[lbourdages]

I don't understand what is their thought process. Am I supposed to get up and start driving in hopes of finding the kid(s)? By the time I wake up in the morning, usually, they have been found.

Just set it so that it doesn't bypass do-not-disturb and it'll have the same result while not disturbing sleep. Those awake will get the notification, and for the others, they can see it in the morning.

[rogerrogerr]

In the US, my state had a spate of sending amber alerts at 2am, mostly for old people escaping from old people homes.

I’m sure a ton of people just turned them off. They did ridiculous damage to the system.

I thought about starting an Amber Alert Milita; so any amber alert gets a fully armed response from the kind of people who join militias. That would have probably made the cops think twice about sending stupid alerts for stupid things.

Brenda escaping the memory care center yesterday morning (!) does not mean you should warn us all to watch out for her the next morning at 2am. Unless she’s found an axe and is going door to door chopping people up. That’s the only reason to send that alert.

I bet they killed a few people with heart attacks by setting off sirens in every bedroom in the county.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

I live in another part of the world and have never heard of an amber alert being sent, I assumed they were for nuclear/missile events.

Condolences for the subjects, but it’s bonkers they’re used to spam people about vulnerable individuals who aren’t posing an active threat.

[fc417fc802]

There are other emergency alerts. Amber alerts are for missing people. At least AFAIK but TBH I don't really care at this point it's a poorly though out and implemented system with shitty software that I end up disabling for better or worse.

It's unfortunate because the world would presumably benefit from a properly standardized and above all globalized way of subscribing to geographically local alerts of various sorts. My local government should be able to advertise their servers via the cell towers and I should be able to add and remove subscriptions from anywhere in the world as I see fit. And above all the messages should be properly authenticated. Last I checked the system was so half baked that it was trivially vulnerable to spoofing.

[dizhn]

It's an upper case A, Amber.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_alert

[hsbauauvhabzb]

I meant no disrespect to victims of awful crimes, but pointing out the capitalization seems awfully pedantic.

[dizhn]

Read the linked wikipedia article please. It is a proper name from back in the day, not the color amber. The alert is named after a little girl called Amber. I wasn't being pedantic. I was pointing out the circumstances in which it came to be and what it's used for.

[bluGill]

The idea is if you are awake.

they almost never send them where I live. Probably because the first one was sent at 2am, next morning the news reported the kid was found - safe with the parent who had legal custody the whole time.

[lbourdages]

There is a technical solution to this - make Amber alerts specifically not bypass do-not-disturb. Others can stay as-is because I want to get woken up in case of natural disaster or other catastrophe.

My phone is always on vibration, but even on do-not-disturb, Amber alerts make it vibrate on my nightstand and that is enough to wake me up (especially since I have a work phone and a personal phone triggering at the same time).

Anyway, it's definitely a first-world problem but it is one with an easy, no-downside solution.