Here’s how Hawaii’s emergency alert design led to a false alarm


The disastrous false alarm issued by Hawaii over the weekend has raised concerns about what safeguards the state had in place. The state-wide alert, which told people a ballistic missile was about to hit, terrified residents and visitors, as the state scrambled for 38 minutes to issue a correction.

Officials soon released a timeline of events, saying the state’s software contained a menu option that allowed a live alert to be sent in place of a test, a problem that several people quickly categorized as a design failure. The state released an image that showed a list with options for test and live alerts next to each other. Officials later said the image did not accurately portray the system, and released what it characterized as a...

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via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2mTcI5W"

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