampede with this tone, it only communicates "hey, listen up, there's something that may be important for you to know about". I'm sure that many of those living in America on HN have been subject to EAS messages that were not of serious concern since it's used pretty liberally for even minor concerns like a tropical storm. It's also worth know about the Supreme Court case (Schenck v United States) that lead to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr's opinion that lead to this legal test, since the issue at hand in that case would most likely be protected by the 1st amendment today. Furthermore, Holmes eventually reversed his position in Abrams v United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the... No reasonable person would look at any of the examples where a fine has been issued over use of the EAS signal and conclude that any of those artistic statements were even close to creating a clear and present danger.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    "How does broadcasting this tone create a clear and present danger? It's merely a call to attention and then you need to listen to and process the subsequent message." False alarms can create a danger because they condition people not to take an alarm seriously. Even if people are pretty conscientious about treating alarms as if they are real, very few of them will continue doing so against peer pressure.

nickpsecurity 7y ago

I agree they should. One time I looked at the TV hearing that with full attention. It was a local lawyer doing a Superbowl ad or something using it exactly for that purpose. We shouldn't treat some extremely-important warnings in a way that creates a mistrust of them. I thought that day he should be fined large enough to absorb the winnings of the cases it brought him. Also, I halfway gave his team props for clever marketing. It worked...

underwater 7y ago
There is an irony in a lawyer flagrantly breaking the law to attract customers.

iforgotpassword 7y ago

So I assume in all those cases it was really just the sound without the header, otherwise that would have gone hilariously wrong. How come this happens again and again though? I'd assume someone who does research on how to generate that tone would also learn that it's illegal to broadcast it. Or if it's in some sfx database the channel or studio has access to, you'd assume it would have an according warning notice attached to it.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
They may have literally pulled the sound from a recording on YouTube, though.