[nth]

http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5630918.html

[k_semler]

For a second, I thought this was going to be a discussion about the Bloto Box.

[TrueKaiser]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('k_semler', 'F')or a second, I thought this was going to be a discussion about the Bloto Box.

[k_semler]

And slightly less illegal and deadly too

[gg3]

Thankfully this isn't referring to some kind of hack that terrorists could use.

I know how this one is done, and it's cool as a business tool but no big deal in terms of technology. What they did was buy one of those emergency notification systems (e.g. that chemical refineries use to notify nearby towns when their stacks burp some stinky-stuff into the air), and then offer subscriptions to the use of the device, for commercial clients who need rapid one-way communication with dispersed or large workforces.

Your company signs up for the service, and gives them a list of all of your employees' contact infos: email addresses, home phones, cellphones, beepers, text-message numbers, etc.

Now you have a message to send to everyone in the Sales department, who may be out in the field making sales calls. Or to everyone on the Board saying that a meeting has been postponed. Or to everyone in the entire company saying that today's earthquake has caused only minor damage to the building your office is in, but since some freeway overpasses were shut down for safety checks and traffic is a terrible mess, you're going to be closed for the day anyway, and they should all stay home for the day.

The system itself takes your typed message, sends it out as email and Blackberry messages (or was that Blueberry? Raspberry? Boysenberry maybe?:-), texts to cellphone text systems, and so on. It also puts the message through a text-to-speech reader similar to what every Macintosh computer has had for years, and then calls everyone on the telephone list, and plays them the messages.

The phone calls would be made via PRI or T1 circuits, and the starting times of the calls would be slightly offset in groups, to prevent causing excessive load on the local exchange carrier's switch. However, by overlapping the start times of the calls in a certain manner, the system could pack a high volume of calls into a smaller window of time without causing any trouble with the telco's CO downtown.

I suppose a terrorist group could find a use for this thing to call out its suicide bombers in an organized way. "Hello! This is Osama speaking! Today is your *lucky* day!....." Realistically though, I doubt it.