On building special-purpose social networks for emergency communication

Abstract

In this paper we propose a system that will allow people to communicate their status with friends and family when they find themselves caught up in a large disaster (e.g., sending "I'm fine" in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake). Since communication between a disaster zone and the non-affected world is often highly constrained we design the system around lightweight triggers such that people can communicate status with only crude infrastructure (or even sneaker-nets). In this paper we provide the high level system design, discuss the security aspects of the system and study the overall feasibility of a purpose-built social networking system for communication during an emergency.