Univ. of Illinois Goes War-of-the-Worlds On Students

theodp writes "'Strange beings who landed in New Jersey tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from Mars.' (Orson Welles, 1938). 'Active shooter at BUILDING NAME/INTERSECTION. Escape area if safe to do so or shield/secure your location.' (Univ. of Illinois, 2011). An alert message sent out Thursday to 87,000 emails and cell phones warning recipients to escape from an 'active shooter' at the University of Illinois was an error, the Office of the Chief of Police confirmed. 'The alert sent today was caused by a person making a mistake,' explained an email. 'Rather than pushing the SAVE button to update the pre-scripted message, the person pushed the SUBMIT button. We are working with the provider of the Illini-Alert service to implement additional security features in the program to prevent this type of error.'"

Re:Umm, 'scuse me?

[DisKurzion]

At the school I work for, there was a major outcry when we implemented a universal SSO for the ever-increasing amount of online tools put out by our school.

There were numerous articles in the school paper decrying the change.

5 years later, and we could only imagine the outcry if we got rid of it: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'D HAVE TO MAINTAIN A SEPARATE PASSWORD FOR EVERY SYSTEM!!!???"

Students complain for the sake of complaining.

To the rescue...

[fahrbot-bot]

We are working with the provider of the Illini-Alert service to implement additional security features in the program to prevent this type of error.

Clippy: [wikipedia.org]

"It looks like you're about to panic thousands of people. Would you like help?

• Get help panicking people.
• Just panic people without help.
• Don't show this tip again.