Bogus Homeland Alerts Hit the Air
Kevin Poulsen writes in Wired News:
As if Florida didn't have enough to worry about this hurricane season, some residents of the Sunshine State were alerted to a nonexistent radiological emergency last Wednesday after a National Weather Service operator fat-fingered a routine test of the Emergency Alert System.
The EAS, a 1997 replacement for the Cold War-era Emergency Broadcast System, transmits emergency audio and text information to the public over weather-alert radios and by interrupting commercial television and radio broadcasts.
A digital header at the top of every EAS alert dictates how long it's in effect and how far the message should be propagated. It also identifies the type of event by a three-letter code.
The Florida gaffe occurred when an operator at the National Weather Service's Tallahassee forecast office inadvertently entered the code "RHW" instead of "RWT," keying a radiological hazard warning instead of a required weekly test.
posted by Fergie @ 8/01/2005 10:22:00 AM
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