On 3 October I wrote about how to block the FEMA Emergency test alert. I was wrong about how to block it, and it came through anyway, two minutes early it would seem. To be blunt I find this horrifying that no matter what I would do (with the notable exception of putting the iPhone in airplane mode) on my iPhone would stop this.

This gives the government the ability to do anything they would want to do with my phone, including injecting an unknown, except to the government, zero-day exploit that could take over my iPhone. Yes, that’s paranoia. I don’t care. I wonder if putting the iPhone in lockdown mode would stop it, but I’m sure it wouldn’t.

At this point I’m mulling what I can possibly do. This is the kind of event that makes you wonder if you should just “drop off the grid.”

Link

how to turn off the fema nationwide emergency test alerts on 4 october

Update 5 October

This doesn’t work.

Original Post

If you have an iPhone with at least iOS 16 installed, there are toggles in Settings > Notifications, at the very bottom of the panel, to turn off alerts. I learned of this several years ago when Florida decided to test its AMBER alert system without actually warning anybody.

That unannounced AMBER alert really pissed off a lot of folks, yours truly included. Rather than search for it I went searching and scanning on my iPhone’s Settings app, and finally found it after about ten or so minutes of digging. Once I found all the toggles involved I turned every single one of them off.

I’m fully aware of world events. I don’t need FEMA or any other organization to send me a blaring alert telling me that disaster is coming. My wife are plugged in enough to figure that out, and to make the decisions about what to do. If FEMA is sending out an alert it will either be too late to do anything except say your goodbyes, or if you’re on the ball, you will have already made plans to mitigate the disaster.

In any event, if you want your iPhone to stay quiet then go turn off the government-mandated alerts in your iPhone’s settings.

Links

FEMA and FCC Plan Nationwide Emergency Alert Test for Oct. 4, 2023 — https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20230803/fema-and-fcc-plan-nationwide-emergency-alert-test-oct-4-2023