The Red Cross' Safe and Well list

[nancylebov]

https://disastersafe.redcross.org/

If you're in a disaster area, you can list yourself as safe and well. This is a good idea.

Names can only be searched for by complete address or pre-disaster phone number. This strikes me as semi-reasonable security. There are at least a couple of ways for it to go wrong, but it may be the best possible. Griefers (the kind of practical jokers that Heinlein had in mind) won't find it too difficult to get addresses for false listings, and (to put it mildly), these days we're connected to a lot of people whose full names, addresses, and/or phone numbers we don't know.

Link thanks to pecuniam.

Comments

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

Hey, neat. And opening with a conservative set of tools strikes me as sensible - they can always broaden access later if it seems warranted. I was once the butt of a practical joker using the early edition of the paper to put in info for recently deceased people as allegedly applying for access to a local BBS system that did call-back verification, and have never quite gotten over the horror of realizing what was up. I approve of making it relatively difficult to do that.

[avram]

Do they give idea credit to Bill Shunn?