[CQ-Contest] An evil reason behind fishy spots?

[David Robbins K1TTT]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:cq-contest-
> bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Gary K9GS
> 
> I have always wondered why the PacketCluster software isn't changed to
> require a callsign and password to connect.  This password would have
to
> bet
> set up in advance with the node owner.
> 
> Wouldn't this eliminate the "spotting with a bogus callsign" problem?
I
> think that the slight inconvienience this might cause to a handfull of
> people would make very little difference.
> 
> Maybe I'm missing something here??

Sending passwords on rf is rather worthless as anyone with a tnc can
monitor them.  To do it securely would require a one-time use password
that changes for each login, like the secure crypto keys that are used
to access vpn's of companies that change passwords every couple
minutes.... expensive proposition for both the sysop and users.  Also on
rf or telnet it puts a burden on sysops to validate the claim of every
user who wants to access their node,  the last time I checked my node
user list was over 1000 and growing... no way do I have time to track
down and validate all of those users, let alone maintain passwords and
try to fix those of users who forget their password.  It also limits the
flexibility of a user to change nodes should one go down during a
contest or if the backbone fails.


> 
> Another one that has always baffled me.....why don't the packetCluster
> software writers eliminate the "feature" that allows one to spot for
> someone
> else?
> 

that 'feature' is only on some nodes and even on those it has to be
enabled specifically by the sysop.  As far as I know most nodes in this
area do not allow that practice.  Ar-cluster doesn't even support it.

On the original PacketCluster it was put in as a convenience so if you
got the information from some other source (like the old voice repeater
spotting systems - remember those???) you could give credit where credit
was due to the station that really heard the dx first.

David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net