Hello folks,
I've been watching these threads about spotting and not spotting and all.
What do you think about proposing some changes in the packet cluster
network?
The packet cluster network has been designed maybe more than 20 years
ago, and probably restricted to packet radio use. These days there
werent all those security problems and cheating in mind.
Nowadays I cant know for sure, but probably more than 90% of cluster
access are from internet.
Somethings that it seems (to me) urgent to deploy:
- exchanging of origin (TCP/IP address, radio frequency, port, home
node) for users between cluster nodes;
- limiting user logins, so a user would not be able to login with the
same callsign to more than one cluster, unless he connects as CALL-1,
CALL-2 (sometimes the user opens a log software, a webcluster and other
aid software that also connects to the cluster);
- think about authentication... at most of the clusters now, one can
simply login as wish, no passwd, no control. we could think of using a
couple of centralized servers for controlling authentication (ISPs and
TI industry already do that with a software called radius), or using
some key exchange like lotw does.
I know these are not trivial changes, and probably there are more
changes needed that didn't come to my mind.
This would require upgrading all the servers, but could be scheduled to
do in a couple of years.
At least this would let us keep closer attention to cheaters, and
probably after getting identified, the cheaters wont behave badly again,
right?
73,
Felipe Ceglia - PY1NB
http://www.dxwatch.com
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