At 10:40 PM 12/24/98 -0500, Fred Laun K3ZO wrote:
>
>Patience, gents! The subject of online confirmation of DXCC is already
>under study. At this year's Visalia DX Convention it was announced that
>the YASME Foundation has agreed to fund a study for ARRL of how such
>confirmations can be made absolutely tamper-proof. This is the only issue,
>really. So far nobody has been able to come up with a system -- PGP
>included -- that K5FUV hasn't been able to alter sample submissions with.
>The study continues...
It's worth remembering that in any regulatory situation I know of -- from
smuggling to speeding to QSL-card forgery, absolute enforcement is only
achieved with the expenditure of infinite time and money. The key to
effective, enforceable regulation is to set the enforcement bar high enough
to defeat all but a tiny percentage of the violators. Then you have to
make sure that THEY don't know exactly where enforcement leaves off, when a
spot-check to a higher standard might be conducted, or whether there might
be an enforcement mechanism (the laser gun behind the billboard) that they
don't know about.
Happy holidays to all contesters (and non-contesters) everywhere!
73, Pete Smith N4ZR
n4zr@contesting.com
Loud is good.
--
CQ-Contest on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/_cq-contest/
Administrative requests: cq-contest-REQUEST@contesting.com
|