7 ms·

Correction to the article: the annual test day will be the second Thursday in September, not always the tenth. I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not use

by taejo 6y ago

Correction to the article: the annual test day will be the second Thursday in September, not always the tenth. I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used. Surely many people don't have the app installed? I'd never heard of it and I've lived in this country the whole time it's been available.

sc11 6y ago
Even if you had heard of it, it's not reliable due to being a normal app. It's affected by energy saving settings, DND etc. I've had it installed for a while but the time when you actually get notified varies a lot between people, depending on their phone's behaviour. Cell Broadcast/EU-Alert is the way to go for this and I have no idea why they thought an app would be better.
mschuster91 6y ago
> I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used Because of utterly dumb people in charge: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/warntag-zum-zivil-und-katastrophenschutz-wir-haben-eine-sehr-unvorbereitete-bevoelkerung-a-1def33a4-a1aa-467e-ac24-7aa56715530d https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/warntag-zum-ziv... > Unger: Ja, die Niederlande zum Beispiel setzen auf dieses Cell-Broadcast-System. Wir haben davon Abstand genommen, weil die Mobilfunknetze - wie man etwa an Silvester sieht - im Fall der Fälle nicht ausreichen. Hinzu kommt ein datenschutzrechtliches Problem. Wenn man direkt die Handys ansteuert, werden auch Bewegungsdaten erfasst. Wir setzen daher auf die App... To roughly translate: cell broadcast has a data protection problem, because directly notifying cellphones leads to movement data being recorded. Also cellphone networks don't have the capacity, as can be seen every new year's eve. Just... what the fuck! What an utterly incompetent idiot.
- _Microft 6y ago
  Feedback: this comment might have fared better if it hadn't contained completely unnecessary insults.
  - Grumbledour 6y ago
    As a fellow German, I can understand the anger, though. Basically, we don't have a warning system anymore, because the pieces that are left are mostly being dismantled (sirens, tv and radio) and all they seem to want to replace it with is an app that doesn't reliably work when the network is fine. Lets be honest, if catastrophy should strike here, we would be last to know.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      This x100. It's an utter catastrophe. We had a fully working siren network (at least across Western Germany), and after the end of the Cold War it all got left to rot to pieces - estimates for rebuilding it are well into the hundreds of millions of euro range. And then the whole radio clusterfuck. AM radio got totally torn down years ago to "cut costs", there's always discussions to dismantle plain old FM radio too and only serve DAB+ instead, which doesn't have nearly the buildout level compared to plain old FM radio. I'm sick of this shit. Three decades and all what we had went down the drain. It's the same for coronavirus response - back in cold war times we had massive rolling stockpiles of everything, especially of PPE... but again, it all got eliminated to "cut costs".
      - mattmanser 6y ago
        I really am struggling to understand why it's a big deal? Honestly asking, what's the thought process behind the worth of maintaing one? TV channels and radio stations will just broadcast a breaking news thing. Websites will have notices. I'm entirely unclear why you'd need an emergency broadcast system? Or place so much emphasis on its importance? What would you use it for? And why would having one that worked over AM or even FM be worth anything? People don't buy those radios any more. What difference does it make? What you're describing sounds like a massive white elephant that was probably worthless even in the cold war. A proverbial safety blanket.
        dividedbyzero 6y ago
        In case of, say, fire at a chemical plant, it may be important that people downwind get notified right away, there might not be very much time to get inside, close windows etc. Same for collapsed dams, radiological accidents, that sort of thing. Sirens can do that very well. Other channels are much less reliable (people might not have a news website open on their computer, might not be looking at their phone to catch that notification, etc.) Radio is important because it's so widespread and low-tech. Pretty much every car has a receiver that can run for ages, there are inexpensive emergency ones that can be powered by crank and solar, so even in prolonged power outages, as long as the stations remain powered, and someone in your neighbourhood has a working receiver, it's still useful and pretty low-cost, since the infrastructure is already there.
- sc11 6y ago
  Privacy report of NINA: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/de.materna.bbk.mobile.app/latest/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/de.materna.... Sure looks like they take data protection seriously by including advertising trackers...
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    Data is the new oil...
- mxscho 6y ago
  > *Anmerkung der Redaktion: In einer früheren Fassung hieß es, der Bund habe wegen vermeintlicher Kapazitätsprobleme der Mobilfunknetze und aus Datenschutzgründen Abstand von einem Cell-Broadcast-System genommen. Das Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe hat diese Antwort nachträglich korrigiert They basically revoked this comment about capacity. The new reason is that mobile service providers don't offer this type of broadcast in Germany and that it's checked whether this can be implemented in the future.
  - WillYouFinish 6y ago
    If that was the truth I don’t understand how anyone would come up with the first statement, which is just to precise to be a miscommunication or whatever the reason is. That just sounds like damage control. I am really disappointed at how bad the whole test went through today. Hopefully they get everything sorted out ASAP.
- yodelshady 6y ago
  What? It's a broadcast system. You stuff the packets into the antenna with as many watts as you can. Add a public key if you must. Why is it checking who gets the message?
  - gpvos 6y ago
    It is not. They should use cell broadcast, it's privacy-friendly, efficient and as reliable as anything else involving a mobile phone.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  I'd say it's the reverse. "Daten sind das neue Gold / Öl!" Because of this they don't use somehing like cell broadcast, but an app-based approach. They just don't dare to say so in public, or don't care at all. Do you honestly expect anything competent from any of the current talking heads, making appearances in the mainstream of the presstitutes catering to the oh so sensitive public? (Yes, Yes, I know, the German service providers (allegedly) didn't implement it so far, therefore we(allegedly) can't do it. It's not like a superspecial Extrawurst, since it's in use in many other places. I guess, depending on the vendor of the equipment it would be nothing more than a configuration flag to enable, since it's already there, just needs a license for the feature, or something like that. /ENDRANT)
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > mainstream of the presstitutes catering Jeez. No need to resort to far-right vocabulary! As for the rest of your point, I'm sure you remember "die Antwort auf diese Frage könnte die Bevölkerung verunsichern"...
    - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
      I'm not far right, just getting older and can't stand it anymore. Not the getting older, but the endless repetition of BS. (Echt jetzt? Ich verbitte mir diese infame Unterstellung aufs Entschiedenste! Das geht ja so gaaaaa nich!)
rawbot 6y ago
I have simply no idea who thought it was a good idea to implement a nation-wide warning system on an app that has ~15k downloads[0]~. We already get warnings through cell broadcast here in Hamburg for the weather (last year we got multiple high wind warnings). I'm very disappointed. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.materna.bbk.mobile.app&hl=de https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.materna.bbk... Edit: As a commenter pointed out, it has 1M+ downloads. But I'm still unsure why is there is even an app, when you can use the cell broadcasted warnings, which everyone with a modern phone get, regardless whether they have an app installed.
- sc11 6y ago
  It has ~15k reviews, but 1M+ downloads.
- tejado 6y ago
  Any source for the cell broadcast in Hamburg? And what are you using (iOS?)? I only get the alerts over the app, despite also living there.
  - rawbot 6y ago
    Android, and have enabled the option in settings.
    - tejado 6y ago
      This seems strange. I have enabled everything, got messages also in the US like amber alert but never in germany incl. Hamburg. I thought this is not used here in germany (see other comments here e.g.)? Do you have some source of your information?
      - rawbot 6y ago
        It worked for me, and I got the warnings in German. My phone is all English. I remember clearly, because it threw me off in the beginning. I haven't received any this year, maybe it was a test?
throw0101a 6y ago
> I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used. Maybe the telcos aren't ready? But they wanted to start practicing the other parts of the system? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU-Alert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU-Alert There are a few implementations, but not as many as I would have assumed: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast#Public_warning_implementations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast#Public_warning_...
anotheryou 6y ago
Probably because politicians are stupid: (german) https://t.co/MgVwxrAYwd?amp=1 https://t.co/MgVwxrAYwd?amp=1

by taejo 6y ago

sc11 6y ago

Even if you had heard of it, it's not reliable due to being a normal app. It's affected by energy saving settings, DND etc. I've had it installed for a while but the time when you actually get notified varies a lot between people, depending on their phone's behaviour. Cell Broadcast/EU-Alert is the way to go for this and I have no idea why they thought an app would be better.

mschuster91 6y ago

> I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used Because of utterly dumb people in charge: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/warntag-zum-zivil-und-katastrophenschutz-wir-haben-eine-sehr-unvorbereitete-bevoelkerung-a-1def33a4-a1aa-467e-ac24-7aa56715530d https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/warntag-zum-ziv... > Unger: Ja, die Niederlande zum Beispiel setzen auf dieses Cell-Broadcast-System. Wir haben davon Abstand genommen, weil die Mobilfunknetze - wie man etwa an Silvester sieht - im Fall der Fälle nicht ausreichen. Hinzu kommt ein datenschutzrechtliches Problem. Wenn man direkt die Handys ansteuert, werden auch Bewegungsdaten erfasst. Wir setzen daher auf die App... To roughly translate: cell broadcast has a data protection problem, because directly notifying cellphones leads to movement data being recorded. Also cellphone networks don't have the capacity, as can be seen every new year's eve. Just... what the fuck! What an utterly incompetent idiot.

_Microft 6y ago
Feedback: this comment might have fared better if it hadn't contained completely unnecessary insults.
- Grumbledour 6y ago
  As a fellow German, I can understand the anger, though. Basically, we don't have a warning system anymore, because the pieces that are left are mostly being dismantled (sirens, tv and radio) and all they seem to want to replace it with is an app that doesn't reliably work when the network is fine. Lets be honest, if catastrophy should strike here, we would be last to know.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    This x100. It's an utter catastrophe. We had a fully working siren network (at least across Western Germany), and after the end of the Cold War it all got left to rot to pieces - estimates for rebuilding it are well into the hundreds of millions of euro range. And then the whole radio clusterfuck. AM radio got totally torn down years ago to "cut costs", there's always discussions to dismantle plain old FM radio too and only serve DAB+ instead, which doesn't have nearly the buildout level compared to plain old FM radio. I'm sick of this shit. Three decades and all what we had went down the drain. It's the same for coronavirus response - back in cold war times we had massive rolling stockpiles of everything, especially of PPE... but again, it all got eliminated to "cut costs".
    - mattmanser 6y ago
      I really am struggling to understand why it's a big deal? Honestly asking, what's the thought process behind the worth of maintaing one? TV channels and radio stations will just broadcast a breaking news thing. Websites will have notices. I'm entirely unclear why you'd need an emergency broadcast system? Or place so much emphasis on its importance? What would you use it for? And why would having one that worked over AM or even FM be worth anything? People don't buy those radios any more. What difference does it make? What you're describing sounds like a massive white elephant that was probably worthless even in the cold war. A proverbial safety blanket.
      - dividedbyzero 6y ago
        In case of, say, fire at a chemical plant, it may be important that people downwind get notified right away, there might not be very much time to get inside, close windows etc. Same for collapsed dams, radiological accidents, that sort of thing. Sirens can do that very well. Other channels are much less reliable (people might not have a news website open on their computer, might not be looking at their phone to catch that notification, etc.) Radio is important because it's so widespread and low-tech. Pretty much every car has a receiver that can run for ages, there are inexpensive emergency ones that can be powered by crank and solar, so even in prolonged power outages, as long as the stations remain powered, and someone in your neighbourhood has a working receiver, it's still useful and pretty low-cost, since the infrastructure is already there.
sc11 6y ago
Privacy report of NINA: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/de.materna.bbk.mobile.app/latest/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/de.materna.... Sure looks like they take data protection seriously by including advertising trackers...
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  Data is the new oil...
mxscho 6y ago
> *Anmerkung der Redaktion: In einer früheren Fassung hieß es, der Bund habe wegen vermeintlicher Kapazitätsprobleme der Mobilfunknetze und aus Datenschutzgründen Abstand von einem Cell-Broadcast-System genommen. Das Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe hat diese Antwort nachträglich korrigiert They basically revoked this comment about capacity. The new reason is that mobile service providers don't offer this type of broadcast in Germany and that it's checked whether this can be implemented in the future.
- WillYouFinish 6y ago
  If that was the truth I don’t understand how anyone would come up with the first statement, which is just to precise to be a miscommunication or whatever the reason is. That just sounds like damage control. I am really disappointed at how bad the whole test went through today. Hopefully they get everything sorted out ASAP.
yodelshady 6y ago
What? It's a broadcast system. You stuff the packets into the antenna with as many watts as you can. Add a public key if you must. Why is it checking who gets the message?
- gpvos 6y ago
  It is not. They should use cell broadcast, it's privacy-friendly, efficient and as reliable as anything else involving a mobile phone.
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
I'd say it's the reverse. "Daten sind das neue Gold / Öl!" Because of this they don't use somehing like cell broadcast, but an app-based approach. They just don't dare to say so in public, or don't care at all. Do you honestly expect anything competent from any of the current talking heads, making appearances in the mainstream of the presstitutes catering to the oh so sensitive public? (Yes, Yes, I know, the German service providers (allegedly) didn't implement it so far, therefore we(allegedly) can't do it. It's not like a superspecial Extrawurst, since it's in use in many other places. I guess, depending on the vendor of the equipment it would be nothing more than a configuration flag to enable, since it's already there, just needs a license for the feature, or something like that. /ENDRANT)
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > mainstream of the presstitutes catering Jeez. No need to resort to far-right vocabulary! As for the rest of your point, I'm sure you remember "die Antwort auf diese Frage könnte die Bevölkerung verunsichern"...
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    I'm not far right, just getting older and can't stand it anymore. Not the getting older, but the endless repetition of BS. (Echt jetzt? Ich verbitte mir diese infame Unterstellung aufs Entschiedenste! Das geht ja so gaaaaa nich!)

rawbot 6y ago

I have simply no idea who thought it was a good idea to implement a nation-wide warning system on an app that has ~15k downloads[0]~. We already get warnings through cell broadcast here in Hamburg for the weather (last year we got multiple high wind warnings). I'm very disappointed. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.materna.bbk.mobile.app&hl=de https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.materna.bbk... Edit: As a commenter pointed out, it has 1M+ downloads. But I'm still unsure why is there is even an app, when you can use the cell broadcasted warnings, which everyone with a modern phone get, regardless whether they have an app installed.

sc11 6y ago
It has ~15k reviews, but 1M+ downloads.
tejado 6y ago
Any source for the cell broadcast in Hamburg? And what are you using (iOS?)? I only get the alerts over the app, despite also living there.
- rawbot 6y ago
  Android, and have enabled the option in settings.
  - tejado 6y ago
    This seems strange. I have enabled everything, got messages also in the US like amber alert but never in germany incl. Hamburg. I thought this is not used here in germany (see other comments here e.g.)? Do you have some source of your information?
    - rawbot 6y ago
      It worked for me, and I got the warnings in German. My phone is all English. I remember clearly, because it threw me off in the beginning. I haven't received any this year, maybe it was a test?

throw0101a 6y ago

> I don't understand why Cell Broadcast is not used. Maybe the telcos aren't ready? But they wanted to start practicing the other parts of the system? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU-Alert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU-Alert There are a few implementations, but not as many as I would have assumed: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast#Public_warning_implementations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast#Public_warning_...

anotheryou 6y ago

Probably because politicians are stupid: (german) https://t.co/MgVwxrAYwd?amp=1 https://t.co/MgVwxrAYwd?amp=1