Heute zum ersten Mal eine echte Cell-Broadcast-Warnung bekommen. Ist gar nicht sooo praktisch, wenn man gerade alleine auf der Autobahn fährt.
Administered by:
#cellbroadcast
0 posts0 participants0 posts today
Catching a real world and *unexpected* #Cellbroadcast message revealed some minor bugs in #phosh and its mobile settings but those were easy to spotted and fixes will land for 0.49. Overall #ModemManager, #cbd, and #phosh picked the message up as expected (and the channel setting worked as well):
Replied in thread
@LaF0rge @stman @kDelta @Sempf obviously that's why it was discontinued for a time in #Germany, as it was considered as obsolete as #HSCSD is in light of faster standards that - even without guaranteed bandwith - will yield higher throughput.
- Obviously #CellBroadcast will necessitate a constant bandwith allocation for functionality as it's design is based upon repeating a message until it's transmissiom being removed.
Still, even in contended #spectrum this is manageable, espechally since most #MNOs only maintain vestigal #2G or #3G infrastructure solely for #emergency coverage and reliability, as most phones will call emergency services over 2G and 3G and not via #VoLTE.
- To add insult to injury, most BSCs will downgrade to 2G-only service by default in case of power loss to maximize UPS range and in the case of #NewZealand even switch off all services but #SMS & #EmergencyServicesCalling to enshure people in need can get their calls out, as the population is instructed to use SMS for person-to-person communication (as SMS is a low-priority, non-realtime service using excess bandwith and thus not compete with calling like #EDGE and #CSD would.
Infosec.SpaceKevin Karhan :verified: (@kkarhan@infosec.space)@stman@mastodon.social well, there were *some commercial services* that used #CellBroadcast but for the most part it's *best feature* is the effective mass alerting of people in an area without needing them to *install yet another app* or *signup to yet another service*...
- The [temporary] shutdown of #CellBroadcast caused hundreds of avoidable deaths [in Germany alone.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_European_floods#Germany)
@kDelta@mastodon.ie @Sempf@infosec.exchange @LaF0rge@chaos.social @nitrokey@nitrokey.com @signalapp@mastodon.world @GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
Replied in thread
Mastodon★ STMAN ★ 🏳️🌈 (@stman@mastodon.social)@kkarhan@infosec.space
Cell Broadcast.... was one of the best functionality of GSM. It has actually NEVER been used just because of MONEY. There was no way to earn money with CELL BROADCAST easily, so it was abandonned. USer safety ? They don't give a fuck. Only Money.
We live in societies so close from SQUID Game.
It is SQUID GAME actually.
@kDelta@mastodon.ie @Sempf@infosec.exchange @LaF0rge@chaos.social @nitrokey@nitrokey.com @signalapp@mastodon.world @GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social
Replied in thread
@stman well, there were some commercial services that used #CellBroadcast but for the most part it's best feature is the effective mass alerting of people in an area without needing them to install yet another app or signup to yet another service...
- The [temporary] shutdown of #CellBroadcast caused hundreds of avoidable deaths in Germany alone.
en.wikipedia.org2021 European floods - Wikipedia
@kDelta @stman @Sempf @LaF0rge @nitrokey @signalapp @GrapheneOS
Given the hamfisted "Australian Approach" I disagree.
- Noone here claims #2G or #3G are safe but don't you think stuff like "Emergency Coverage" and #CellBroadcast are useful?
Will be interesting to see if Australia can pull that off without having to reenable 2G, cuz I've not heard of a #4G implementation of it...
Was ich persönlich top finde das man hier #cellbroadcast sehr effektiv nutzen kann, es ist mehr als nur für Unwetter gut. Ich bin mal gespannt wann man es auch in Deutschland effektiv nutzt.
Replied in thread
@Lili ja, #CellBroadcast geht an alle Endgeräte.
- Per Spezifikation gehen auch Notrufe ohne SIM, nur wurde dies wegen Missbrauch in Deutschland explizit abgeschaltet!
Continued thread
#Phosh's #MobileSetting app has a new panel to configure #CellBroadcast categories. This requires a recent #ModemManager and mobile-broadband-provider-info database:
3/x
Continued thread
And now we have Cellbroadcastd 0.0.2 as well, which fixes a build failure on arm64 and gets the symbol file in order (thanks @agx !)
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/devrtz/cellbroadcastd/-/releases/v0.0.2
GitLabcellbroadcastd 0.0.2 · Evangelos Ribeiro Tzaras / cellbroadcastd · GitLabReleased June 2025 Fix symbols file Fix test failing on arm64 Issues fixed:
Cellbroadcastd 0.0.1 was released yesterday
#cbd provides the following:
- persistent storage of received #CellBroadcast messages
- notifications for user interfaces/DEs to handle
- set channels to subscribe to (based on country)
- CLI tool for inspection/debugging purposes
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/devrtz/cellbroadcastd/-/releases/v0.0.1
Many thanks to @NGIZero for funding, @agx for involving me and tons of review and @snwh for UI design!
Continued thread
@devrtz @NGIZero @snwh …and as a service to user interfaces/DEs that don't want to add explicit #CellBroadcast support #cbd can now send notifications. Just enabling the setting is enough.
This is configurable on a severity level so you could use a system modal dialog for high severity events and notifications for low severity ones. This is (likely) how we'll wire it up in #phosh once everything has settled in.
Another #Cellbroadcast bit coming to #phosh / #LinuxMobile. The results of the users choice are set in the modem via a small daemon based on information we're getting from mobile-broadband-provider-info. That way only the tiny UI bit is DE specific, the other bits can be reused on other platforms as is. @devrtz is working on adding persistent storage to keep a message history.
Thanks to @NGIZero for supporting this and @snwh for the UI design.
Replied in thread
My #FreeSoftware Activities for April 2025: https://honk.sigxcpu.org/con/Free_Software_Activities_April_2025.html
Mostly #phosh/#LinuxMobile (e.g. alarm-clock, #feedbackd, #Cellbroadcast) related but also some #Debian bits.
to everyone supporting this!
honk.sigxcpu.orgFree Software Activities April 2025
Anders als in irgendwelchen Ländern Mitteleuropas *hust* 
*hust* wird das hier ab ner gewissen Stärke automatisch ins Wireless Emergency Alert System (CellBroadcast) eingespeist. Und ja, liebe Einrichtungen in, so kurz kann ein Wireless Emergency Alert sein. Dazu braucht's keine nichtssagende Wall-of-Text.
As part of or work on #Cellbroadcast we've documented our current test setup: https://codeberg.org/Phosh/gsm-cell-testing using #osmocom for the mobile network parts and #ansible for deploying #ModemManager on the devices, performing the tests and checking the results.
Thanks to @NGIZero for supporting our work on this.
Codeberg.orggsm-cell-testingGSM cell setup for testing mobile broadband
Das mag an den verschiedenen Alarmierungen & techn. Einstellungen liegen: Es gibt den Cell Broadcast als (priorisierte) 1:n Verbindung zu allen Mobiltelefonen, die in einen Funkmast eingewählt sind: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast
Mir ist nicht klar, ob diverse WarnApps wie NINA, KATWARN und Co eine normale Warnung über das mobile Internet senden oder auch den oben genannten Service nutzen und visualisieren / akustisch ausgeben?
Der in D eingesetzte (leider vom int. Standard abweichende) Cell Broadcast wird daher nicht von allen Smartphones & mobilen Betriebssystemen unterstützt:
Zitat - siehe Quelle oben:
"... Bundesrepublik nicht den ... international bewährten Cell-Broadcast-Standard nutzt, der mit quasi allen Handys und Smartphones kompatibel ist, sondern ein eigenständiges System ... entwickeln ließ, werden viele Nutzer älterer Smartphones sowie alle Nutzer klassischer Handys nicht gewarnt. Es wird ... ein Gerät mit mindestens Android Version 11 bzw. iOS 16 vorausgesetzt."
de.m.wikipedia.orgCell Broadcast – Wikipedia
Dass es bei bei Cellbroadcast-Warnungen extra die Kategorie "Testalarme" gibt, damit die Menschen einen Testalarm auch als solchen erkennen können? Das Fax scheint noch nicht beim deutschen Katastrophenschutz angekommen zu sein 
In #Hessen setzen wir beim Testen auf die beiden Gefahrenstufen "hoch" und "Extreme Gefahr" mit einem Text, der keinerlei Hinweis bzgl. eines Testalarms enthält. Sehr vertrauenswürdig!
Replied in thread
@MishaVanMollusq @Unixbigot reminds me of the #Ahr valley flooding which killed a lot of folks because none of the media and civil protection talked about it and #CellBroadcast was shutdown years ago...
My advice: Keep to it and ideally be ready to GTFO up hill / to the side on a minute's notice!
en.m.wikipedia.org2021 European floods - Wikipedia
Successfully tested receiving #cellbroadcast messages on the #PinePhone as well:
# _build/test/mmcbmmonitor
[/org/freedesktop/ModemManager1/CBM/0] new cbm: received
4371: Hallo, this is a CBS test message
So hopefully all devices supporting `+CSCB` on an AT port should now be able to show these messages in @phosh (if the MR makes it into the next #ModemManager release).
The #osmocom stack is such a great help for testing these things.
Thanks to @NGIZero for supporting this.