[aprssig] spaces in object names PROPOSAL

Wes Johnston, AI4PX wes at ai4px.com
Thu Aug 13 15:05:29 EDT 2009


Speaking of killing objects or replacing objects, a point that has
been raised many times by EOC's and the like is that they don't want
"their" objects taken over by another party's object.  Can we add
something to the object / item formats that says this object can only
be replaced when it comes from the same callsign?  Sort of a "read
only" flag.

Let's say that the NWS publishes the location of a hurricane.  (didn't
it used to be common to see hurricane +24 and +36 hours objects too?).
 Does anyone recall from the last busy weather season that several
well intentioned hams were publishing the location of a given storm.
But they didn't keep up with the latest updates and before you knew
it, their position was old.  I realize that when my aprs station sees
another object with the same name it's supposed to kill it's own copy.
 But some dont.  Esp on the internet.  And of course someone might
think it was funny to "steal" your objects and move them around.

On the other hand, most of the time, I wouldn't care if someone took
possession of my object.  In a running race or MS150 event, I don't
care if someone takes my bicycle object and updates it for me.

What we need is a simple flag that says to the aprs clients "don't
overwrite this object if you see it from any other callsign".  Of
course we'll end up with multiple objects on screen named FUNNEL all
owned by different callsigns.  But the NWS's FUNNEL will not be
overwritten.

To be truthful, I can't remeber if it is objects or if it is items
have expiration timers, but I will suggest that the readonly flag be
only permitted on (objects | items ) with an expiration timer.  That
will permit the object to eventually die and disappear since no one
else would be able to kill it (or take possession of it and kill it).

And one more thought.... There is nothing in this proposal that would
prevent me from making up an object with exactly the same name as your
object.  It'd be up to the client programs to respect the 'read only"
flag.

And certainly, this could be spoofed.  I won't mention them here but
I've just figured out about 3 ways this could be spoofed, but let's
not get into that just yet.

Wes




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