frojack writes:
"Amber alerts on our smartphones are starting to become all too frequent, and like most things, they are burdened with a certain degree of Feature Creep. Not just for abducted children anymore, the Alert system in US carrier sold phones can carry Presidential Alerts, Imminent Threat Alerts (weather or forest fires mostly) and the original AMBER alert for missing children.
Its not clear the President is ever going to have a single message for the entire population, where that message will make any difference to the average citizen. But then, this category is seldom abused. Weather broadcasts are invariably too late, historically too widely distributed, and often simply redundant. And Amber Alerts are, in the majority of cases, custody disputes, where the child is never in any real danger.
Amber Alerts are quickly becoming viewed as security theater, and the most abused aspect of the entire system. This has increasing numbers of people opting out of the alerts on their phones as a result.
The Amber system is the "third rail" of child safety discussions, and few agencies are willing to address its failings. Do we need additional shades of Amber, or the ability to filter custody disputes from the system?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by galgon on Tuesday March 11 2014, @12:54PM
I turned them off too the first time I was woken up at 2 AM for an Amber alert 60 miles away. I would love if IOS would allow you to selectively choose which alerts will get to you in Do Not Disturb mode. For example I specifically do not need Amber alerts from 10pm-6am. I am not going to be able to help the search for the child while I am sleeping.
However, there are some alerts that I would like to know about at 4am. For example tornado warning for my zip code or a presidential warning - "Aliens have landed". But most things can wait till I get up for work in the morning.