Hacker illegally activates Brunswick emergency sirens

[500AT]

Callback system calms fears; police search for suspect

BRUNSWICK, Ohio -- A hacker armed with radio codes set off emergency sirens in Brunswick early Wednesday. If the blasts didn't wake the city's 35,000 residents, follow-up phone calls to residences probably did the trick.

Police were unable to override the hacker's radio tones and had to turn off each of the six sirens by hand. The noise, which began at 12:44 a.m., went on for about 20 minutes.

It was the second night this year the sirens were illegally activated.

The battery-operated devices were turned on twice March 27, prompting more than 1,000 calls to police after 1 a.m. The barrage of calls knocked out the department's phone system.

In response to the March incidents, a notification system called CodeRED was installed in city offices. It was used Wednesday morning to call 13,000 Brunswick telephones to inform residents that the blaring sirens were not signaling an emergency.

No arrests have been made. Police said they interviewed several people of interest in March. Brunswick is offering a $5,000 reward for help in the arrest of those responsible.

City Manager Robert Zienkowski said once the sirens were turned off Wednesday, the warning system was unavailable in case of a real emergency.

Police Lt. Brian Ohlin said the city will push for felony charges once an arrest is made.

Zienkowski said police believe the person is a local resident. He said the city will try to involve federal Homeland Security in the investigation.

Detective Dean Weinhardt is handling the case. He can be reached at 330-225-9111.

http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/st ... xml&coll=2

[Federal Signal fan]

Whoa, cool.
For older ones, get a crowbar and a ladder. But seriously, don't do it. It's much more fun during a tornado, because there's danger a-foot.

[kswx29]

That's nice, they are probably thinking it's one of those "siren fans" setting off the sirens. I wonder how they know it was a person, and not other radio waves interfering. How could someone set off a whole system of sirens without the right equipment? Becasue I am sure this "person" wouldn't have all of the equipment on hand.

[thunderbolt1003]

That's pretty cool. It isn't rocket science though lol. All you need to know is the wave frequency and the encoder tone.

[Jim_Ferer]

That's nice, they are probably thinking it's one of those "siren fans" setting off the sirens. I wonder how they know it was a person, and not other radio waves interfering. How could someone set off a whole system of sirens without the right equipment? Becasue I am sure this "person" wouldn't have all of the equipment on hand.

It doesn't take much at all.

[Justin]

That's pretty cool. It isn't rocket science though lol. All you need to know is the wave frequency and the encoder tone.

Whoa, cool.
For older ones, get a crowbar and a ladder. But seriously, don't do it. It's much more fun during a tornado, because there's danger a-foot.

There is absolutely nothing cool about illegally setting off a public outdoor warning device. It's extremely dangerous for a number of reasons.

As demonstrated in the article, it can (and does) incite panic amongst the masses who don't know it's a false-positive, and as a result, jam up the phone systems like 911 which are relied on for real emergencies. Things like calls for motor vehicle accidents, cardiac arrests and so on and so forth can't get through because thousands of people are calling to see if it's a 'real' warning.

There is also the very real danger of people becoming complacent to the warnings sounded. This is usually attributed with over-use of a siren system or even from false-positive warnings. In short: being complacent, kills. The next time the system sounds, people might think it's another false-positive even though there is a major life-threatening emergency (like an EF-5 tornado) bearing down on them.

The idiot(s) who did this should be locked up for a very long time. An example needs to be set of them to indicate that this isn't a fun thing to do as it has very severe consequences: even though it may not seem like it. If I had my way, I'd look for a way to apply an inadvertent manslaughter charge (for my first reason listed above) as well as tampering with public property, inciting panic (leaning towards terrorism (essentially what inciting panic is)) and unlawfully activating an early warning system.

[Oldiesmann]

I can't believe someone has nothing better to do than to set off the sirens in the middle of the night...

[thunderbolt1003]

There is absolutely nothing cool about illegally setting off a public outdoor warning device. It's extremely dangerous for a number of reasons.

As demonstrated in the article, it can (and does) incite panic amongst the masses who don't know it's a false-positive, and as a result, jam up the phone systems like 911 which are relied on for real emergencies. Things like calls for motor vehicle accidents, cardiac arrests and so on and so forth can't get through because thousands of people are calling to see if it's a 'real' warning.

There is also the very real danger of people becoming complacent to the warnings sounded. This is usually attributed with over-use of a siren system or even from false-positive warnings. In short: being complacent, kills. The next time the system sounds, people might think it's another false-positive even though there is a major life-threatening emergency (like an EF-5 tornado) bearing down on them.

The idiot(s) who did this should be locked up for a very long time. An example needs to be set of them to indicate that this isn't a fun thing to do as it has very severe consequences: even though it may not seem like it. If I had my way, I'd look for a way to apply an inadvertent manslaughter charge (for my first reason listed above) as well as tampering with public property, inciting panic (leaning towards terrorism (essentially what inciting panic is)) and unlawfully activating an early warning system.

Oh, of course it's dangerous. I just mean it;s cool how a person had the power to override an EMA system. But yeah, I wouldn't even think about trying that.

[Justin]

There is absolutely nothing cool about illegally setting off a public outdoor warning device. It's extremely dangerous for a number of reasons.

As demonstrated in the article, it can (and does) incite panic amongst the masses who don't know it's a false-positive, and as a result, jam up the phone systems like 911 which are relied on for real emergencies. Things like calls for motor vehicle accidents, cardiac arrests and so on and so forth can't get through because thousands of people are calling to see if it's a 'real' warning.

There is also the very real danger of people becoming complacent to the warnings sounded. This is usually attributed with over-use of a siren system or even from false-positive warnings. In short: being complacent, kills. The next time the system sounds, people might think it's another false-positive even though there is a major life-threatening emergency (like an EF-5 tornado) bearing down on them.

The idiot(s) who did this should be locked up for a very long time. An example needs to be set of them to indicate that this isn't a fun thing to do as it has very severe consequences: even though it may not seem like it. If I had my way, I'd look for a way to apply an inadvertent manslaughter charge (for my first reason listed above) as well as tampering with public property, inciting panic (leaning towards terrorism (essentially what inciting panic is)) and unlawfully activating an early warning system.

Oh, of course it's dangerous. I just mean it;s cool how a person had the power to override an EMA system. But yeah, I wouldn't even think about trying that.

Not even that is. Just imagine what could potentially happen.

[ver tum]

I hate to say this, but I've got a feeling that it is likely a siren enthusiast who's doing this. The person who's doing it could also be in to Ham Radio, since some siren activation frequencies are accessible to Ham Radio users.

If the sirens are activated with a two tone system, the tones could be very easy to duplicate. We're only talking about six sirens here, so activating the whole system is probably not as hard as some would think.

I hope they catch the SOB who's doing this!