A NOAA storm spotting app was suspended after being overrun with false and hateful reports

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

Capital Weather Gang
A NOAA storm spotting app was suspended after being overrun with false and hateful reports

By Matthew Cappucci
July 14 at 12:06 PM

The National Weather Service has received scores of false weather reports in recent weeks through a popular citizen science application that is supposed to increase meteorologists’ awareness of ongoing severe weather. The application, a cooperative effort between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the University of Oklahoma and the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMSS), was temporarily suspended last week following a spate of false reports.

It appears the perpetrators also committed one or more hateful acts in the process.

Last week, Twitter users posted screenshots showing a spattering of false flooding reports throughout New Mexico and Texas’s Big Bend area. They appeared to form the shape of a swastika, a symbol associated with white supremacists.

[The National Weather Service is working to revolutionize severe storm warnings]

Other false weather reports popped up in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, Tiananmen Square in China, and Auschwitz in Poland. Auschwitz was the death camp run by Nazi German during World War II where more than a million people, mainly Jews, were killed.

The great false MPing Report Epidemic of 2020 continues to spread throughout the #UnitedStates, with #NorthDakota, #Arizona, #Nebraska, and #Alabama getting in on it now. I guess today is a slow news day. 🤔

Link to tweet

{snip}

This is why we can’t have nice things. For any spotters out there, mPING has been taken down indefinitely due to this attack. Please use other options to report to us. #wiwx

Link to tweet

Matthew Cappucci
Matthew Cappucci is a meteorologist for Capital Weather Gang. He earned a B.A. in atmospheric sciences from Harvard University in 2019, and has contributed to The Washington Post since he was 18. He is an avid storm chaser and adventurer, and covers all types of weather, climate science, and astronomy. Follow https://twitter.com/MatthewCappucci

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/07/14/noaa-app-mping-suspended/

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A NOAA research storm spotting app - known as mPING - was suspended after some users submitted false and hate-filled severe weather reports

Link to tweet

[elleng]

1. Damn! 'Progress' just ain't.

[Rural_Progressive]

2. Here's a silly and rhetorical question

What the f*ck is wrong with these freaks? Something broken? Daddy and mommy didn't love them enough? Couldn't get a date for the prom? Envious because other people actually have functioning brains and use them?

What the f*ck!!

[rwsanders]

8. Yes to the mommy and daddy thing

I take my family about 2 hours away from home to enjoy sailing on an inland lake. The lake is beautiful, and once on the water it is mostly quiet, but around the dock and boat ramp we have to put up with loud pickups, loud boats, loud music, loud conversations (I shouldn't have to hear someone laugh from 100 yards away, but I do.
I just have to tell the kids that "they didn't get enough attention when they were 2". They just NEED for everyone to notice them.

[getagrip_already]

18. this was a focussed attack - may not have been domestic...

One of Russia's strategies is to corrupt the american scientific community with disinformation, internal attacks, and destabalizing cyber attacks. They also try to get american idiots like the nra, anti-vaxers, religious nuts, and others to help them.

It is a very calculated anti-science attack. The answer is not to just take down the app. The answer is to harden it and vet the inputs better.

[Progressive Jones]

23. Crack Babies? nt

[ancianita]

3. Thank you for this post. NOAA is the very heart of what good government does.

Attacking and vandalizing NOAA's app, which saves human lives across the planet, should be prosecuted as a federal crime.

[rwsanders]

9. They should just restrict it to registered users.

[SkyDaddy7]

13. BINGO!

...I was so mad when I saw this for the EXACT reason you mentioned!!

NOAA is truly "...the very heart of what good government does."!! ...At least here in the good ole US of A where we allow our own peeps to die of preventable illness due to no health insurance.

...I digress!

...Anyway, YES, I saw your reply & I feel the exact same way! The accounts should be forever blocked from using the app, if possible ASAP! And again, like you said, purposefully hacking, which this is a form of, Federal apps, websites or services, especially ones meant to save lives should carry stiff penalties!

...Hopefully, NOAA & others can come up with ways to prevent this type of abuse in the future.

[ancianita]

14. Even NOAA can have strict TOS and block users who ignore them.

Russian bots, lots of other bots, scour the nets to probe entry to create mayhem. I blame Russia.

And NOAA's 60,000 weather balloons launched daily serve across continents. It is definitely a cost effective department that helps other nations' economies along with our own.

I'll bet they're not helpless over this, and govt IT employees know how to re-program the app to prevent visual vandalism.

When I think of all the chaos and destruction that will be unleashed on this country, just to lower Americans' morale, I get insanely furious. Over the next six months, none of it will be random.

[SkyDaddy7]

16. I TOTALLY AGREE!!

...Hopefully this will be a warning & it will be taken care of ASAP!

[grumpyduck]

4. It's very easy to be vocal and rude

when you can hide behind a username. It's the new form of tantrum.

[hlthe2b]

5. Gator Bowl?

It has been many years since I was in that venue, but it was really falling apart. Perhaps they've renovated since then, but I can't imagine Trump and whoever the wealthy $$ idiots he armtwists into going or funding being happy...


Is there another large outdoor venue in Jacksonville?

On edit, I see it was all but razed years ago for the stadium that houses the Jaguars...

[yaesu]

6. well, when you have a clown running the country no one will take anything serious nt

[hadEnuf]

7. These weather apps are designed to help American prepare for severe weather and possibly save lives.

The scum vandalizing this site are terrorists who despise America and the American people and we all know who they support and vote for.

[AZ8theist]

19. Well, since most of the severe weather incidents happen in red states..

I'm sue Doturd and his owner Vlad have no problem killing more Americans.
Too bad Doturd is too fucking stupid to realize he's killing his "base".....

[mpcamb]

10. A Russian try-out for election day? It's what came to my mind...

[ancianita]

11. Entirely plausible. I'd go with that. Russia's Putin is out to tear down all US govt stability.

[elleng]

17. Yes he is.

[ThoughtCriminal]

12. Infantile

I'm not sure what the malfunction is for these imbeciles, but I suspect a few of them are Trumpies that think that the NOAA is part of the "Deep State" since the whole "Sharpiegate" incident.

[LittleGirl]

15. Russians? Eom

[Dave Starsky]

22. Da.

Not a doubt in my mind. No other country has so effectively weaponized ignorance, fear, and stupidity.

[BadgerKid]

20. Unintentional side effect of opening storm reporting

To the general public. Previously you had to attend a weather spotting class to sign up.

NWS’s heart was in the right place but was taken advantage of.

[Hortensis]

21. This is vandalism and should be illegal if it isn't already.

Of course tracking down and prosecuting takes funding, but I think protecting the integrity of weather reporting would justify that. It's a target for state-sponsored cyber-warfare.