If you disable this, how are you going to know when to rush down to the beach for a good view of the action?

I hope you're not expecting some civil servant to risk their lives to come and personally tell you of impending danger instead.

I found it ironic that two of the stories on RNZ this morning were:

 

1. People complaining about insufficient warning of the Edgecumbe floods
2. Other (presumably different) people complaining about the testing of a new emergency alert system

We were woken in my house.  It was a bit puzzling.  I went back to sleep.  It's good to know that an effective system is being commissioned

I think people are blowing this out of proportion. This isn't comparable to unsolicited advertising like someone mentioned earlier - this is a safety feature being implemented to keep people.... safe.

Yes okay, it went off at an inconvenient time (I received 3), they recognise that and are going to ensure it's done during daylight hours, but I'm happier about the fact they have the system and are testing it.

You may be able to disable it depending on your handset. But you'll need to go digging to find the setting.

On a related note; I was in the USA last month and received a couple of Amber Alerts and weather alerts regarding Irma using the same system- I remember thinking "I wonder why we haven't got this in NZ yet..." lo-and behold!

michaelmurfy:

PaulBags: It /seems/ in my case to be tied to samsungs stock messenger, which I completely hobbled after this. Would need another test to know if it worked though.

It won't - it is a part of Android as a whole. It'll just display a notification like in my post instead of going to a notification center. No point being angry over this sort of thing as it is there for your protection in a way. If you don't like it then you'll need to go to a phone without emergency broadcast support.

PhantomNVD:

michaelmurfy:

 

PaulBags: It /seems/ in my case to be tied to samsungs stock messenger, which I completely hobbled after this. Would need another test to know if it worked though.

 

 

 

It won't - it is a part of Android as a whole. It'll just display a notification like in my post instead of going to a notification center. No point being angry over this sort of thing as it is there for your protection in a way. If you don't like it then you'll need to go to a phone without emergency broadcast support.

 

I can confirm IOS 11.x can turn these off in ‘settings’ (and is incidentally also immune to the BlueBorn vulnerability https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=66&topicid=223116) so perhaps their statement that you ‘cant’ control your own phone only applies to the people who choose Android so they can ‘fully control’ their phones? 🤔

Perhaps my ‘walled garden’ of ultra Nannydom is actually better for the ‘average’ user after all?

You can only turn off the Emergency Alerts, there's a level of alerts above that, it's called "Presidential Alert" in the states and is not disableable. The NZ system is supposed to use that level.

DarkShadow:

 

 

 

You can only turn off the Emergency Alerts, there's a level of alerts above that, it's called "Presidential Alert" in the states and is not disableable. The NZ system is supposed to use that level.

 

Interesting, I wasn't aware of the levels to it.

 

CMAS messages, although displayed similarly to SMS text messages, are always free and are routed through a separate service which will give them priority over voice and regular text messages in congested areas.[3] Customers who have the capability of receiving CMAS alerts (also known as PLAN[citation needed] and WEA) will be automatically signed up by their carrier.[8] If they do not want to participate they may opt to block most CMAS messages; however, CMAS regulations[9] prohibit participating carriers from configuring phones to allow users to opt out of messages issued by the President.[3]

 

Ref

If the alerts were across all providers, I can confirm that in iOS 11, if the alerts are disabled they don't appear at all (telecom handset)

If it was only limited to Vodafone, then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

PaulBags: Firstly A) as a matter of principle, doesn't really matter if it's there to protect me & it's dumb to disable it. I can choose not to wear a selt belt or a bike helmet even though are illegal, I should be able to opt out of this. And B) that sound. If we could change the sound that'd be a nice compromise at least. Sounds affect me, no point alerting me to danger if you're also making me incapable of rational thought.

PaulBags: Firstly A) as a matter of principle, doesn't really matter if it's there to protect me & it's dumb to disable it. I can choose not to wear a selt belt or a bike helmet even though are illegal, I should be able to opt out of this. And B) that sound. If we could change the sound that'd be a nice compromise at least. Sounds affect me, no point alerting me to danger if you're also making me incapable of rational thought.

If the phone is switched to vibrate the noise is much less disruptive.  It was on my partners work iPhone.  She said it beeped but I can only remember it vibrating each time before I went back to sleep.

MikeAqua:

PaulBags: Firstly A) as a matter of principle, doesn't really matter if it's there to protect me & it's dumb to disable it. I can choose not to wear a selt belt or a bike helmet even though are illegal, I should be able to opt out of this. And B) that sound. If we could change the sound that'd be a nice compromise at least. Sounds affect me, no point alerting me to danger if you're also making me incapable of rational thought.

If the phone is switched to vibrate the noise is much less disruptive.  It was on my partners work iPhone.  She said it beeped but I can only remember it vibrating each time before I went back to sleep.

PaulBags: There's settings in Android too, CD reckons they'll be ignored. The US system this is based off of has a level of alert which cannot be disabled in settings, on any device.

Android's going to turd anyway, one by one settings are getting tucked away in obscure settings pages, and things like Tasker can no longer control them - sometimes even rooted. And they're not the only ones, windows is dumbed down with plenty of things you can't control, Firefox will be moving to a severely watered down add-ons system sometime in November.

I used to love technology, but, DRM killed any enthusiasm I had for paying for anything & this 1984 "big brother controlling all the softwarez" bit is slowly turning me into a ludite.

Plenty of custom ROMs available for most Android phones, And you can get different launchers as well. Do custom ROMs even exist for iPhones? Either way, far easier to customise an Android phone than an iPhone.

Im assuming that your reference to 1984 is in relation to Macrovision on videotapes.