What's new @ OPENAPRS?

Friday, February 12, 2010

Web Release-1.2

I've upgraded the whole web system on the production servers. You should notice some feature changes like the way tracking a station works and speed improvements. If you come across a bug please let me know.

We've also changed the way verification works, you can either verify over RF for free or we've added the option to verify your account for a $2.99 processing fee payable by PayPal. This processing fee will help support OpenAPRS in the future and is automated so rather than wait 48 hours for us to manually verify your account it can be done within minutes.

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3 Comments:

  • At March 3, 2010 at 11:01 PM , Blogger Hessu said...

    Just curious, in what way does the paid automatic verification verify the web user as a licensed amateur?

     
  • At March 4, 2010 at 7:31 AM , Blogger NV6G said...

    The simple answer is: it doesn't.

    The simple theory is: Amateur Radio is a niche market, why would you pay through PayPal which contains a link back to you if you're intent was to deceive that you weren't licensed for the purpose of polluting the network. Anyone can buy Amateur Radio software and access both RF and APRS-IS but why would you do it unless you had an interest in HAM radio?

    Manual verification required looking at each signups scanned PDF license, which could be faked, and had a 24-48 hour turnaround time. This process has a 10-15 minute turnaround time and helps support a service that has been run for free for over 10 years since it's inception.

    The system isn't a set it and forget it, it's monitored and appears to have been met with a positive response. As our DCC interface has become more popular with mobile devices our number of signups has increased exponentially which would have meant longer turnaround times for the end user, I feel this is a happy balance and one that serves both the user and the services needs.

     
  • At March 4, 2010 at 8:53 AM , Blogger Hessu said...

    Ok, I was just asking, because the blog post talked about verification, and I hoped that maybe you had invented a method to do it automatically. So verification isn't verification.

    I agree that the incentive to abuse this is very small given the complete lack of security on the APRS-IS.

     

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