Alert Receive and Transmit: High Level Concept

Because of Wiki issues at DigitalDivide.net, the original writing was lost about a week ago. Since I am uncertain that the issue has been resolved, I am writing it here for now.

Some of you may remember the Alert Retrieval Cache, and it's very limited and unused role in the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and subsequent tsunami. With the news having moved on - and aid sent - it's hard to find anything in the news about it anymore. Already, it seems, mankind has been lulled into a pseudo-sense of security.

Life is an interesting thing by itself. While many will give biological, chemical and even computational definitions of what life itself is - there is one thing that is constant. Survival. If there is no survival, there is no Life. And therefore, the primary purpose of Life is to continue Life. Mankind has an odd relationship with Life, and perhaps that relationship is not defined by mankind itself as much as the people who control the direction mankind takes.

Over time, the people who have controlled the direction of mankind have increased. This is sensible, since the population has increased - and also our ability to protect life has increased.

Could at least some of those lost in the Indian Ocean tsunami been saved? Certainly. Entire countries were not warned when they could have been, and it's not for us to find blame but to fix it. To criticize, as it were, by creating.

Alert Receive and Transmit: ARCTX

This is where ARCTX comes in. Imagine a number that one could call, anywhere in the world, that sent an emergency message out. A sort of '911'. In theory, that sounds really good - but it has problems associated with it.

So who would we trust with such a system? Governments? In some cases, governments are one of the culprits when it comes to a human made disaster, and they may not wish to have information get out.

No, instead we need people.

Developing a trusted system

HAM Radio operators have a history of assisting in disasters when it comes to communication, but not everyone has a HAM radio. Still, somehow, they seem to be in the right places at the right times, and the people who are licensed HAM operators are known to each other - they have a certain level of trust, and based on the duration of the relationship between HAM operators, they react appropriately when bad news comes across the radio waves.

It works.

But if everyone with an SMS enabled telephone, or a Weblog, does the same thing - do we have the same level of trust? It seems that the more people you introduce into a system, the less trust there is in individual information provided. Even in the lauded blogosphere, bad information or inappropriate information can get around fast and do a lot of harm.

And even within a trusted community, information can be censored because of the perception of a mob. This happened with the SEA EAT weblog, when people simply refused to post anything about the Alert Retrieval Cache until 48 hours (quite a few emails and finally a Skype conversation) later, after information regarding the ARC was moved here. Why did it take so long to get information out to people that could have been useful? The exact same reason that the victims of the tsunami weren't warned. Bureaucracy with a side order of politics.

A simple alert system could be created from RSS feeds from major agencies, such as FEMA, or even the Red Cross. But a problem exists because of the fact that someone maliciously feeding the system bad information could cost lives instead of save them.

In the end, the system needs to be between people. And there has to be a trust level for credible information.

High Level Concept

The existing technologies available to mankind are astounding, but in any given area, some people will not use the technology.

The first positive step is getting HAM Radio operators on an email list that monitors the world - global updates, what have you. Hurricane advisories, Seismic activity information and even disease information could be disseminated on an email list by independant agencies that are trusted, and that information could be transmitted all over the world within the hour. But not just by HAM radio; others would be on these lists as well with other technologies available. Weblogs. SMS. Television and Radio.

Certain people - trained people, approved people - would be able to transmit (send email) to such lists. Anyone could subscribe to it. And strangely, one can receive SMS alerts on a cell phone if an email that meets certain criteria is sent - that's where some software is needed, and some already exists.

So how does someone report to the list if they don't have transmit ability on the list? Human moderators. Plain and simple. Volunteers who read through the emails in a region and verify the integrity of the messages that they receive.

The Problem

The real question is - and the one I'm stymied by - is who should train the people who do the transmitting? The only group that springs to mind at this time seems to be the Red Cross. BLS certifications, ACLS... why not an ARCTX certification too?