Let me play devil's advocate, since this alerting topic is something that frustrates me to no end when people don't think about the side effects. For example, many classes start with the instructor telling students to put their phones away and set them on silent. That group of people is unreachable by text message or robo-dialer playing a voice announcement. Robo-dialers also cause denial-of-service attacks against the institution's PBX and local cellular network, making them unavailable for silly things like actual emergency communications or answering calls from concerned parents. But I digress.
Looking at the OS distribution chart on our PF instance, 81% of the devices on our network today are either iOS (58%) or Android. None of them will even notice that they were violated unless their phone is on and they open a web browser. Most people won't notice that their Internet connection is off until they start wondering why Facebook suddenly got quiet. From a personal perspective on the tornado scenario, I am a trained National Weather Service SKYWARN spotter. You can take it to the bank that my personal iPhone has subscriptions to multiple weather alert systems that usually break the news before consumer/media outlets are notified. The three NWS offices that cover our area only issue alerts down to the county level, so the first step for me when receiving an alert is to open up a radar app and see where the storm is and which way it is heading. No use in deploying/sheltering for a storm that's 35 miles away on the other side of the county. I could tell you a funny story about waking up in a hotel in Colorado to a tornado alert/siren for a storm that had already passed, but it only reinforces my distrust in other people interpreting emergency situations. Long story short, do YOU want to be responsible if I get killed because my Internet connection was cut off by a violation and stopped me from receiving more detailed information or even sending observations to the NWS that might save additional lives? Even if one could ack the violation and get connectivity again, this still causes a delay at a time where time isn't a luxury. Too many non-technical people are enamored by flashy sales pitches for e-notification systems, and never take a step back to think that the annual cost of those services would probably buy them a tornado siren or a whole bunch of IP-based hallway PA speakers that aren't set to vibrate and in someone's book bag under their desk. Multiple notification sources is a great sales pitch, until you DoS your entire town's cellular system and your campus PBX with alerts that nobody will hear over the wail of a 130 dB tornado siren that will surely even rouse dorm rooms full of hung-over seniors. :-) Regarding your summer camps, violations are set per-device and not per-user. Also, we make all of our summer visitors register as guests in PF, so that we have a way to identify/contact the owner of any device if necessary... -Arthur ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arthur Emerson III Email: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Network Administrator InterNIC: AE81 Mount Saint Mary College MaBell: (845) 561-0800 Ext. 3109 330 Powell Ave. Fax: (845) 562-6762 Newburgh, NY 12550 SneakerNet: Aquinas Hall Room 11 From: <Thomas>, Gregory A <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Thursday, June 11, 2015 at 5:24 PM To: "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [PacketFence-users] Broadcast Message I did think about that, but that would involve some programming to "violate" all users and remove them on or extend them when it is an emergency alert. I also have summer camps where they all share a login so it may not reach everyone if the first person accepts it and move on. -- Gregory A. Thomas IT Manager, Student Center & Residence Life University of Wisconsin-Parkside [email protected]<https://mail.uwp.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=PJoLX1MXo0SU0MLM7GrPmwxJzaMkdtAIgi4jkK-AXpCwJ307G0bt2lvFPw4WGoqQ06Tt1qwrKAA.&URL=mailto%3athomasg%40uwp.edu> 262.595.2432
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________ PacketFence-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/packetfence-users
