Events like the bombings in Boston affect you in ways that is very hard to predict or even understand. It is so close to where we live and work. Even people like me who visit that part of Boston infrequently know the area well enough.  So, it is understandable that these tend to leave lasting impressions on us. As we get to hear more information about the three who died and over 170 or so who were injured, we feel shaken.

During tragedies like these, the recent advances in technologies have played tremendous roles – both positive and negative. As reported in Huffington Post and Chicago Tribune,  apparently the circuit board used to trigger the bomb has been located. Of course, as we all know, during these times, it pays to be skeptical about such news until official word comes out, but if past knowledge about such bombings elsewhere is the world are any indication, there are electronic circuits involved and possibly a triggering device such as a cell phone. This is obviously how devious minds use technology to cause destruction.

In cases such as these, there are literally millions of people watching the events unfold on live TV and the immediate instinct is twofold – the ones in the affected area that are not severely injured want to reach for their cell phones and call the loved ones to say they are fine. But more importantly, the millions of others watching want to make calls not to just those on the scene, but their relatives etc. This cascading effect causes such a strain in the cell towers that it quickly becomes unusable. This is one of the reasons why emergency personnel have reserved frequencies for their own communication. There is considerable debate about the government auction of these frequencies because they may eventually cut down on the available frequencies for specified emergency use.

This natural instinct to contact the loved ones quickly becomes one of tremendous frustration, helplessness and anxiety for everyone involved. Those who have heard the repeated warnings to use texting instead of phone calls probably were able to contact their loved ones. Since texting needs the bandwidth only for the transmission and not continuously like a phone call, it requires far less resources. Emails access has the same problem as the phone calls because literally thousands of users are continuously wanting the shared bandwidth and cell towers are unlikely to keep up.

We learned yet again how the use of twitter came in handy – mostly for disseminating useful information, but in some cases, the eagerness to break the news first resulted in wrong information being passed on.  I suggest you check out the site Snopes which identifies some of the missteps as well as confirmation of a few things that would be considered rumors and conspiracy theory. The “third controlled explosion” tweeted by Boston Globe can be found there. We relied on facebook heavily to learn about those we know about who were in the vicinity. Thank God that everyone was OK. A couple were stranded in their offices nearby.

Google Person Finder is a good tool to help during such emergencies. Basic idea is anyone who has found out about the status of a relative or friend in the affected area who has found out about the person can register here and put the information for others to see.

I am sure all of you heard about the bad use of technology whereby several fake charities showed up in the social media. I am sure that many fell victim for these because of the grief of the moment. Obviously, the facebooks and twitters of the world acted on them as soon as they could, but they have an obligation to do some investigation to make sure that these are indeed fake. I know that it is easier for us to say that they should find ways to be vigilant and shut these down sooner, but it is much harder than it may appear!

The law enforcement has access to a lot of videos that they have begun combing through – cameras recording around the finish line, other nearby locations with surveillance cameras including ATM machines etc. They will be analyzing these at great length. I am sure they do have some intelligent software that helps with the analysis of terabytes of data.

Almost all of these technologies that help during disastrous situations can also be misused which is a common irony of life. These surveillance cameras are viewed as a threat to privacy, for example. And as we saw, the social media can be easily used to spread rumors or misused for stealing money from vulnerable people at the most inopportune moments. On balance, we hope, these technologies are useful and are used positively to help us through these difficult times.

Let us offer our prayers to all the innocent victims who either lost their lives or affected for the rest of their lives for no reason other than being there to support the runners and enjoy a great day!