FCC Seeks Tech Donations for Katrina Aid 255
An anonymous reader writes "BoingBoing is reporting on the FCC accepting donations of tech services and equipment: 'Lack of communications systems has been identified as a critical issue holding back aid, missing persons, law enforcement, etc. in crisis areas.
FCC personnel are working throughout the weekend to coordinate these efforts with private industry, with wireless technology groups, FEMA, and state governments in Mississippi, Louisiana, etc.' Efforts are being organized through PART-15.ORG."
CB Radio (Score:1, Interesting)
would be a good start, no licenses required to operate, just plug in and go and they are cheap and have good range, its the citizens band after all
Where's the HAM operators? (Score:2, Interesting)
Where does the money go? (Score:3, Interesting)
RIAA donations... anyone ? (Score:1, Interesting)
This is an adbication of responsibility (Score:3, Interesting)
The solution is simple:
Volunteerism should be directed toward getting various vendors of telecom equipment to agree on a set of rules that they consider fair for awarding a bounty for telecommunications area coverage and then sign a petition to the FCC or preferably FEMA which would administer the FCC's role, presenting the rules.
For example, let's say there's a tent city with estimated population 10,000. There is an estimated need for 1% peak load or 100 virtual circuits each capable of carrying a SIP call. FEMA pays $1000/day for each circuit. Right-of-ways are rented from FEMA with the highest bidder gaining control of the right-of-way for some minimum lease period, say a week. In the case of 802.11* this would mean spectrum allocation would operate as "land rent" system.
How fast would those 100 SIP circuits go up?
Citywide Wi-Fi (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why not let evolution take its course? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's criminal negligence that our government took 5 days to get food and water (and law and order) to these people.
After all of the money that has gone to "Homeland Security", you'd think the government wouldn't have to ask for donations for a predicted disaster.
SomethingAwful (Score:2, Interesting)
SA was apparently hosted there so has gone down ("either underwater or strapped to the roof of a stolen vehicle that is also underwater.").
They've got a page up at the moment with their feelings about the whole business which is worth a read (scroll down a bit till you get to "Bless This Mess")
Why, America? (Score:3, Interesting)
We, spoiled people of the Old Continent (maybe too old) are much more concerned about the human regression of the citizens of New Orleans that with tech. Did you have a look at Phuket Tsunami?
MUCH MORE TRAGIC outcome, much more dead people and yet a cooperative environment, without people harassing others or pillaging the neighbourhood and without problems with the volunteers.
There must be something really scaring below the thin surface of the common US citizen (or maybe under every "first world" one), something deeply wrong with a lot of people, whose first instinct is to go arming themselves as it was not a catastrophe, but some kind of Apocalypse B Movie.
I've worked with refugees and indeed lend a helping hand in Pukhet zones, but have never ONCE seen the global and total madness generated by Katrina.
ANd I am more than a little scared, you know?
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Grammar Zealotes, please spare a non-english writer
Evolution it's at work (Score:2, Interesting)
Evolution is about the survival of the finest, not the luckiest (at long run).
International Help (Score:1, Interesting)
Because from Europe we can (and want) to help USA as USA has helped us and other countries in the past. But George W. Bush isn't very popular in the old Europe, and his word aren't helping.
Because tech is important, but airplanes, police , firemen... are more important.
Re:Does anyone else? (Score:2, Interesting)
Rather than making ad-hominem attacks about Democrats, consider the facts.
New Orleans was not below sea level when they built it. The floodplain kept it above until fairly recently, and all the canals they dug to allow oil traffic allowed much more of it to silt out, bringing it down even further.
Initial help DID come from state and local governments. The local government was essentially obliterated by the scope of the damage, but the police force has done what they can. Martial law was requested long before help arrived. Communications infrastructure is completely gone and it's virtually impossible to coordinate.
I'm glad Ray Nagin is blasting the federal government. At least he's telling it like it is on the ground, which is a perspective you can't get from a flyby in Air Force One. I work for a company that provides real-time weather data. We KNEW there were 210 mph gusts before it hit. It's the worst hurricane of the century, and we were aware of it. Why was federal aid not waiting? FEMA classified a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as the 3rd worst possible disaster. The Pentagon was putting paperwork through days before the hurricane hit. Why was FEMA not more prepared?
Think about New York in the days following 9/11. It was a tragedy, sure, but it was localized to about one city block. If they had leveled an area the size of New Orleans, and made it virtually unhabitable (through flooding/fires/collapse of the subway system/whatever), the reaction there would have been about the same. The fact that somebody has an [R] by their name on TV does not make them infallible, and any politician in New Orleans, regardless of credo, would have been in the same situation as we have right now. They knew approximately 24 hours in advance that a class 4/5 hurricane was going to hit New Orleans. A week is bullshit. Do you think they should evactuate as soon as a tropical depression forms in the Gulf because it -might- hit New Orleans?
Your rhetoric does not a coherent argument make. Not every conservative is stupid, but most stupid people are conservative. -John Stuart Mill. I think you fit the bill. If you don't agree, think before you post next time.
Geeks unite! (Score:3, Interesting)
We should all work together and develop open source collaboration software for disaster relief efforts.
Capabilties:
* Supercharged task list. I need supply $X at location $Y using vehicle $Z. People should be able to do the reverse, say I have supply $X at location $B but need vehicle $C. Must be able to work with very large numbers of people using it.
* Reporting connected to mapping. People should report on the ground what conditions are and report what is needed where
* VOIP phone bank. People around the world can volunteer as telephone operators for a central hotline. Obviously it's going to be harder to get web access in some situations so these people can take phone reports help them use the site through that, or just help them with whatever else they need
* Interlingual support. Language barriers are often a problem in disasters, especially those with international teams working together. This needs to be coordinated.
* Lost and found. People can post stats and descriptions and photos into a database that can be searched easily. People should also be able to do the reverse and register "I'm OK".
* Publicity effort: if this thing works then we need to publicize it so that people know to use it
* Scalability: this needs to scale to meet high variable demand. People should be able to donate servers and bandwidth. Should be load-tested to meet what seems like unrealistic loads.
I'm really struck by the way that individuals out there are helping one another. I saw one guy saying he was in Nevada, but he was willing to drive to Houston to come pick up someone who needed a place to stay... If we could come up with an application that helps individual people out there help with each other, we could have our own relief movement without needing the government. The big problem with the government agencies seems to be that they can't co-ordinate with one another (even though that was supposed to be the whole point of the Department of Homeland Security). There's really no limit to the people out there who would help if they only knew how, if there was a centralized "task list" maybe we could get the right help where it was needed faster.
Let's do it.
Why is Ham being blocked??! (Score:0, Interesting)
--ham radio operators are reporting that the New Orleans area is being jammed!
-there are explosions being reported..
-surrounding areas are ready but not allowed to go in and help(ie local airboaters blocked by FEMA?!)
-canada not allowed to help? US gov will not allow aid
-With HAARP and othere weird secret weather control and patterns and canada agreement with US agaist weather control near its borders..)-numous countries like russia, canada, germany have offered assistance... but no...
-specialized forces are tottaly ready to go but they do not want assistance.. bush is messed.. they got european assiatance trained on underwater rescue.. that with russian offer for free temp housing and military to assist.. oil from IRAN (thats right iran the place us next plans to attack for no reason!)
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:3, Interesting)
And you know that how?
Because they did not have the ability to do so. If Iraq had been able to strike the United States, they certainly would have done so in the 10 years between wars. As stated, Saddam was an incredibly secular leader. He only really cared about staying rich and surviving unharassed. He would not have jeopardized it to attack the US.
And he funded suicided bombers in Israel.
Yes, he paid the families of the suicide bombers who attacked in Israel. Everybody in the Middle East hates the Israelis, even westernized countries like Lebanon, and it's not a secret. He paid the families posthumously, though. It wasn't as if he was recruiting them. He wasn't a great guy by any means, but terrorist leader he wasn't.
Yeah, like that's how they would choose to attack the US. Has nothing to do with them funding and homing the terrorists.
See above. bin Laden did do that in Afghanistan, but he could just as easily be doing it now from Chechnya, Pakistan, or wherever the hell he is. The Taliban wasn't really involved in any manner other than getting paid to look the other way.
I said they were unable to attack the US through military means because that's precisely the threat that our government offered and so many people seemed to believe. Remember, though, everybody looks out for number one. The government leaders in Afghanistan and Iraq had no more desire to get ousted, impoverished, and possibly killed than any other leaders anywhere. National governments do not attack the United States as it stands right now. We didn't even catch the Al-Qaeda leaders from Afghanistan, they just moved. Why do you think we're any safer now?
Or maybe the YOU are learning their tactics? I mean, if they attack the US they aren't going to be attacking in a conventional way and therefore aren't going to be confronted by an ARMY force are they?
On the other hand, the military are understanding how the extremists work and at the same time are seeding liberty in countries which could certainly benefit from it. Look at Afghanistan for an example. They've made amazing progress in such a short amount of time and many countries (and the UN) are ensuring success. Admittedly Iraq is not as successful (yet).
Yes, WE are learning their tactics. They like to ambush us in the hills. Couldn't we have learned that from any insurgency or guerilla operations? Make a case study out of what happened to the Soviets in the 80s in Afghanistan. Same effect. All we're learning is that they're very hard to root out and they like to shoot at us. On the other hand, they are learning how we operate, what equipment we use, what tactics we use, when we use airpower, and what we have at our disposal.
Yes, we're seeding liberty all right. We are doing good things in Afghanistan, no doubt. Women have a lot more rights, and there is more infrastructure (though a lot of that is the Caspian Oil Pipeline). Unfortunately, the last estimates I heard from my friends in the military (who were deployed there) were that we maintained a functional control zone of 100m around Kabul. The rest is provisional warlords and druglords.
Try this site instead it has less propaganda [afghanistannews.com]
Re:Obscure and secret taxes (Score:2, Interesting)
A Good start! Bravo!
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:2, Interesting)
You missed my point. The Iraq war wasn't needed to prevent a conventional attack on America by the Saddam's government but there are many ways that it could have prevented attacks on the US. Keeping the terrorists busy, showing the liberals middle-east that the US is serious about liberisation of the middle east. In the long term, stability in the middle east will mean less attacks. In the short term, the terrorists are busy in Iraq.
Yes, the terrorists are busy, for the short term . That's the worry. Previously, they were sent to Chechnya or another war zone to get experience. Very few of the insurgents in Iraq are actually Iraqi nationals. I fear what we're doing is training them to fight us in a few years, and training them to hate us. Countries over there (which are far from liberal, Lebanon aside) don't want us sticking our nose in from across the world.
If we were serious about the 'liberation' of the Middle East, we should have started a long time ago. Israel should not have been allowed to hold the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula decades after treaty. Saudi Arabia is one of the most autocratic, restrictive countries on Earth. They're our 2nd closest ally (after Israel) in the Middle East. Why didn't we stop Mbutu, or Pol Pot, or the genocide in the Sudan? We're showing we care about our interests. I can't honestly say why we're there (not for the oil, as they certainly would have expected almost total loss of the oil fields from the first war), but it's not for liberation.
You can't seriously believe that do you? The Taliban have a fundamentalist islamic vision and so does bin laden. I really don't see how you can think they were just "paid" to look the other way.
We actually have a fairly good picture of the organization. Similar hijackings were planned in the late 90s (stopped in the Phillipines before they happened). We have a good idea of the chain of command. The Taliban was not involved in planning. They were superfluous for funding, since bin Laden is independently wealthy, and the money trail doesn't lead to them anyway. Taliban troops may have assisted training camps, but they weren't involved in direct action.
The soviet situation was different. Firstly, they didn't succeed in installing a government and getting 9 out of 10 eligible votes to vote and secondly they didn't have another superpower (america) helping the other side.
Perhaps you need to review what happened with the Soviets. They did install a government, though there was no voting. They fought Mujahideen rebels, much as we are today. They didn't control much outside of Kabul, much as we are today. The big difference is that we DON'T have another superpower (the USSR was a superpower at the time, but I'll assume you made a typo and meant 'did' instead of 'didn't') supporting the other side (as we did, supporting the rebels against the Soviets).
I agree that it isn't ideal but good things take time. The situation under the taliban wasn't much better (warlords, drug lords etc). The taliban had "methods" for dealing with drugs which "liberal" governments wouldn't agree with.
Anyway, I just can't understand people who run around claming that afghanistan has been destroyed by the US and that they're worse off. I really can't.
I didn't say things are worse than they were, I said they don't have much infrastructure (we bombed out the railways and roads, which are still largely in ruins). Things are better than they were, but the US populace as a whole doesn't have much patience for nationbuilding, and I have a feeling we're going to end up pulling out before we stablize the region. At some point, and probably soon, we'll get sick of seeing casualty reports from rebels that just don't seem to go away and pull out. That'll leave them in the same place they were in before we got there.
Ham radio operators have batteries and generators (Score:2, Interesting)
Where I live in Arizona, city officials and local hams, for years, have been working together to be prepared for emergencies. I remember how thoroughly they prepared together for Y2K. As Y2K approached local hams with plenty of batteries and other equipment were pre-positioned at hospitals, police stations, fire stations and other key locations. At some of those locations they still have their own antenna on the roof. The city itself had installed diesel backup generators at the city sewage treatment plant and at each of the wells for the city water system.
I have never really been active in ham radio although I do have a general class license. Many hams are already prepared to communicate with each other across thousands of miles or across town without the help of electricty from the power company. If their antennas get blown down they can quicky set up a simple wire antenna hanging from a tree. Many are already set up for long distance communication while operating from their car, truck or RV. They can communicate using voice, various digital modes or CW (Morse Code). Some hams even use slow-scan television or ham radio satellites. Perhaps they should just try to send more ham radio operators into the area.