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ZL3AI > APRDIG 14.08.06 01:52l 207 Lines 9040 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: [APRSSIG] Vol 26 #11, 2/3
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From: ZL3AI@ZL2BAU.#87.NZL.OC
To : APRDIG@WW
Message: 11
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 23:31:25 -0500
From: "Stan - N0YXV" <n0yxv_at_gihams.org>
Subject: RE: [aprssig] APRS web messaging
Couldn't you just validate people that are ARRL members? In other words if
you have an @arrl.org email account you could send the authentication to the
ARRL email account for the call sign requesting authentication? So the
person requesting an authorization code types in his/her Call sign and then
is told to check their ARRL email address for the code. The system doesn't
even give you an option to use any other email address than your ARRL
assigned email account. I know, I know it would limit the users to ARRL
members only but it's simple and I can't see any down side...other than the
requirement to be an ARRL member. Somewhat like what Google does with Gmail.
With Gmail you have to have a Cell Phone with SMS messaging to receive the
authentication code.
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Message: 12
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:42:08 -0700
From: <scott_at_opentrac.org>
Subject: RE: [aprssig] APRS web messaging
I'm an ARRL member and I don't have an arrl.org email account. Maybe
something in the welcome materials when I (re)joined said something about
it, but I don't recall. I'm willing to bet many (most?) ARRL members don't
have one set up either. And even if I didn't mind it being US-centric, I
still wouldn't want to limit it to ARRL users, or for that matter show any
bias towards those who are members.
I suppose I could make it manual - require a QSL card or photocopy of a
license. It'd require manual intervention, but at least I'd have a heck of
a QSL card collection, and it'd be great for my son's stamp collection! =]
Scott
N1VG
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Message: 13
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 22:57:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Tyson S." <timbercutter_at_yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: [aprssig] APRS web messaging
If your going to start making cool APRS stuff on the web I would really
love to have something that I could set up certain criteria and have the
notifications sent to email addresses of my choice. For example I would
like to have geographic regions pre configured, sort of like the filter
string on the filtered aprs-is ports, a square made up by the upper left
hand and lower right hand lat long. I could make this square any size I
want and as many as I want. If I made a square around the local Wal Mart
parking lot then the criteria would be to send an email to my wife's cell
phone that says simply "N7ZMR-7 at Wal Mart" when my D7A beaconed from
within that box (maybe the lat long of the pos too?). I could make another
square that was as big as the county or even the country and have it send
only one email per x=time of my choice. So if I started my tracker after I
get off work then a notification would be sent that I have started the
tracker somewhere within my huge box and the receiving person could go get
on findu and see whats up. Additional transmissions would be ignored until
the time I chose expired. The possibilities could be endless.
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Message: 14
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 23:35:13 -0700
From: <scott_at_opentrac.org>
Subject: RE: [aprssig] APRS web messaging
I've thought about offering that sort of service, but the user interface
might get complicated. I'm afraid I've only got a limited amount of time to
spend supporting non-paying stuff these days. If enough people were
interested in paying maybe $5/month for access to a professionally developed
and maintained APRS/AVL site with lots of cool features, I might consider
it.
Seems like there's not a lot of development going on out there. I have high
hopes for OpenAPRS.net, but while it does a good job of displaying the Napa,
CA area it's really hit-or-miss when it comes to making it do anything else.
Enter N1VG-1 (in Firefox) and nothing happens. Type K6TZ-10 (in IE) and
Santa Barbara pops up, with no stations. Javascript errors are constant.
Looks cool, but it's not quite there yet. I hope they get it working better
one of these days.
I wrote a parser service a while back that'd pipe the APRS-IS stream into an
Oracle Spatial database, and it did an excellent job with spatial queries.
You could return all stations within Santa Barbara County, stations within
..25 miles of Interstate 40 in Oklahoma and Texas only, stations more than 40
miles from a digi, or whatever. Very quick, very stable, and very scalable
- and there's absolutely no way I could afford the Oracle licensing if it
wasn't a pay service.
Maybe one of the open source (or more affordable commercial) databases can
match the spatial capabilities now, but I'd still be more comfortable
managing a high-traffic, multi-gigabyte database in Oracle than anything
else.
And then there's the issue of maps. I'm not sure what Google's terms are
these days, but I know they've got limits. If you want to serve high
quality map data to large numbers of users, chances are you're going to be
paying someone for it.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic. Yeah, I'm working on some cool stuff. For
now a lot of it's going to be focused on features specific to my hardware -
telemetry and control, remote configuration, and so on - and I'll do what I
can to make it useful to the APRS community at large, but I'm a bit
constrained right now.
Scott
N1VG
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Message: 15
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:24:05 -0400
From: "Robert Bruninga" <bruninga_at_usna.edu>
Subject: RE: [aprssig] APRS web messaging
>anyway. My biggest concern has been avoiding unauthorized
>use. How do you go about authenticating everyone, without
>having some sort of labor-intensive signup process with a
>human reviewing everything?
Yep, that's the problem it must not require maintenance. Because Those that
have the talent to write the code, usually do not want To waste their time
managing updates to account names....
I had written up a Proposal a few years ago, but I wouldn't be able to find
it now.
>I figure you could have the system give a new user a code
>that must be sent via RF into the network to authenticate
>themselves.
Yes, that was the plan. The RF user could send a message Saying: "My
Email = XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
The email engine would respond with a message that says "QSL. Old address
was XXXXXX"
That would be all there is to it. The user then could use That Email
address to send -from- and that email would be Accepted into the APRS-IS
for delivery back to RF.
The proposal had some other ideas like "E" was equivalent to Email so that
on the Ttpad of the D7, you only had to send To "E" and not type in EMAIL.
Or send an APRS message to "W3XYZ-E" and the Email Engine would then take
the incoming APRS message and convert it to EMAIL using the ADDRESS that
Was regisered to W3XYZ. As it is now, you have to know Someone's email
address to send RF to Email.
But with this new EMAIL engine that would have everyone's Email address,
then it could now do the reverse emailing Too, not just the EMAIL to RF,
but RF-to-EMAIL by callsign Only.
De Wb4APR, Bob
Email engine
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Message: 16
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:15:44 -0400
From: Steve Dimse <steve_at_dimse.com>
Subject: Re: [aprssig] APRS web messaging
On Aug 10, 2006, at 10:22 PM, <scott_at_opentrac.org>
>If they have to generate an authentication message on RF, then at least
>you've made them show that they're on the air and more likely a real ham.
Yes, if you can show that the message was really transmitted on RF.
However, you cannot rely on the APRS IS to determine this, as anyone can
place a packet on the stream that looks exactly like an IGated RF packet.
Even if the APRS IS were fully secured, all one would need do is feed bogus
serial data into a computer configured as an IGate.
This is the reason I did not release web->APRS messaging for use, the
programming is trivial (and already done), but any implementation puts the
licenses of all IGate operators at risk, I won't be a party to that.
The only system I have conceived that would work is a system where a
trusted group of people manually clear each incoming message. As long as a
message contains no pecuniary or obscene content, it is OK to transmit it
regardless of who sends it. That way non-hams could send messages, making
it more useful to the ham-recipient.
So, the internet user enters a message, it gets stored in a database. The
moderators periodically check a password-protected web page, normally empty
but when a message is pending it appears there, the moderator can approve
it, in which case the internet user gets an email saying it has been sent,
the message is added to the internet stream. You could even send a message
to the originator when the APRS message is ACKed. If it is rejected you
could also send email explaining why.
This would not be too difficult to implement, but it depends on people
checking the page constantly for messages for approval.
Steve K4HG
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