Re: [digitalradio] Re : testing confirms ROS,,,,,,,,,,,

2010-07-10 Thread Cortland Richmond
The distributor being located in Europe, it may be the EU digital privacy 
regulations come into play.


Cortland
KA5S


-Original Message-
>From: raf3151019 
>Sent: Jul 10, 2010 4:56 PM
>To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [digitalradio] Re : testing confirms ROS,,,
>
>Well, would you believe it ! So what happens now ?
>
>Mel G0GQK
>
>
>



Re: [digitalradio] Re : testing confirms ROS,,,,,,,,,,,

2010-07-10 Thread Rik van Riel
On 07/10/2010 04:56 PM, raf3151019 wrote:
> Well, would you believe it ! So what happens now ?

The first person who warns the ROS users gets banned
for life from the ROS email list? :)

-- 
All rights reversed.


Re: [digitalradio] Re: Testing Confirms ROS Autospot Behaviour

2010-07-10 Thread John Becker, WØJAB
The other day after making a comment about ROS
I got a note (direct) just saying - 

"makes one wonder what else the program is doing.
 Do you have your banking information on that computer ?"








[digitalradio] Re: Testing Confirms ROS Autospot Behaviour

2010-07-10 Thread graham787
Julian ,

That's a good  point , But from what I can  gather this  is  Mr Ros > 
http://www.thesauro.com/nietoros/ if so  then  such routines would  perhaps be 
a little dangerous to  implement ? 

I don't  really  know what the  end  game will be .. but  I have the  
perception that 'game'may  be the operative word . 

G . 

--- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, "g4ilo"  wrote:
>
> As a (retired) amateur software developer myself I cannot imagine why the 
> developer did it this way instead of letting people pick their own cluster 
> (preferably one located near them) and send their own spots manually. It 
> would have been easier. Connecting to random servers and sending randomly 
> selected text strings is often a hallmark of malware. Perhaps he has 
> developed a clever way of stealing passwords without people realizing it? You 
> know, like those coded messages where the secret text was made from the first 
> letter of every line. I'm not saying it's actually likely but you have to 
> wonder why he has made such a bizarre design decision.
> 
> If nothing else it shows how easy it is to get people to load software on 
> their computer when they have no real idea who the developer is or what the 
> software may be doing.
> 
> Julian, G4ILO
> 
> --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, "Laurie, VK3AMA"  wrote:
> >
> > Yesterday I ran some tests and can confirm that ROS software (Betas 
> > 4.5.7, 4.5.8, 4.6.0 & 4.6.2) is auto-spotting to the cluster without any 
> > control from the op.
> > 
> > ROS has hard-coded the following Clusters and connects to one of these 
> > if possible.
> > 
> > dxc.us6iq.com
> > dxc.ham.hr
> > 9a0dxc.hamradio.hr
> > remo3.renet.ru
> > cluster.sk4bw.net
> > ax25.org
> > sk3w.se
> > sector7.nu
> > sm7gvf.dyndns.org
> > 
> > I setup my internet router to re-route these addresses (and ports) to a 
> > Cluster Node I have setup locally for testing to avoid spotting to the 
> > live Cluster.
> > 
> > Then left the ROS software in RX mode (no TX) monitoring 20M. Over 20 
> > spots were generated over a 2 hour period. Different comment strings 
> > were sent in the spots.
> > 
> > A closer inspection of the internal code of ROS reveals randomising code 
> > (select a random string) and the following hard-coded Cluster spotting 
> > strings.
> > 
> > "tnx ros mode"
> > "73 ROS Mode"
> > "tnx fer ROS QSO"
> > "ROS 599"
> > "ROS 559"
> > "CQ ROS"
> > "CQ ROS Mode"
> > "CQ ROS."
> > "ROS"
> > "ros"
> > "599 ROS Mode"
> > "73, ros mode"
> > "ROS, 73"
> > "tu ROS Mode"
> > "ROS test"
> > "copy ROS Mode - dB"
> > "ROS QSO "
> > "ros mode "
> > "ROS Mode "
> > "599 ROS - dB"
> > "ROS - dB at "
> > "ROS CQ - dB"
> > "ROS. TNX QSO. 73 "
> > 
> > ,  are substitued with the configured settings and  the 
> > received S/N ratio.
> > 
> > Clearly the use of several variations of text, mixing upper- & 
> > lower-case letters, 599 & 559 reports is all designed to make anyone 
> > viewing the Cluster think that these ROS spots are Human generated and 
> > not auto-spot spam.
> > 
> > The ROS developer has NOT documented, in ether the User Guide or FAQ, 
> > this auto-spot advertising facility of his software.
> > 
> > My observations.
> > 
> > de Laurie, VK3AMA
> >
>




Re: [digitalradio] Re: Testing Confirms ROS Autospot Behaviour

2010-07-10 Thread Dave Wright
I'm not sure if it still requires it, but many early users gladly gave over
their gmail account passwords (required at the time) to the program without
question, so why would they care (or even know) if it did anything else?



On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 5:25 PM, g4ilo  wrote:

>
>
> As a (retired) amateur software developer myself I cannot imagine why the
> developer did it this way instead of letting people pick their own cluster
> (preferably one located near them) and send their own spots manually. It
> would have been easier. Connecting to random servers and sending randomly
> selected text strings is often a hallmark of malware. Perhaps he has
> developed a clever way of stealing passwords without people realizing it?
> You know, like those coded messages where the secret text was made from the
> first letter of every line. I'm not saying it's actually likely but you have
> to wonder why he has made such a bizarre design decision.
>
> If nothing else it shows how easy it is to get people to load software on
> their computer when they have no real idea who the developer is or what the
> software may be doing.
>
> Julian, G4ILO
>
>
> --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com ,
> "Laurie, VK3AMA"  wrote:
> >
> > Yesterday I ran some tests and can confirm that ROS software (Betas
> > 4.5.7, 4.5.8, 4.6.0 & 4.6.2) is auto-spotting to the cluster without any
> > control from the op.
> >
> > ROS has hard-coded the following Clusters and connects to one of these
> > if possible.
> >
> > dxc.us6iq.com
> > dxc.ham.hr
> > 9a0dxc.hamradio.hr
> > remo3.renet.ru
> > cluster.sk4bw.net
> > ax25.org
> > sk3w.se
> > sector7.nu
> > sm7gvf.dyndns.org
> >
> > I setup my internet router to re-route these addresses (and ports) to a
> > Cluster Node I have setup locally for testing to avoid spotting to the
> > live Cluster.
> >
> > Then left the ROS software in RX mode (no TX) monitoring 20M. Over 20
> > spots were generated over a 2 hour period. Different comment strings
> > were sent in the spots.
> >
> > A closer inspection of the internal code of ROS reveals randomising code
> > (select a random string) and the following hard-coded Cluster spotting
> > strings.
> >
> > "tnx ros mode"
> > "73 ROS Mode"
> > "tnx fer ROS QSO"
> > "ROS 599"
> > "ROS 559"
> > "CQ ROS"
> > "CQ ROS Mode"
> > "CQ ROS."
> > "ROS"
> > "ros"
> > "599 ROS Mode"
> > "73, ros mode"
> > "ROS, 73"
> > "tu ROS Mode"
> > "ROS test"
> > "copy ROS Mode - dB"
> > "ROS QSO "
> > "ros mode "
> > "ROS Mode "
> > "599 ROS - dB"
> > "ROS - dB at "
> > "ROS CQ - dB"
> > "ROS. TNX QSO. 73 "
> >
> > ,  are substitued with the configured settings and  the
> > received S/N ratio.
> >
> > Clearly the use of several variations of text, mixing upper- &
> > lower-case letters, 599 & 559 reports is all designed to make anyone
> > viewing the Cluster think that these ROS spots are Human generated and
> > not auto-spot spam.
> >
> > The ROS developer has NOT documented, in ether the User Guide or FAQ,
> > this auto-spot advertising facility of his software.
> >
> > My observations.
> >
> > de Laurie, VK3AMA
> >
>
>  
>



-- 
Dave
K3DCW
www.k3dcw.net

"Real radio bounces off of the sky"


[digitalradio] Re: Testing Confirms ROS Autospot Behaviour

2010-07-10 Thread g4ilo
As a (retired) amateur software developer myself I cannot imagine why the 
developer did it this way instead of letting people pick their own cluster 
(preferably one located near them) and send their own spots manually. It would 
have been easier. Connecting to random servers and sending randomly selected 
text strings is often a hallmark of malware. Perhaps he has developed a clever 
way of stealing passwords without people realizing it? You know, like those 
coded messages where the secret text was made from the first letter of every 
line. I'm not saying it's actually likely but you have to wonder why he has 
made such a bizarre design decision.

If nothing else it shows how easy it is to get people to load software on their 
computer when they have no real idea who the developer is or what the software 
may be doing.

Julian, G4ILO

--- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, "Laurie, VK3AMA"  wrote:
>
> Yesterday I ran some tests and can confirm that ROS software (Betas 
> 4.5.7, 4.5.8, 4.6.0 & 4.6.2) is auto-spotting to the cluster without any 
> control from the op.
> 
> ROS has hard-coded the following Clusters and connects to one of these 
> if possible.
> 
> dxc.us6iq.com
> dxc.ham.hr
> 9a0dxc.hamradio.hr
> remo3.renet.ru
> cluster.sk4bw.net
> ax25.org
> sk3w.se
> sector7.nu
> sm7gvf.dyndns.org
> 
> I setup my internet router to re-route these addresses (and ports) to a 
> Cluster Node I have setup locally for testing to avoid spotting to the 
> live Cluster.
> 
> Then left the ROS software in RX mode (no TX) monitoring 20M. Over 20 
> spots were generated over a 2 hour period. Different comment strings 
> were sent in the spots.
> 
> A closer inspection of the internal code of ROS reveals randomising code 
> (select a random string) and the following hard-coded Cluster spotting 
> strings.
> 
> "tnx ros mode"
> "73 ROS Mode"
> "tnx fer ROS QSO"
> "ROS 599"
> "ROS 559"
> "CQ ROS"
> "CQ ROS Mode"
> "CQ ROS."
> "ROS"
> "ros"
> "599 ROS Mode"
> "73, ros mode"
> "ROS, 73"
> "tu ROS Mode"
> "ROS test"
> "copy ROS Mode - dB"
> "ROS QSO "
> "ros mode "
> "ROS Mode "
> "599 ROS - dB"
> "ROS - dB at "
> "ROS CQ - dB"
> "ROS. TNX QSO. 73 "
> 
> ,  are substitued with the configured settings and  the 
> received S/N ratio.
> 
> Clearly the use of several variations of text, mixing upper- & 
> lower-case letters, 599 & 559 reports is all designed to make anyone 
> viewing the Cluster think that these ROS spots are Human generated and 
> not auto-spot spam.
> 
> The ROS developer has NOT documented, in ether the User Guide or FAQ, 
> this auto-spot advertising facility of his software.
> 
> My observations.
> 
> de Laurie, VK3AMA
>




[digitalradio] Re : testing confirms ROS,,,,,,,,,,,

2010-07-10 Thread raf3151019
Well, would you believe it ! So what happens now ?

Mel G0GQK