[Dxspider-support] Add IP address tp PC16

[Lee Sawkins]

Ian Maude wrote:
> 
> 2009/12/9 Lee Sawkins <ve7cc at shaw.ca>
> 
>      I am not running a Spider cluster, but I will not be
>      implementing
>      registration.  It is simply too much work.  In the last 3.5
>      years I have
>      received PC41 data from over 62,000 different calls.  That
>      is how many
>      different cluster users there has been.  I estimate a
>      minimum of 10,000
>      of them have connected to my cluster.
> 
> As the sysop of 2 very busy clusters I disagree.  I register on
> average about 4 users a day which takes me 5 minutes.  Initially it
> was more of course but once running there is little traffic and it is
> the *only* way IMHO to gain any kind of control on the network. It
> gives the sysop the ability to control abuse and works *very* well.

IMHO you are wrong about it stopping abuse on the network.  Your
clusters, yes, but not the network.  An abuser would probably not
register with your clusters, but instead would simply find another
cluster that didn't require registration.  I expect WR3D to tell me I am
talking about an imperfect world again.  That's the real world.  It is
imperfect.

What I should have said is that it's too much work to register users for
almost no gain.  Since I believe that registration is of almost no
value, any time spent doing this is wasted.  I just did check my system
and found 10,148 local users of my own cluster, and this was using data
several months old.  At a rate of one call per minute it would take 167
hours to register 10,000 of them.  Calls can be supplied if anyone wants
to see them.
  
Some spots can be determined to be abusive by simply looking at them. 
However, other misuse of the cluster system is not so easily seen. 
During contests you will find some IP addresses that are used to send
spots under various calls, sometimes appearing to come from ones own
country and sometimes from all over the world.    These spots all look
ok.  These are used cheating.  Since self spotting is not allowed by the
contest rules, the user cannot spot using his own call.  K1TTT does a
write up on the contest reflector after major contests.  He gives long
lists of suspicious cluster activity.  He could do more if he could see
the IPs of all spotters, not just those on DX Summit plus his own
cluster.  If you are not a contester, you may not see much of a
problem.  If you are a contester, you want these bogus spots to stop. 
Being spotted greatly increases the number of those who call you, thus
increasing your score.  Entering self spots using other calls gives one
an unfair advantage.

>  It was initially implemented during 911 (One of Dirks busiest days)
> and one of the clusters darkest hours.  A lot of us made about 8
> updates that day and the result was very good indeed.  It did not stop
> the problem but tat and badspotter gave us some control over the
> network.
> I have not come down on one side or the other with dropping IP
> addresses but my gut feeling is that I don't like it.  Anyone who has
> to use a proxy might well be limited by it for a start.

I could be wrong, but I believe ISPs such as AOL which use proxies for
some types of traffic do not use proxies for telnet connections.  Those
who use anon proxies for posting on DX Summit or elsewhere should have
their spots dropped.  Spots from JF10EHX, which I believe come from
Japan, usually come from an anon proxy in HZ.  I drop these.  Spider
clusters that use web pages for dx spot input (such as EA6VQ-1) can be
abused just like DX Summit.  Since spotters don't log into these
clusters, you will never see spotter IPs in their user lists.  The only
way to do it is to include the IPs with the spots.
 
http://www.vhfdx.net/spots/map.php
I just put in a dx spot via a web page with a spotter call of KD7A and
spotted myself on 6 meters.  It was posted to the cluster system without
problem.  Since this spot originated in Canada, it could have been
dropped if the IP was included.

> Having said that, the ability for users to log in using g/w0*** or
> whatever is something we have needed for a while.  I guess it has not
> been implemented because it might break older software but you all
> know my opinions on that :)
>

Both CC Cluster and AR Cluster have allowed portable calls for years for
spotters.  I have not seen or heard of any problems.  Usually when this
gets mentioned, someone will say you can't use portable calls in TNCs. 
That is completely irrelevant.

Lee