Issue #37: The Hack that Nearly Hammered Amateur Radio

Interesting to hear about this, thanks for the post.

Personally I get zero information out of 99% of videos, they are so badly written, presented, and edited. Waste of time so I don't do vids. I know I am not alone in this.

Edit: I really enjoy Derek and the Veritasium shorts on YouTube.

 

True perhaps, but the thing is - none of it really matters. Why? because individuals and entities will do pretty much whatever they want anyway, no matter what IP laws and protections may be in place. Open source just exacerbates that unless the code is given freely and without restriction. If somebody wants to steal an idea or piece of code or else exploit a security hole bad enough then they will find a way.

"........IOW others do not have ownership, cannot dictate use, nor outcome, without consent of the 'owner'......".

In a righteous society perhaps. But those who really want to violate this, will. Some brought to justice, many not. I'm not by any means saying to give up on the system but just don't expect it to always protect your interests.

 

LAMP systems are still very common.

And not always the best choice.

 

One organization that appears to be engaging young minds is First Robotics. All the teams I’ve been involved with had engaged youth across broad demographics. Imperfect certainly. Inclusion depends on the leadership and the team members themselves. Individual experience is varied. But innovation and inclusion are among its core values.

Where in amateur radio is innovation and inclusion built into the messaging?
ARRL? Nope
IARU? Nope. A nod toward youth technical training so 1 point for Gryffindor
World Radio Sport? Nope
ORI? Yep!

So the inclusion exclusion runs deep.

 

Thanks Tom, good input, Dave

 

The inclusion doesn't get enough PR and hence we get the impression that it isn't there--in ham radio.

I can cite two very successful programs that succeeded in inclusion. The first is Carol Perry's (WB2MGP) efforts in schools, in New York City. Carol continues that, through RCA, and other support to this day. That used ham radio.

The second is through universities. Jim, WA3FET , had an intro engineering course which got hundreds of students licensed. Color blind , sex blind, gender blind, whatever your 'adjective', there was a vast inclusion, for all.

As I mentioned, for 15 years I taught a special program at Boston University, Today we would use terms like 'inclusion' and 'STEM' to define it. There was no ham radio component because the university didnt want that. The point is that decisions are seldom determined by those who want or wanted inclusion.

Michelle and others are most certainly trying to change that. And that'others' includes ARDC. Based on MY experience, if it gets people involved, irrespective of the philosophical bent, that's all good.

I am confused why 'innovation AND inclusion' have to be linked, Go for 'inclusion'. Some will follow thru and self select with interest in 'innovation'. Let them decide: respect their interests.

73
Chip W1YW

 

One thing o can say about First Robotics is they have an effective PR machine. Compare their website to the ARRL’s.

 

First Robotics indeed is an excellent example of inclusion and innovation. VEX Robotics may be another now. I've been loosely associated with and observed a local high school team sucessfully compete, and members progress to impressive STEM careers.

By "World Radio Sport' I expect you meant WRTC.

This ought not but can be easily confused with another form of general "radiosport", that is Amateur Radio Direction Finding, ie orienteering with radio, Foxhunting.

It's legacy comes more from outside North America and probably is now hampered by current geopolitics. But that's no reason to ignore its alure for younger generations, STEM and other education potential, and a gateway into Amateur Radio. RDF knowledge & skill building is now an increasingly important & unique mission for the ARS.

The IARU continues to support it but unfortuately aside from a couple of regional clubs I don't see much publicity on this side of the pond from ARRL, RAC, etc. The Dayton Hamvention usually has a display.

73, John, WØPV

 

John - yes, I meant WRTC.
Thanks for your post.

My point was that having inclusion in your mission statement is a necessary but not sufficient ingredient for inclusion to actually happen. People make the difference.

Cheers,

Tom

 

Could you please place a "date" reference at the beginning of the article? It states that this happened "recently". I'm not sure what that means and anyone reading it a year from now won't know either. Date references are a must. Thanks.

 

It took years to pull off . . . Andreas discovered it at the end of March, 2024. Dave

 

"Hammered Amateur Radio"? I think that's a bit dramatic.

Amateur Radio has been around a lot longer than the Internet.
I understand that people want to use it to connect repeaters, enjoy VIOP, etc.
But just as this Forum is not Amateur Radio, neither is a "Ham Radio" VOIP net, or any of the other IP based services some have labeled Amateur Radio.

So maybe the headline should be: The Hack that nearly Hammered "Amateur Radio" IP based service sites

In a world where people don't answer their phones unless they know the number, or click on emails that even remotely look suspicious, creating a world wide internet based IP network for Amateur Radio use, just asked for trouble. One has to realize that most viruses are not created by governments. but students and hobbyists. Same with system hackers. To those folks, the consequences are small in relation to the fun factor; if they get paid, all the better.

 

No one seems to mention that had xz been some closed source software, then it would have been more likely to not have been caught. You can't investigate whats going on in closed source software. That arguement ties nicely to the hobby.

The point of amateur radio is to learn about radio, propagation, and the electromagnetic spectrum in general. To understand how it works, and maybe even build or modify your own equipment. In order to learn we must be able to inspect; to tinker, or at the very least have access to a specification we can build from. Closed source applications such as; Dplus, Hamvoip, Peanut, and others don't contribute to the advancement of the radio art because they retard people from learning the technical operations.

 

I have refrained from publicly commenting on this but there are things that I need clarification on and that I felt are unfairly characterized. I am speaking on behalf of myself and these are my own opinions. I am not speaking on behalf of ARDC, even though I serve on their board.

Ms. Thompson wrote:

This is a very serious accusation. I would like to see the evidence behind this. I haven't seen any. I have been on the board of ARDC just shy of a year. I have been to many meetings with them, and have worked on many of their grant reviews. I have sat in on meetings in the Grants Advisory Committee and the Technical Advisory Committee. I have helped to recruit committee members and one board member. I have even recommended committee members before I joined ARDC as a board member.

There has been only one incident that I've seen of someone allegedly making overt threats over funding of grants, and that person left the Board shortly thereafter. This was in reference to when ARRL's ethics and elections committee had their issue with me. I joined the ARDC board sometime after and not only was the League not banned from ARDC grants, but ARDC had made a $2,100,000 (2.1 million) dollar commitment to the ARRL to fund scholarships, a club grant program and support for their Teachers' Institute. In fact, I was the one who reviewed the ARRL grant at the board level, led the discussion and recommended approval.

Furthermore:

This is, in fact true. But not entirely. Many organizations are in fact coming to ARDC with grant requests. ARDC cannot approve every one. So the grants committee and the board select the ones that align most closely with ARDC mission and goals.

And this mission and these goals aren't a secret. They're on the website:
https://www.ardc.net/apply/grantmaking-categories-goals/

And as far as players in amateur radio behaving differently - ARDC has done things that were previously impossible, and not nearly to this scale. So of course things will change.

But look at some of the things that have changed:

1. ARRL Scholarships have greatly expanded both vertically and horizontally.
2. ARISS has received funding for things like new radios and STEM kits for schools
3. Historic, educational radio infrastructure like the MIT radome have been preserved thanks to ARDC funds.
4. Kids in Nepal who were previously facing a life of poverty are now building CubeSats.

Is any of this bad? I don't think so. And I'm proud to support such world changing work.

You can see what we did in 2023 here: https://www.ardc.net/apply/grants/2023-grants/

I cite 2023 because I have personal experience with it.

ARDC's process for granting is structured, transparent and fair. I don't know what, if anything has to change, but Ms. Thompson should be specific.

Let me outline the grants process.

1. The staff takes a first look at grants. Staff follow the mission and goals as outlined above.
2. The grants which pass this are then sent to the Grants Advisory Committee (GAC). The GAC then takes the grants, reviews them, assigns scoring and then lists of grants make their way for final board approval.
3. Grants are discussed at the board meeting. 99% of the time, the board goes with the GAC recommendation. Occasionally we may go against the GAC recommendation, and in many cases it is to grant something which the GAC decided not to fund. But we don't ever do this out of spite, malice or politics.

The idea that ARDC are playing political favors is absolutely false. In fact we constantly look at ourselves to ensure we aren't granting solely to people we know. We have gone out of our way to expand globally - last year I went to Japan to help advocate for ARDC in the Asia Pacific region. The result is we are making significant grants there. If any member is close friends with the potential grantees, they will recuse themselves from the vote.

Speaking of the GAC, we have an annual call for members. I have recruited members - and this year I reached out to international folks because this is lacking. Anyone can serve as a Grants Advisory Committee member, as long as they meet the basic qualifications and are willing to put in the time. The basic qualifications are either having an amateur radio license (any class, from any country) or a technical degree. I even made a video about it:



Additionally, GAC members are allowed to serve for up to three years. We want a fresh perspective and term limits are a fair way to do this.

If you want to serve on the GAC or other committees, we make the call around Q4. All that is needed is a current CV including your ham radio or digital communications experience and qualifications and a letter explaining why you'd be a good committee member. The video does explain all.

By the way, my service on ARDC’s board has been absolutely amazing. We have a level of collaboration there that I’ve never seen at other organizations I have served in that capacity. In ARDC we discuss the future of ham radio and 44Net and our board members truly care about this. We have diversity of opinion and no one opinion dominates. But more importantly, ARDC has a high degree of transparency. Much more so than I've seen at other organizations. I have never felt this level of collaboration and community - and nobody on ARDC has tried to silence me. Other organizations will label a bunch of things “board confidential” and while we do this for sensitive matters, most of what we do is out in the open.

This is my $.02.

 

Ron, you have a computer, right? You connect to the Internet on occasion, right? Correct me if I am wrong, but why would you be immune to processes that come along with something that is compressed and then downloaded onto your computer? This doesn't affect the logbook you keep on the cloud, or the numerous PC programs that you use for amateur radio purposes? Plus, you misstated the title of my article, and neglected to use the "Nearly" word which was there. It was NEARLY a hack that hammered us (via the Internet), as it was something like a week or two from major releases to the Internet backbone. Dave, W7DGJ