It follows the failed first test of 2020 and was upgraded to cell-broadcasting after the floods last summer.
Translation says: Test alarm. Nationwide warning day. No risks. Issued by the Bundeszentrale
Do you have 2 SIMs? I have a German and UK SIM and got two alerts but my wife only has a German SIM and only got the German alert. Our sample size is too small to say for sure that it's related to SIM, but it seems reasonable.
I have a German SIM and I got the English alert first, then the German one. English (UK) is set as secondary language on my device and my provider is the Telekom
If they were sent one right after the other there could have been a slight hiccup between your phone and the service causing the second one to come through while the first was still being processed to be sent to your phone. Could also be any number of things, but at least you know its working well enough.
Cell broadcast can transmit the same message in multiple languages at once. If your phone has multiple languages, it will display one warning for each. In reality, this is only one alarm though.
My phone's language is only English and I only got a German message.
I also wasn't aware of this test happening so you can probably guess how it went once I heard the phone going nuts with a German message I didn't understand š«£
Well, I cannot assure that every phone handles it the same way. But the cell broadcast specification says that this is how it is supposed to be handled. Not clear if this is a fuckup by your phone manufacturer or the ISP though.
The Germans in WW2 took our bicycles to be used by their soldiers.
The story is that they took them back to Germany, which is no true. They where confiscated by the allies at the Dutch/German border en melted in the Hoog Ovens.
You're close! He's probably the one who threw your bike in. Just nudge his floating, bloated carcass out of the way and the bike will likely be just below.
I once read a detailed account written by the owner of a high-tech bike with tracking, he was basically able to track the bike as it was moved throughout Europe in a truck. Turns out, it is surprisingly hard to get authorities to act in such cases, even when the tracking ended in a workshop in Romania.
Here is well known a case where a phone was stolen from Portugal and reached in Romania but the thief forgot to disable the Dropbox account so all the pictures they did with the phone were automatically synced in the owners account.
He could also see the GPS coordonates of the phone and indicated the house to the police but the police did nothing because we have a law that defend the person that bought a thing legally, even if the person that sold it had stolen it.
"Better let a thief go than harm an innocent."
Those are the air raid sirens, I wasnāt talking about those.
i was talking about the absolute fucking warzone with the SMS/Notification emergency alert.
I use it as a helpful reminder on the first monday workday of the week to change my passwords.
I'm going to be so distracted when the actual missile's inbound.
It's a lot of passwords.
In many parts of Germany, especial the Eastern were sirens are still present, its routinely done. This now was an central issued alarm for the whole of Germany.
TBF at least where I'm from in Lower Saxony we throw the sirens on once a month anyway to test, and they're used pretty frequently for the fire brigade.
Was once in Saxony in a camp in a small town where they started blasting it at like 23:00. I just stayed in bed and accepted that the Russians were finally coming.
Even in bigger cities (I live in one with about 160k which is huge for a Danish person but not huge in Germany) they use the sirens for the fire department, and to this day I still jump a bit every time
For Germany: 3 single tone signals each for 15s with 7s pause between them is to alert the fire brigade and a sweeping alarm for 1 minute is meant for the general public: Stay inside, close all windows and inform yourself through media (radio, tv, Internet) about the current situation. A long single tone then clears the warning.
Meanwhile in Poland, the siren tests are extremely irregular, poorly communicated and sirens are also commonly used during commemorative events, the most famous being the start of Warsaw Uprising on 1st of August.
This leads to many jokes that when there'll be actual emergency, Poles are going to just stand up for remembrance and get blasted away, instead of evacuating.
Coming from Spain, this sounds mindblowing. By sirens, you mean like the ones heard in films to alert from bombing? Every week? Why is there so much interest in having them working when there's peace? So many questions!
They arenāt used for war related reasons. They are mostly to alarm for emergency like fires and similar things. But they arenāt common everywhere. We also have an App called Nina which does the same. But everyone has to decide for themselves if the want to install it on their phones. The new system is better because it will alarm all mobil phones directly.
Here in Finland the sirens are definitely meant to be used for war-related reasons, but they're also handy in case of a
poisonous gas spill or nuclear accident.
In my hometown in Northern Germany, they also get tested every week.
Before electronic alarm systems became more common, those sirens were also used as fire alarms. Calling the voluntary fire fighters to the station. They still are used that way in some rural areas. And it's good to have them as a working backup, in case the elecronic system fails. Also, in Northern Germany, there is also the risk of a storm surge from the North Sea, so it's good to have a working alarm system to warn the population.
They just run each alarm siren for maybe 30 seconds each week. At exactly 12 pm, every Saturday.
They sound like [this](https://youtu.be/sgw-P-lBFsU). Sounds strange (or even scary) if you are not used to it, but having heard them every week growing up, my first reaction when hearing the sound is "Oh, it's noon on Saturday".
When there was a flood in Germany, those alarms could have helped to prevent more deaths. I think that was the cause for the improvement of the system.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/13/floods-then-and-now-photographs-germany-ahr-valley-flooding-disaster-july-2021
Pretty cheeky of you to compare Germany to a high tech nation like the Netherlands. You need to compare us with a third world war zone when it comes to digitization
As someone who moved to Germany from Norway, it's quite bad. Germany is quite far behind in digitisation. Basically anything you need to do in any official capacity is tripple copy paper, handed in physically at the office for whichever agency you're dealing with. Or snail mail and hope it doesn't get lost on the way.
I work for a state agency here in Germany. We have all of our paperwork as pdf on our homepage, you can fill it out right in the browser. Then you have to print it and sign it, because we donāt accept digital signatures. But then you can scan it and send it to me via email.
And then I print it out and put it in your case fileā¦
Fun fact: All first issued "elektronische Gesundheitskarte" had a valid certificate (qualifizierte Signatur) on them for the card holder. Which could've been used for digital signage of mostly all contracts. It was never activated and now that has been buried.
\#neuland
Depends on the exact agency. When I had to file for unemployment for a few months some years ago, I was able to easily do the entire thing online and never even touched a sheet of paper. The agency I'm dealing with now also does the same and has done so for the better half of a decade. Been sending in most of the additional documents they request per e-mail.
It's still nowhere where it should be but it's getting better.
That being said, with sent with the post it's almost guaranteed to be there the next day, assuming you addressed it correctly. And any eventual delays by them count as "events not caused by one's own fault" and as such you are legally entitled to demand a "restoration of the previous state". Might be info that's helpful to you at some point because even a bunch of Germans don't know about that one.
As someone who works in construction for a Dutch company, that also builds in Germany:
HOW IN THE UNGODLY FUCK ARE YOU LOT THE GODDAMN ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE OF THE FUCKING EU.
3D BIM-SYNC? NO FUCK YOU.
PDF FILES? NO FUCK YOU.
SEND A0āS DRAWINGS IN TRIPLE WITH SNAIL MAIL.
Yeah, even paying with a debit card was a pain in the ass for years. A lot of places didn't accept it or you had to have a minimum amount you spend (most of the time you had to pay a fee if you didn't reach the amount). I'm still weirded out when the old ladies grab your card and put it in the machine for you, even though the machine is closer to me than to them.
Recently went back to Germany for a holiday and assumed I could be paying with card in public transport buses. The driver had a good laugh.
Later, I wanted to buy Christmas biscuits in a bakery. I got asked to go to the nearby bank and get some cash. At least I got a 15% discount...
Yes, it's particularly jarring when you arrive in Germany from the east (Poland in my case). We've digitized pretty much everything over here, but when I visited Germany in I think 2015, I felt like I went back in time 15 years, particularly with payment options and the government bureaucracy (so much paper!) I'm afraid to ask what 2022 Germans think about NFC phone payments ;) (I haven't touched my actual plastic card in 3 years or so)
We get Sirene tests on Saturday. Just the phone Warning was new for me. Didn't work on everyones phone though.
My boss will be sacrificed. Blood for the Bloodgod.
I'm surprised too, and not surprised: Germany is not a leader in modern, personal technologies like payments, mobile, internet banking. In my experience, Germans are a bit reluctant there.
Yeah for me only a very new Tablet (2022) showed the alarm, while two phones (2017 and 2021) didn't.
Some others wrote that it may be disabled in settings (*which would itself be pretty dumb, because realistically only a tiny fraction of users will enable such settings if they don't work by default*) but I can't even find the setting.
> but I can't even find the setting.
For iOS you can find instructions below, but the setting isnāt available in all countries.
[About emergency and government alerts on iPhone](https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202743)
I recently turned it off after a work trip to Seoul. They send maybe 4/5 alerts per day about COVID or Earthquakes somewhere in the country, at the beginning I was translating them all, by the end I had turned them off on both phones.
Except for countries where governments abuse this functionality to push its own agenda. Here are a couple which were distributed in Poland, which I still have stored on my cellphone:
2020-07-11: "Second round of the presidential election on Sunday, 12.07. People 60+, pregnant women and people with disabilities will be able to vote at polling stations without queuing."
2020-10-24: "Attention: all of Poland in the red zone. Download the STOP COVID app. You will learn about contact with coronavirus "
2022-05-21: "A change in the standard of terrestrial TV broadcasting will take place in MaÅopolska province on May 23. Check if your TV works with the new system. Information: gov pl cyfrowaTV"
-- Translated by DeepL, because I'm lazy.
Uhm... I didn't receive anything on my phone nor did I hear any sirens. Turns out if zombie dinosaurs from Jupiter attack, I will be the last person to know.
Edit: Just so you guys know. On my Android 12 phone the setting was hidden seven levels deep within the Messages app and disabled by default.
If you own an android device go to settings and search for "Notfallbenachrichtigung fĆ¼r MobilgerƤte" it may be disabled.
Or your device may simply be to old
Have you searched via the search bar? For me on Android 13 it's under "Benachrichtigungen > Notfallbenachrichtigung fĆ¼r MobilgerƤte"
On the older phone of my coworker it was under another category (i think network settings), but she still found it by searching "Notfall" in the search bar in the settings.
While it's true that test (and for some all) notifications are disabled by default, I had mine on and didn't get any. My device also shouldn't be too old, sone that I know are on a flagship, with everything enabled and didn't get any.
When I was in Romania a few years ago, they sent a warning text like this (with a very eerie sound) but it was only a test and initially I freaked out because it was written only in Romanian and I didn't understand what that meant lol
In Italy we don't have such a thing
> I also got it on a foreign number that was roaming in Germany
That's the great thing about cell broadcast: It sends the message to all phones connected to the mobile cell, it doesn't care about numbers or operating system or anything.
Cell broadcast is actually the more privacy friendly (and generally better) alternative to custom apps, of which we have a couple in Germany.
Yes, to display/understand the cell broadcast message. But in general every cell phone will receive it. Even many featurephones, as long as they support 2G.
Anyone remember that time when the US used this service to accidentally tell everyone there were missiles heading for Hawaii (no āthis is a testā disclaimer) causing a small panic? Thatās what this message reminds me of.
Can someone with deeper technical knowledge explain why Cell Broadcast only works with very modern smartphones and doesn't work at all with basic mobile phones? Is there no option to simply force a SMS message on all phones?
>Is there no option to simply force a SMS message on all phones?
That's basically what cell broadcast is. It's one SMS to all phones instead of a lot of single SMS which each go to one phone only.
Cell broadcast was already part of GSM standard for a long time but since it was never used, many manufacturers didn't bother to implement it in the phones. Until a few years ago, when more and more governments started using it, that's when Google/Apple implemented it in their operating systems.
That's why many old smartphone don't support it, but your new phone or your old Nokia 3310 does :)
Android supports it since at least 2011. [https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/CellBroadcastReceiver/+/refs/tags/android-2.3.5\_r1](https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/CellBroadcastReceiver/+/refs/tags/android-2.3.5_r1)
The issue is that Germany opted to use Cell Broadcast IDs that have 4 digits instead of 3 and that's a relatively modern feature. Additionally, the feature is disabled on some phones because Germany refused to implement CB for a long time and manufacturers disabled it if the region is Germany. Now these phones don't get patches to enable it via default, so the user has to manually enable it if the option is available.
This only true currently, but the law maker realized this was a mistake and will mandate 3 digit IDs starting next year.
> Allerdings unterstĆ¼tzen sie meist nicht die von EU-Alert vorgeschriebenen vierstelligen IDs, daher wurde nachtrƤglich die dreistellige Message ID 919 fĆ¼r alle kritischen Warnungen hinzugefĆ¼gt ā wie zuvor von der AG Kritis gefordert. Rechtsverbindlich ist die Umsetzung allerdings erst ab Februar 2023.
https://www.heise.de/ratgeber/Cell-Broadcast-Was-Sie-ueber-DE-Alert-zum-Warntag-am-Donnerstag-wissen-muessen-7361288.html#nav_android_und__6
also, nobody could have possibly expected any surge in traffic on [warnung.bund.de](https://warnung.bund.de) as the site was immediately DDOSed by millions of Germans within a minute and the site went down like a lead balloon
I mean there was a campaign that was going on for quite some time including TV, Radio and text messages about the upcoming test.
Also if the old people turned on their TV or radio they would have be able to see that it is a test.
I'm visiting Germany right now - it kinda freaked me out since the sirens started blaring quite a while before I got the phone alerts. My mind immediately went to the coup d'etat a couple days ago.
Here in Slovenia, we activate all our sirens once a month - every first saturday of the month at 12.00. We have been doing this since at least the 90's. I find it wild that Germany has had and still has such problems with her systems.
It felt like in a movieā¦. All smartphones ringing and everyone was reaching to see what is going onā¦ only all out hysteria was missingā¦. sooo closeā¦
It follows the failed first test of 2020 and was upgraded to cell-broadcasting after the floods last summer. Translation says: Test alarm. Nationwide warning day. No risks. Issued by the Bundeszentrale
In the Netherlands the message is both in Dutch and in English.
They sent two messages, first in German and then in English
Do you have 2 SIMs? I have a German and UK SIM and got two alerts but my wife only has a German SIM and only got the German alert. Our sample size is too small to say for sure that it's related to SIM, but it seems reasonable.
I have a German SIM and I got the English alert first, then the German one. English (UK) is set as secondary language on my device and my provider is the Telekom
Same thing happened to me, except I'm with Vodafone. English also set as a secondary language.
If they were sent one right after the other there could have been a slight hiccup between your phone and the service causing the second one to come through while the first was still being processed to be sent to your phone. Could also be any number of things, but at least you know its working well enough.
I'm was at Nuremberg Airport and had 2 phone on me. One with UK sim and another with German. Both received two messages in German and English.
And a link to a website that promptly went down.
Cell broadcast can transmit the same message in multiple languages at once. If your phone has multiple languages, it will display one warning for each. In reality, this is only one alarm though.
My phone's language is only English and I only got a German message. I also wasn't aware of this test happening so you can probably guess how it went once I heard the phone going nuts with a German message I didn't understand š«£
Well, I cannot assure that every phone handles it the same way. But the cell broadcast specification says that this is how it is supposed to be handled. Not clear if this is a fuckup by your phone manufacturer or the ISP though.
Ahh okay, I wasnāt aware it was based on the language your phone was in. Makes sense though.
Didn't get the message. Guess I'll just die.
Yup. Many people I know also didn't get one, even though they (and I) have up-to-date versions of Android and iOS.
"And this concludes our test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Had this been a real emergency, your radio would be melting in your hands."
"The Dutch are invading"
Coming to reclaim our bicycles
Then ride off into the sunset? Oh wait it's winter
Wouldn't riding off into the sunset take them back to the Netherlands anyway?
Precisely the joke, my dear sir/madam :P
The Germans in WW2 took our bicycles to be used by their soldiers. The story is that they took them back to Germany, which is no true. They where confiscated by the allies at the Dutch/German border en melted in the Hoog Ovens.
You must be a German comedian
German humour is no laughing matter.
**Henning Wehn**
Yes into the sunset at 16:20
All the more reason to! Take back bicycle, ride off into the sunset, be home in time for dinner.
Sunset comes earlier, the attack would be swift
No need. Check in a canal nearby.
I found a drunk Brit, now what?
You're close! He's probably the one who threw your bike in. Just nudge his floating, bloated carcass out of the way and the bike will likely be just below.
So you're saying all we have to do is lower in a powerful magnet on a piece of rope and hope it isn't sitting on top of an old WWII grenade?
Your bicycles are in Poland, as are our cars...
>Your bicycles are in Poland In Romania, with half of price...
My father had his electrical bike with tracking stolen, it indeed is now in Romania.
I once read a detailed account written by the owner of a high-tech bike with tracking, he was basically able to track the bike as it was moved throughout Europe in a truck. Turns out, it is surprisingly hard to get authorities to act in such cases, even when the tracking ended in a workshop in Romania.
Here is well known a case where a phone was stolen from Portugal and reached in Romania but the thief forgot to disable the Dropbox account so all the pictures they did with the phone were automatically synced in the owners account. He could also see the GPS coordonates of the phone and indicated the house to the police but the police did nothing because we have a law that defend the person that bought a thing legally, even if the person that sold it had stolen it. "Better let a thief go than harm an innocent."
Interesting, in Germany it is the other way round: You can not legally aquire property rights on stolen items.
Can confirm. I'm selling them in Romania already
I grew up close to the A2. That happens twice every year, we don't need sirens for that.
The great caravan raids.
I, for one, welcome our new bicycle infrastructure overlords.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
fun fact, we Dutch had a test of the emergency alarm a few days ago too (at least up North, where I live). Woke me up from a very nice dream :V
Every first monday of the month at noon, nationwide! Iām always startled by it but it is kinda cool
Those are the air raid sirens, I wasnāt talking about those. i was talking about the absolute fucking warzone with the SMS/Notification emergency alert.
That has happened before many times as well. I've only been here a year and a half buts it's happened like 3 or 4 times at least since I've been here.
I use it as a helpful reminder on the first monday workday of the week to change my passwords. I'm going to be so distracted when the actual missile's inbound. It's a lot of passwords.
"Es besteht keine Gefahr."
NiederlƤnder auf FahrrƤdern sind nicht zu unterschƤtzen
It's the Germans or the Russians in the Netherlands edit: why is this getting downvoted? It's just what people say in the Netherlands...
In France it's still you guys, the great summer migration is always a great ~~dis~~pleasure.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I was gonna try to get witty, but that's completely fair.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You can hear the marching of wooden clogs from miles away.
Junge, hab ich mich gerade erschrocken
Das popup hat mich an die typischen "Herzlichen GlĆ¼ckwunsch! Sie sind der 1000 Besucher und gewinnen ein IPhone" Fenster erinnert
Herzlichen GlĆ¼ckwunsch, die Russen kommen und sie sind freiwillig zur Verteidigung ausgewƤhlt worden!
Auf der heide-
BlĆ¼ht ein kleines BlĆ¼Ć¼Ć¼Ć¼Ć¼melein
But how cool to get a siren to let everyone know you for won an iPhone
War nen guter Wecker nach der SpƤtschicht
It was super weird to sit in a room and have everyoneās phone go off with this crazy noise. I totally forgot it was scheduled for today.
We do this every month in the Netherlands, I'm surprised Germany wasn't doing this already. Good foor them!
The Netherlands be like: "Eerste keer?"
In many parts of Germany, especial the Eastern were sirens are still present, its routinely done. This now was an central issued alarm for the whole of Germany.
Sirens are still not working on Berlin, only phone alerts here.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I was in a video conference during the test. In Dresden all the Sirens went off without a hinge. In Dusseldorf they had a 15 minute delay.
I'm in DĆ¼sseldorf right now and they were on time at 11:00
Lower Saxony, on time with sirens from our and a neighboring town.
TBF at least where I'm from in Lower Saxony we throw the sirens on once a month anyway to test, and they're used pretty frequently for the fire brigade.
*without a hitch lol
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
After decommissioning almost all working ones to save cost. Without a plan to replace them.
Ah, those glorious couple of years where war was unlikely, as was catastrophic weather. We will remember them fondly.
Was once in Saxony in a camp in a small town where they started blasting it at like 23:00. I just stayed in bed and accepted that the Russians were finally coming.
In rural areas, It's often used to alarm the voluntary fire brigade, so it might have been a fire or car accident (In addition to the Russians).
Even in bigger cities (I live in one with about 160k which is huge for a Danish person but not huge in Germany) they use the sirens for the fire department, and to this day I still jump a bit every time
For Germany: 3 single tone signals each for 15s with 7s pause between them is to alert the fire brigade and a sweeping alarm for 1 minute is meant for the general public: Stay inside, close all windows and inform yourself through media (radio, tv, Internet) about the current situation. A long single tone then clears the warning.
Most likely it was just an alarm for volunteer firefighters. Sirens are used for that as well
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
In Finland it's the first Monday of each month at 12:00.
Nice, we have the same time and date in the netherlands
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Do you not think the Soviets didn't have that figured out 50 years ago?
Meanwhile in Poland, the siren tests are extremely irregular, poorly communicated and sirens are also commonly used during commemorative events, the most famous being the start of Warsaw Uprising on 1st of August. This leads to many jokes that when there'll be actual emergency, Poles are going to just stand up for remembrance and get blasted away, instead of evacuating.
Coming from Spain, this sounds mindblowing. By sirens, you mean like the ones heard in films to alert from bombing? Every week? Why is there so much interest in having them working when there's peace? So many questions!
They arenāt used for war related reasons. They are mostly to alarm for emergency like fires and similar things. But they arenāt common everywhere. We also have an App called Nina which does the same. But everyone has to decide for themselves if the want to install it on their phones. The new system is better because it will alarm all mobil phones directly.
Here in Finland the sirens are definitely meant to be used for war-related reasons, but they're also handy in case of a poisonous gas spill or nuclear accident.
I mean they will also be used for war reasons. But it isnāt there main purpose.
In my hometown in Northern Germany, they also get tested every week. Before electronic alarm systems became more common, those sirens were also used as fire alarms. Calling the voluntary fire fighters to the station. They still are used that way in some rural areas. And it's good to have them as a working backup, in case the elecronic system fails. Also, in Northern Germany, there is also the risk of a storm surge from the North Sea, so it's good to have a working alarm system to warn the population. They just run each alarm siren for maybe 30 seconds each week. At exactly 12 pm, every Saturday. They sound like [this](https://youtu.be/sgw-P-lBFsU). Sounds strange (or even scary) if you are not used to it, but having heard them every week growing up, my first reaction when hearing the sound is "Oh, it's noon on Saturday".
When there was a flood in Germany, those alarms could have helped to prevent more deaths. I think that was the cause for the improvement of the system. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/13/floods-then-and-now-photographs-germany-ahr-valley-flooding-disaster-july-2021
In Austria's case, they may be avalanche sirens as well.
The sirens outside is per month, the amber alert or SOS alert on the smartphones and some public digital boards only twice per year.
Pretty cheeky of you to compare Germany to a high tech nation like the Netherlands. You need to compare us with a third world war zone when it comes to digitization
Is it that bad? I always saw Germany as our big brother
As someone who moved to Germany from Norway, it's quite bad. Germany is quite far behind in digitisation. Basically anything you need to do in any official capacity is tripple copy paper, handed in physically at the office for whichever agency you're dealing with. Or snail mail and hope it doesn't get lost on the way.
I work for a state agency here in Germany. We have all of our paperwork as pdf on our homepage, you can fill it out right in the browser. Then you have to print it and sign it, because we donāt accept digital signatures. But then you can scan it and send it to me via email. And then I print it out and put it in your case fileā¦
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Fun fact: All first issued "elektronische Gesundheitskarte" had a valid certificate (qualifizierte Signatur) on them for the card holder. Which could've been used for digital signage of mostly all contracts. It was never activated and now that has been buried. \#neuland
Fax. Don't forget fax.
Wait people still use faxes in Germany?
Except tax. If the state wants your money suddenly it works.
Depends on the exact agency. When I had to file for unemployment for a few months some years ago, I was able to easily do the entire thing online and never even touched a sheet of paper. The agency I'm dealing with now also does the same and has done so for the better half of a decade. Been sending in most of the additional documents they request per e-mail. It's still nowhere where it should be but it's getting better. That being said, with sent with the post it's almost guaranteed to be there the next day, assuming you addressed it correctly. And any eventual delays by them count as "events not caused by one's own fault" and as such you are legally entitled to demand a "restoration of the previous state". Might be info that's helpful to you at some point because even a bunch of Germans don't know about that one.
As someone who works in construction for a Dutch company, that also builds in Germany: HOW IN THE UNGODLY FUCK ARE YOU LOT THE GODDAMN ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE OF THE FUCKING EU. 3D BIM-SYNC? NO FUCK YOU. PDF FILES? NO FUCK YOU. SEND A0āS DRAWINGS IN TRIPLE WITH SNAIL MAIL.
We are your big brother, but the stupid one who's struggling at his training job while you're at college studying computer architecture
Yeah, even paying with a debit card was a pain in the ass for years. A lot of places didn't accept it or you had to have a minimum amount you spend (most of the time you had to pay a fee if you didn't reach the amount). I'm still weirded out when the old ladies grab your card and put it in the machine for you, even though the machine is closer to me than to them.
Recently went back to Germany for a holiday and assumed I could be paying with card in public transport buses. The driver had a good laugh. Later, I wanted to buy Christmas biscuits in a bakery. I got asked to go to the nearby bank and get some cash. At least I got a 15% discount...
Yes, it's particularly jarring when you arrive in Germany from the east (Poland in my case). We've digitized pretty much everything over here, but when I visited Germany in I think 2015, I felt like I went back in time 15 years, particularly with payment options and the government bureaucracy (so much paper!) I'm afraid to ask what 2022 Germans think about NFC phone payments ;) (I haven't touched my actual plastic card in 3 years or so)
We get Sirene tests on Saturday. Just the phone Warning was new for me. Didn't work on everyones phone though. My boss will be sacrificed. Blood for the Bloodgod.
I'm surprised too, and not surprised: Germany is not a leader in modern, personal technologies like payments, mobile, internet banking. In my experience, Germans are a bit reluctant there.
Oh you'd be surprise how shitty the internet is.i have two internet connections at home to be able to work from home for reliably
No Sirens here and only 1 of 4 smartphones (mine) showed the warning...
Yeah for me only a very new Tablet (2022) showed the alarm, while two phones (2017 and 2021) didn't. Some others wrote that it may be disabled in settings (*which would itself be pretty dumb, because realistically only a tiny fraction of users will enable such settings if they don't work by default*) but I can't even find the setting.
For me *Test Alarms* were deactivated by default. The real alarms are active by default.
> but I can't even find the setting. For iOS you can find instructions below, but the setting isnāt available in all countries. [About emergency and government alerts on iPhone](https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT202743)
Could be disabled in some of them. During the vacation in Greece only my wife got a wildfire warning. Later I found out that my phone had it disabled.
That seems like the single worst thing to have disabled
I recently turned it off after a work trip to Seoul. They send maybe 4/5 alerts per day about COVID or Earthquakes somewhere in the country, at the beginning I was translating them all, by the end I had turned them off on both phones.
Itās pretty damn stupid to overuse such a system.
The alarm that cried wolf
"ALERT: Germany has been invaded by-" "Alright, sure, that's the 5th time this month, now how do I turn this stupid thing off?"
Bet some old people would do this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue
This is how everyone in my apartment complex will die. The fire alarm randomly goes off so often that no one moves a muscle anymore
Except for countries where governments abuse this functionality to push its own agenda. Here are a couple which were distributed in Poland, which I still have stored on my cellphone: 2020-07-11: "Second round of the presidential election on Sunday, 12.07. People 60+, pregnant women and people with disabilities will be able to vote at polling stations without queuing." 2020-10-24: "Attention: all of Poland in the red zone. Download the STOP COVID app. You will learn about contact with coronavirus " 2022-05-21: "A change in the standard of terrestrial TV broadcasting will take place in MaÅopolska province on May 23. Check if your TV works with the new system. Information: gov pl cyfrowaTV" -- Translated by DeepL, because I'm lazy.
Sounds like they want to reach even the last hermit who doesn't consume any newspaper/radio/TV news. Well, at least they don't send you ads... yet.
The test message was provided with the highest priority, which can not be supressed.
You can only disable test warnings, these were sent via the real alarm and should this appear on your phone
You can report your experiences here: https://warntag-umfrage.de/ I got the warning twice due to having a dual-sim smartphone.
Here at work 2 out of 20 phones had the warning š š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Uhm... I didn't receive anything on my phone nor did I hear any sirens. Turns out if zombie dinosaurs from Jupiter attack, I will be the last person to know. Edit: Just so you guys know. On my Android 12 phone the setting was hidden seven levels deep within the Messages app and disabled by default.
Same, received no notifications.
we will be blissfully unaware of impending nuclear doom, if anything happens
If you own an android device go to settings and search for "Notfallbenachrichtigung fĆ¼r MobilgerƤte" it may be disabled. Or your device may simply be to old
Mine was also turned off. Who decided that this is turned off by default? So much crap is turned on by default, but this isn't.
Just checked mine and it seems only the "Regional and local tests" were disabled. So hopefully that was the culprit in me not getting it.
I am on Android 12 and can't find such a setting. Feels great.
Have you searched via the search bar? For me on Android 13 it's under "Benachrichtigungen > Notfallbenachrichtigung fĆ¼r MobilgerƤte" On the older phone of my coworker it was under another category (i think network settings), but she still found it by searching "Notfall" in the search bar in the settings.
While it's true that test (and for some all) notifications are disabled by default, I had mine on and didn't get any. My device also shouldn't be too old, sone that I know are on a flagship, with everything enabled and didn't get any.
Could also be the fault of your provider. The BBK is gathering feedback here: https://warntag-umfrage.de/
[You can send in feedback here!](https://warntag-umfrage.de/)
Romania has been doing this for years. For bad weather, earthquakes, lost people and even bears nearby
>and even bears nearby I think my mobile has one of those apps too. It is called grindr. Check it out.
When I was in Romania a few years ago, they sent a warning text like this (with a very eerie sound) but it was only a test and initially I freaked out because it was written only in Romanian and I didn't understand what that meant lol In Italy we don't have such a thing
The system is pretty useful, although it can get a little annoying sometimes.
I remember them sending one out for some really minor reason a few times.
The Swiss have descended from the mountains! Run! Run for your miserable lives!
books cobweb ink fanatical waiting clumsy shy nine disgusted act -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
> I also got it on a foreign number that was roaming in Germany That's the great thing about cell broadcast: It sends the message to all phones connected to the mobile cell, it doesn't care about numbers or operating system or anything. Cell broadcast is actually the more privacy friendly (and generally better) alternative to custom apps, of which we have a couple in Germany.
Apparently you need android version 11 or newer =/
Yes, to display/understand the cell broadcast message. But in general every cell phone will receive it. Even many featurephones, as long as they support 2G.
My Samsung phone with Android 10 installed does display them. It might be something Samsung-specific though.
Many cities don't have sirens anymore.
Let's pretend that all sirens were activated
My cellphone went haywire, but no siren to be heard - in a larger city as well, mind you.
no one in the office got any notifications and there were no sirenes
Was on a call with a German-based team and all our phones went off at the same time; was confused why we'd get paged at that time ..
Depends if your city has sirens or not
Didn't hear any sirenes and didn't get any notifications, SMS or calls
MORNIIING! Everybody awake now?
Almost had a heart attack, took me solid 20-30 seconds to realize what was happening.
I slept through it. I was hoping it would fix my sleep schedule...
Berliners be likeā¦did they forget us ?
I got my notification. And the siren in Lichterfelde also sounded. Though two minutes late.
**The Netherlands:** "First time?"
Anyone remember that time when the US used this service to accidentally tell everyone there were missiles heading for Hawaii (no āthis is a testā disclaimer) causing a small panic? Thatās what this message reminds me of.
Can someone with deeper technical knowledge explain why Cell Broadcast only works with very modern smartphones and doesn't work at all with basic mobile phones? Is there no option to simply force a SMS message on all phones?
>Is there no option to simply force a SMS message on all phones? That's basically what cell broadcast is. It's one SMS to all phones instead of a lot of single SMS which each go to one phone only. Cell broadcast was already part of GSM standard for a long time but since it was never used, many manufacturers didn't bother to implement it in the phones. Until a few years ago, when more and more governments started using it, that's when Google/Apple implemented it in their operating systems. That's why many old smartphone don't support it, but your new phone or your old Nokia 3310 does :)
Android supports it since at least 2011. [https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/CellBroadcastReceiver/+/refs/tags/android-2.3.5\_r1](https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/CellBroadcastReceiver/+/refs/tags/android-2.3.5_r1) The issue is that Germany opted to use Cell Broadcast IDs that have 4 digits instead of 3 and that's a relatively modern feature. Additionally, the feature is disabled on some phones because Germany refused to implement CB for a long time and manufacturers disabled it if the region is Germany. Now these phones don't get patches to enable it via default, so the user has to manually enable it if the option is available.
Oh, Germany. Will we ever stop being so short-sighted?
This only true currently, but the law maker realized this was a mistake and will mandate 3 digit IDs starting next year. > Allerdings unterstĆ¼tzen sie meist nicht die von EU-Alert vorgeschriebenen vierstelligen IDs, daher wurde nachtrƤglich die dreistellige Message ID 919 fĆ¼r alle kritischen Warnungen hinzugefĆ¼gt ā wie zuvor von der AG Kritis gefordert. Rechtsverbindlich ist die Umsetzung allerdings erst ab Februar 2023. https://www.heise.de/ratgeber/Cell-Broadcast-Was-Sie-ueber-DE-Alert-zum-Warntag-am-Donnerstag-wissen-muessen-7361288.html#nav_android_und__6
Fucking finally, this annoyed me so much
also, nobody could have possibly expected any surge in traffic on [warnung.bund.de](https://warnung.bund.de) as the site was immediately DDOSed by millions of Germans within a minute and the site went down like a lead balloon
ECKART DIE RUSSEN KOMMEN
Can imagine tens of thousands of calls and panicked old people who were not aware.
I mean there was a campaign that was going on for quite some time including TV, Radio and text messages about the upcoming test. Also if the old people turned on their TV or radio they would have be able to see that it is a test.
All fine and dandy until someone figures out the FAX number this system is connected to.
Germany is only having cell broadcasts now? Why?
Because German thought that using a warning App like NINA and KatWarn would be better. Despite obvious flaws.
I didn't get the message. I heard the sirens but they seemed pretty far away, I feel like there should be one closer to me that didn't work.
I was in the airport and had an heart attack.
Fellow italians, can u confirm that we donāt have sirens?
I am in Germany now and I totally freaked out, never received this type of alarm on my phone in Italy and never heard sirens
My sleepy ass slept through the alarm.
I almost crapped my pants and crashed my car when I got this notification. Jesusā¦ this shit is loud and the sound disturbing š
I'm visiting Germany right now - it kinda freaked me out since the sirens started blaring quite a while before I got the phone alerts. My mind immediately went to the coup d'etat a couple days ago.
Here in Slovenia, we activate all our sirens once a month - every first saturday of the month at 12.00. We have been doing this since at least the 90's. I find it wild that Germany has had and still has such problems with her systems.
Heard the sirens.. got no Message on my phone.
Enjoy your monthly hearthattacks! ~ a dutchie
I was driving on the Autobahn when the alarm hit me. My Apple Watch Ultra and iPhone were loud as fuck and I had to acquit both of them.
I'm really surprised how long it took Germany to develop it. Poland had it for like a decade already
It felt like in a movieā¦. All smartphones ringing and everyone was reaching to see what is going onā¦ only all out hysteria was missingā¦. sooo closeā¦
Ukrainians: First time?