[Dxspider-support] VarAC Beacon spots

[Laurie, VK3AMA]

On 07/12/2022 7:37 am, Dirk Koopman via Dxspider-support wrote:
>
> But I see it is a development by the ROSMODEM chap. When that first 
> appeared it caused quite a few problems on the network as it was using 
> a lot of cluster node bandwidth

A brief history lesson on ROSMODEM and its developer.

  * The ROS software would post spots to DXSpider nodes pretending to be
    a human using a number of different inbuilt message types to give
    the impression the spots were human originating. The volume of spots
    and the repeated spot formats gave that away.
  * While running the software, monitoring activity only, no QSOs, the
    software would be posting spots giving the impression that the spot
    was for an actual QSO when there was no QSO.
  * As nodes started to implement registration to block this behavior
    the ROS software would be updated with differing lists of unsecured
    nodes to auto-spot to.
  * When the ROS author was called out about the auto-spotting he
    started to include hard-coded list of the callsigns reporting this
    behavior, a blacklist of callsigns that were prevented from running
    the software. I know because I ended up on the blacklist because of
    calling him out about his software activity. It was easy to see the
    hard-coded blacklist, DXSpider nodes and auto-spot message formats
    by simply doing a hex-dump of the ROS executable.

Just a warning.

de Laurie VK3AMA
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