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In reality, all alarms should go off throughout the Federal Republic at exactly 11 a.m. However, most smartphones initially remained silent, despite previously installed warning apps. What went wrong?
The nationwide test alarm on Thursday morning reached the Nina and Katwarn warning apps with a long delay. Numerous users complained on social media that they learned about the alarm primarily from the news, long before the official push notification from local authorities reached their smartphones.
The Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief (BBK) had asked smartphone users before the test to install the Nina warning app. This is intended to warn citizens in their respective region of residence of imminent dangers. How to use the Nina app set up on your smartphone, you can find out here. The Katwarn app from the Fraunhofer Institute serves the same purpose. More about this here.
Push almost 30 minutes late
According to Katwarn Technical Director Daniel Faust, the systems ran smoothly Thursday morning. “The monitoring says everything is fine,” he said when asked by t-online. Due to the large number of reports that were made at the same time, delays could occur, but these should not exceed 30 seconds.
On the other hand, users of the BBK application registered delays of almost half an hour in some cases. There were considerable regional differences. In an emergency, users who trust the application would have learned of the impending danger too late.
The Federal Office wants to learn from mistakes
The Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief (BBK) in Bonn explained this breakdown by triggering a large number of warning messages at the same time. This led to an overload of the Modular Warning System (MoWaS).
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The MoWaS notification nationwide could only be delivered late. The reason for this was the unexpected simultaneous activation of a large number of warning messages through MoWaS. ^ nps– BBK (@BBK_Bund) September 10, 2020
Chairman Christoph Unger said in Mannheim: “Initial analyzes have shown that not only was the warning triggered centrally at 11am, but many other connected control centers also triggered warnings independently, so the system was overloaded. coordinate much more clearly for the next warning day. ” If necessary, appropriate technical precautions should be taken.
Meanwhile, the Federal Ministry of the Interior has described the nationwide test alarm as “failed”. “The processes are now being processed comprehensively,” the ministry announced in Berlin. The knowledge gained should be taken into account in the future development of the warning system.
Warning applications under critical
The fact that warning apps like Katwarn and Nina are often inferior to other outlets like news portals, social media, or radio and TV stations when it comes to speed is nothing new. One of the reasons for this is that the warnings are issued by local authorities. Unlike “floor radio,” reports must, certainly for good reason, take the official route, which may take longer.
A second weak point is the technical infrastructure and equipment of the public administration. On the way to the user, the message must be routed through multiple servers. If the load is high, there may be delays in data traffic. In addition, the user needs a stable internet connection for reception.
CCC spokesperson stunned
Chaos Computer Club spokesman Frank Rieger criticizes on Twitter that there is no general alert system on the cellular network in Germany. Instead of sending the alarm through a complicated application infrastructure, federal authorities could use what is known as cellular transmission technology. In many other countries, these warning SMS are “totally normal and effective,” Rieger said. You can find more information about the technology here..
In Germany, a decision was made against such a solution for data protection reasons and concerns about network overload. But now it’s been confirmed: In such cases, you may not be able to trust an app.
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