[CAP] Status of real-world CAP deployment?

[Gram Wheeler]

I have responded to Kon's message with reasons why I don't think the
issues he raises are valid, and I hope we dcan leave the pro/anti MS
stuff behind now as it is not relevant to this list nor to the question
that I put forward originally. In brief, we're not taking anything away
from anyone here; we're trying to provide an additional distribution
channel for alerts which can only be a good thing.


On a technical note, we would have to unwrap CAP messages at the
DirectBand operations center and repackage them; the bandwidth, memory,
power, and noise constraints on FM data transmission all argue for
messages being as succinct as possible so XML is not an appropriate data
format. We would also want to collect all messages at our operation
centers (of which there will only be about two), and redistribute them
after repackaging to the various transmission towers around the country
based on the affected regions.


In practice, this means that for CAP alerts to be useful for our
purposes, we would need to have short descriptive text. I'm not sure how
verbose the messages are likely to be in practice, but if they are
verbose, then this would argue for there being an "executive summary"
element with a short text (for our purposes, we'd like to keep things to
the smallest possible multiple of 118 bytes we can).


--

Gram Wheeler, CISSP

Security Program Manager

Smart Personal Object Technology

Microsoft Research

=20

-----Original Message-----
From: Dudley McFadden [mailto:mcfadden@ford-consulting.com]=20
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 4:33 PM
To: 'Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) Working Group'
Subject: RE: [CAP] Status of real-world CAP deployment?

=20

As a member of standards, distribution, and emergency bodies, I must
admit to not having any objection to Microsoft-based technologies, which
we find to be widely-supported, widely-used, widely-emulated, stable and
reliable.

For example, we are planning to include CAP support in our Aviso
WatchDog application suite that emergency managers use to help monitor
rainfall and streamflow data and obtain advance notice of flooding. It
is quite easy and reliable to include XML support in the Microsoft
Visual Basic code in which much of WatchDog is written.

I have not researched software interfaces to SPOT defice DirectBand
transmitters, but I presume that a protocol such as WTCP would be used
to relay messages, much like messages to pagers can be sent. CAP
messages could be a WTCP transmission payload quite effectively.
Otherwise, a firmware-based application at the DirectBand transmitter
could decode the CAP message and broadcast using instructions from
within the CAP message.

On the other hand, Java technology is expressly not licensed for
mission-critical, life-supporting applications that CAP must assist. It
says it right in the license agreement for using Java. No such
restriction appears in Visual Basic or Microsoft Windows. Therefore, we
can't and don't use Java products for accomplishing flood warning.
Perhaps one day Sun will make Java more robust, remove the restriction,
and then we can do good works with that langugage.

(Often in history, successful people and organisations are the most
widely criticised by jealous and deficient competitors. Microsoft is a
good company with intelligent staff developing products that people
want, use, and purchase again and again because they work; this forum is
not the appropriate place to attack them.)

Dudley McFadden, PE=20
David Ford Consulting Engineers=20
Sacramento, California, US=20

=20

-----Original Message-----=20
From: cap-list-bounces@incident.com
[mailto:cap-list-bounces@incident.com]On Behalf Of Kon Wilms=20
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 3:56 PM=20
To: Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) Working Group=20
Subject: Re: [CAP] Status of real-world CAP deployment?=20

=20

Is this distribution network accessible to all? If this is a
Microsoft-only technology, you are sure to see heavy opposition from
standards, distribution, and emergency bodies when trying to implement
it.

Just my 2c.=20

Cheers=20
Kon=20