[CAP] Suggestion: Decrease delay/milling by increasing message trust
Mick Jagger
lists at jpw.biz
Wed Jan 4 08:59:18 PST 2006
> As a potential distributor of CAP messages I want to suggest an
> improvement for CAP 1.2
Hi, just a couple of comments on your suggestions. I think you bring up some interesting ideas with the "swarm alert" proposal. A person sees an event happening, and is able to quickly report this event out on an all alerts channel of some sort. As other people begin to report the same event, a person is able to better determine the relevancy of this event. Its an intriguing proposal, however I think it will need to overcome several hurdles to be effective.
First is the common channel. Is it a broadcast style channel that reaches everyone with every alert, or a structured channel where alerts go to a central authority and the central authority then redistributes these alerts? Are there filters on this channel to prevent hoaxes, or deliberate attempts to deny access to this channel? Second is the relevancy of the alerts. How are the senders ranked, what filters are provided to clean up the different interpretations of the same event?
Overall, I don't think this type of swarm alert system would fit within the scope of a CAP alert. CAP alerts imply a centralized method of distribution, which is how most emergency alerts are propagated. For the swarm system, a separate protocol would need to be developed, that perhaps encapsulates or provides translation to a CAP alert instead. For some inspiration on this new protocol design, take a look at wireless mesh networks, or co-operative swarm robotics.
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