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<br>
Hi Steve,<br>
<br>
What you have mentioned is of some concern to us in Australia and I
think we could be in a similar situation to you in the US. Our
regulations changed last year to the following;<br>
<br>
1) The licensee must not, directly or indirectly, connect the station
to a public<br>
telecommunications network, unless the licensee has implemented<br>
reasonable measures to ensure that only appropriately licensed persons<br>
access the station to transmit a signal to another amateur station.<br>
<br>
2) If a licensee connects a person from a public telecommunications
network<br>
to the station, whether manually or automatically, the licensee must:<br>
(a) advise the person being connected that his or her transmissions may
be<br>
overheard by other persons; and<br>
(b) advise the person being connected to disconnect if he or she does
not<br>
wish to proceed with the connection.<br>
<br>
3) A licensee must not transmit messages to an amateur station in a
foreign<br>
country, on behalf of a third party, unless the government of that
country has<br>
made a special arrangement with Australia for the transmission and
reception<br>
of messages, on behalf of third parties, between amateur stations in
Australia<br>
and amateur stations in that country.<br>
<br>
These regulations are more flexible that our old ones in many ways.
However with the new regulations IGate licencees may have to provide
evidence that "reasonable measure" are in place in the international
APRS network to prevent non-amateur generated data from being sent to
RF from the APRS-IS. With the algorithm being public explaining
"reasonable measure" may become complicated.<br>
<br>
As you mentioned the point at which the the APRS data is gated from the
internet to RF is the point of control for the authorities and the
place of unintentional potential regulations breach for the IGate
operator.<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Richard<br>
VK3JFK<br>
<br>
<br>
Steve Dimse wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:672A8D73-957A-46C9-8AE0-0407614E2CBD@dimse.com"
type="cite"><!---->
<pre wrap="">RF, this system changes nothing in regard to the questions you pose.
There is no method for identifying or tracing the origin of any line
that appears on the APRS Internet System. Anyone can send anything on
the APRS IS without the slightest chance of being traced. This is just
another way to add a message to the stream. No matter what tags
aprsmail.org chooses to add to its messages to indicate their origin,
anyone can, without violating any rules or laws, add a packet to the
APRS IS stream that appears to come from that server. The IGate
operator has no way to know the actual origin of a message.
In the US, FCC rules for automated message forwarding systems clearly
place the responsibility on the IGate operator for any packet which
they transmit on RF. The rules did indemnify the the IGate operator if
they verify the identity of the sender as an amateur. As originally
designed, I believe the APRS-IS met that test. Ever since the identity
algorithm became public the rules provide no shelter for the Igate
operator.
I've asked several times for proof of rules of other countries that
place the blame anywhere other than the IGate operator. No one has
provided any such proof. That doesn't prove there are none, but
without traceability, enforcement is impossible.
If you think about it, it makes sense. If something wrong is
transmitted, the blame must go somewhere. Without traceability, there
is no one to blame other than the IGate operator. I think it also is
right from a moral sense. Imagine the chaos if the only defense one
needed to get away with murder was "John Doe told me to do it". Worse,
imagine a world where John Doe was convicted of murder just because
someone admitted to the murder and said John told him to do it!
Steve K4HG
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</pre>
There is no difference between this and any other message IGated to <br>
</blockquote>
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