Mark Allman. On Building Special-Purpose Social Networks for Emergency Communication. ACM Computer Communication Review, 40(5), October 2010.
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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.

BibTeX:

@article{All10,
    author  =        "Mark Allman",
    title   =        "{On Building Special-Purpose Social Networks for Emergency Communication}",
    journal =        "ACM Computer Communication Review",
    year    =        2010,
    volume  =        40,
    number  =        5,
    month   =        oct,
}