The UK Cyber Emergency Alert Test

The UK Cyber Emergency Alert Test The UK Cyber community is looking forward to the St George’s Day nationwide Emergency Alerts service test on 23 April 2023. The Cabinet Office is leading the reassurance of how this government public warning system will be sent to mobile phone users to warn of the potential dangers of severe flooding, fires and extreme weather; and it will inevitably expand towards other types of events such as political violence, terrorism, nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological (NBCR) (WMD) etc given examples such as Salisbury, 2018, and London transport bombings, 2005. There has been commentary on the time it has taken to launch this system. However, the experiences with the Track-and-Trace App demonstrates some of the realities of modern cyber capabilities and older institutions to replicate alert systems like those successfully used in the Netherlands, Japan, Canada and US etc The UK system works on the 4G and 5G phone networks using relevant neighbouring cell towers to broadcast a notification to reach about 90% of mobile phones. Mobile users will receive an emergency alert coupled with vibration and a loud siren-like series of beeps. Users would need to acknowledge the alert before they can use other features, and this 'acknowledgment action' raises concerns for those anticipating some added exploitables being activated for government purposes. The alerts are expected to occur even in silent mode but apparently not if the device is turned off or in flight mode. Therefore, make sure that any secondary phones, that are perhaps used for ‘more discrete activities’, are turned off etc so as not to be rudely revealed, the point has been raised for those unfortunately living in abusive relationships etc…

The main Twitter-verse response has been to advocate turning off emergency notifications in phone settings, as part of the popular response against anything approaching looking like totalitarianism, Orwellian Big Brother and other dystopian wedges into our freedoms. The Alerts system does provide opportunity for a radar-like electromagnetic sweep across the entire UK mobile network to see who does, and does not, flash up. This would potentially reveal some form of auditable ‘population-compliance-test’ for further technical analysis and study. The context is that general intelligence and security studies theory shows that as soon as anything can be mapped and audited, then control and coercion is not far behind. This is exemplified by the ‘WeChat’ all-monitoring, and social-credit controlling, mega-app. Furthermore, atop the extensive reporting on Pegasus Spyware and general governments surveillance etc is the report on a public-sector contractor using surveillance and location data retrieval from UK citizen’s mobile devices disguised within public bulk SMS messaging services. So, without going into the technical details, the whole concept of suspicion, weariness and expectation of an agenda-behind-the-agenda has credibility. Online sceptics are comparing this Alerts system to the previous Cold War days of constant background expectation of getting the ‘4-minute’ Warning' cacophony of tv and radio broadcasts competing with wailing sirens before the instant sunshine. Arguably, this 2023 Alerts system is the updated version to deal with our modern diverse threats, but others argue that it’s the traditional political science method of using fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) in order govern. However, this FUD method doesn’t always go right. The Hawaii false alert of 2018 shows what can happen ‘when someone pushes the wrong button’…. There is speculation whether there was some political manipulation, but for the typical civilian receiving a mobile device alert clearly describing a ‘ballistic missile threat inbound….seek immediate shelter…this is not a drill’, then it is not unexpected that it resulted in mass panic, hysteria and considerable societal stress for the 38 minutes it took to publicly correct the error. (There are other such false alerts cases such as the Ontario nuclear power incident in 2020, also caused by ‘someone pushing the wrong button’). This raises the Hollywood-style dystopian movie scenarios regarding sudden anarchy, chaos, and greater harms being caused than the perceived danger itself. It also raises legal questions over liability, responsibility, and the Mens Rea, of anyone who genuinely acts under what later turns out to be a false or mistaken apprehension of immediate harm to themselves and/or others, e.g. speeding to reach loved ones, causing criminal damage to escape etc….. Then there are the legal liability considerations regarding the very action of the UK Alerts call distracting a user who suffers harm as a direct result of receiving that notification from the UK Government; the ‘Father Ted-phoning-Larry Duff’ scenario. To develop this further, the UK Alerts should reach about 90% of mobile users, not 'all' citizens. This will create an exploitable inequality. Those with perceived greater access to mobile devices and mobile reception will have greater power for good or bad. Further, these types of alerts, by their very nature, are likely to occur amongst populations who are suddenly isolated in terms of physical space, time and reliable information.

Almost certainly, people will be replicating these UK Alerts on their mobiles, and given the right circumstances, opportunities, capabilities and intentions, then those actors could stand a chance in manipulating a literally captive audience (e.g. London Tube, entertainment venue, enclosed public space etc) for organised crime, political violence or anything else by showing their phone screens and accordingly acting out an engineered scenario of their own crafting, e.g. 10 Cloverfield Lane. We are certainly going to be seeing some bizarre and original court cases coming up! However, on a lighter note, we are bound to see the introduction of new Apps that will convert these UK Alerts to more preferred and fitting tunes/soundtracks, e.g. ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’, or Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’ as per Dr Strangelove; or something else that properly reflects us Brits’ unique style to such events. So , on that note, no doubt the post-April 23rd world will still be about ‘Keeping Calm and Carrying On!’ Written by Daniel Martin