What are you thinking?
I was trolling around on Facebook earlier today and I came across this event. Its not an event, really, as much as it is a notice from students at the University of Illinois to other students to sign up for the University's new text message alert system. Given the communication debacle that was the Virginia Tech debacle earlier this year, you have to applaud the University for attempting to streamline communication. And what better way to reach a college student than through his or her cell phone?
But as I continued reading the description for the event, I moved to the comment section, where I saw this little gem from our friend John Bambeneck:
"You mean the emergency panic inducement system that is a needless expense designed to produce the "appearance" of security, but do nothing to enhance it, and arguably make matters worse... sure, I'll pay to get that on my phone! Maybe I can get Herman's sermons sent to it too!"
Its shocking to me that a measure the University uses to try to keep students safe is being construed as a "big brother" scenario. And pleas, explain to me, John, how it makes matters worse? Frankly, if I'm sitting in a class in the ASL and somebody starts shooting up Altgeld, I would NEVER want to know.
Give me a break.
I suppose it must really be a good way to get the word out. The Chancellor told me just the other day that he was getting pretty tired of Mollie calling him asking if she could purchase advertising time over it.
Maybe John is just trying to keep her for himself. Good luck there.
I hope you can see how this makes matters worse - suddenly, a flood of students start running for their lives. People get trampled to death, pedestrians block the streets and prevent the police from responding in time. To use the cliche, it's essentially the U of I yelling "fire" in a crowded room.
What would this system do in the event of a Whitman-like Texas shooting? Just provide a gunman with thousands more targets.
As the system is flooding the cell towers with text messages and students start calling their friends/parents, useful calls to the police couldn't get through.
I hope everyone sees this system for what it is: a knee-jerk reaction to the bizarre circumstances (two separate shooting sprees) surrounding the Virginia Tech shooting.
<< As the system is flooding the cell towers with text messages and students start calling their friends/parents, useful calls to the police couldn't get through. >>
That was my first thought (although, to be fair, the text messages would be extremely unlikely to cause any problems with excessive traffic). Would I want to know something was happening? You bet. It seems like a good idea, but I'm a bit nervous about the idea of trusting a bunch of 18-year-olds to do the right thing and stay off of their cell phones.
Kem
"I hope you can see how this makes matters worse - suddenly, a flood of students start running for their lives. People get trampled to death, pedestrians block the streets and prevent the police from responding in time. To use the cliche, it's essentially the U of I yelling "fire" in a crowded room.
What would this system do in the event of a Whitman-like Texas shooting? Just provide a gunman with thousands more targets."
Not necessarily - the system could deliver a message that says, "Stay indoors," or "Avoid this building."
It's not a perfect system, but it's better than nothing - and it will only be effective if the people charged with using it do so intelligently.
You are reading the label, John was looking at what's inside the bottle. We should never trust the label, especially when the government is involved.
Well, any student that's worried about "big brother" effects doesn't have to sign up for the system.
I think doing so would be unwise, but it doesn't sound like it's mandatory at this point.
I guess I don't understand what they're worried about. Do they think the UI is going to send some subliminal message that "All your base are belong to us" and implement some grand mind-control scheme?
1) I didn't say it was a big brother system, I said it was a wasteful system not reasonably connected to actually providing real security.
2) MASSMAIL was supposedly going to be used for a tightly controlled list of circumstances, and look how that's gotten abused.
3) No one has managed to actually show a scenario how it would have actually helped at Va. Tech, the inspirational event for the system. The first shooting looked by every account to be a DV situation, a reasonable assumption. By the time they knew any better, people were already dead by the time 911 was on the phone.
4) No one accounts for the latency in such a system. Someone has to call 911, 911 has to assess the situation, and presumable someone in the University administration needs to make the call. Then there is the delay for sending out 10,000 text messages. Keep in mind, 911 is not the University. Medcad is in a bunker in Urbana. They could call the University police, and presumably someone at the University police station could make the call (but likely not the dispatcher).
5) It was simply a fad solution to not really address the real problem, mental illness. Cho finally broke, but the evidence looked like someone could have clued in sooner. THAT would have prevented the loss of life.
6) No one has really spelled out the scenarios in which this system would be used. Will the campus go on lock-down ever time someone squeezes off a few rounds at the Chicken Shack? Guess what, that sounds like a good way to delay finals.
7) Most campus shootings are single-target incidents, but the time the text message goes out, inducing students to needlessly panic, you've bulldozed over a class day, or two, unnecessarily.
8) No one has addressed the security of such a system. SMS messaging is even less able to be authenticated that e-mail. One person could simply collect a bunch of cell phone numbers, send out a text message that looks and feels like an emergency warning, and shutdown campus. And it'd be a royal pain to track that person down, especially with all the wide-open wireless in this town.
9) I don't believe that in 99% of the scenarios such a system would be used, useful information would be available to campus administrators or law enforcement to pass that intelligence down to the student body in a timely manner, not with the latency issues above.
This system was designed as a knee-jerk reaction to Va. Tech without thinking of the problems, or even having a meaningful analysis of the incident, but simply to get out in public and "do something" to protect "our kids". I'd prefer a more thoughtful and level-headed response to such tragedies a thousand miles away.
And I think you mean "John Bambenek", no "c" there.
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j
Part-Time Pundit
I think you mean METCAD, only one "D" in there
Its too bad John didn't get elected to the school board. He has such a diplomatic approach to problem-solving. When he said "Herman's sermons" it came across to me as another way of building bridges. I hope he runs for office again. He can run with the Tom Tancredo-Dennis Kucinich party.
Just another example of how this system can mess up:
Wittenberg U. sends out SMS alert after "gunman" sighted; weapon turns out to be foam pellet gun.
Again, any system is only going to be as effective as the people who use it.
"Again, any system is only going to be as effective as the people who use it."
That's the most compelling argument against the system at UIUC that I've heard yet.
And this system is ripe for misuse.
I agree IP. Like Confucius says, "Tell me and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand."