[psrg-qst] Seattle Fire Dispatch Log Changes

[Rob Ekl]

Here's the response I received from Leonard Roberts when I emailed 
concerns over the change:

"The following message has been posted to our web site:

"PLEASE NOTE:  To address security concerns raised by the public safety community, Seattle Fire Department now displays current incident data as an image within your browser rather than as plain text.  The information displayed in the image is updated every minute and then automatically refreshed to the screen.  Historical incident information will continue to be displayed as text, just as it has been in the past.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this action has caused.  Our intent is to enhance the safety of personnel and the public but still provide information about current emergencies in our community.I've posted the above on the real-time page."

I know this does not address your specific concerns but it is the reason for the change."


When I questioned the safety concerns, he responded:

"I can't go into details but putting the information in text (data) format allows people to pipe the data into other computer programs to instantly analyze patterns.  An image makes that very difficult (although not impossible).  We don't want to make it easy for the "bad guys"."


I think this might be a case of "we try to make it harder for the bad guys, who will still be able to do what they want, but in reality we just hurt everybody else's fair use."

Rob



Bruce Miller wrote:
> Starting today, SFD implemented a change, which
> reduces access to the log.
>
> By incorporating the incident listings into a
> full-page graphic image, rather than simply list as
> text (as before), certain consequences follow:
>
> ...
>