"Ian Forbes" wrote in message
...
wrote:

The sad thing is I think that this has just dealt a blow to those, who
like myself, who would like to see records from commercial grade GPS
equipment accepted for badge claims (especially silver and gold).


Ian

Ian,

I'm afraid you may be right, but that doesn't mean it's logical. Let's
take a journey down memory lane for a moment:

Suppose we are back in the dark ages, when Barographs ruled the sky. Then,
let's suppose I really, really wanted my gold climb but lacked either the
aptitude or patience to get it. What to do? For starters, I could take a
stroll to my local clock repair shop. The mechanism on the inside of a
typical barograph is no more sophisticated (actually less sophisticated)
than your typical grandfather clock (this isn't just supposition - a club
member had his Winter repaired by a local Cuckoo Clock maker). A little
adjustment to the "gain" on the recording stylus with a commensurate tweak
to the rate of rotation (so as not to raise any suspicions about the rate of
climb) and voila - the extra thousand or so feet I need. Of course, this
is all done on a recently calibrated device, complete with current
calibration trace.

Is this far-fetched? Absolutely. But no more farfetched than the arguments
being put forth by those trying to find reasons not to allow COTS GPS
devices for basic badges. The sport survived for 70+ years without dual
recording mechanisms, and we still seemed to be confident in the validity of
the majority of flight claims. Why have we lost all sense of proportion?

Let's fast forward to today. Suppose I want to set the Standard Class
straight distance to a goal record (okay, not an FAI record, but bear with
me). I mount my secure logger to the glider, declare my flight, and off I
go. Oh, but I decided to strap the 18M tips on, just to give me that 10%
extra float to extend the last glide. Could I find an OO willing to look
the other way (or who might be ignorant enough not to notice an extra 3M of
span)? I'm sure I could, especially if I wanted to make a small donation.
So, off I go, and I finish the flight. The log file is downloaded in the
presence of a bonded agent of Price Waterhouse Coopers, the 512bit
encryption checks out, and I'm now the record holder. My East Coast buddies
know me as an outstanding standard class pilot :-)), so no red flags are
raised.

Is this far-fetched. Absolutely. But is it more likely than somebody
spending a few hundred hours and $$ building a GPS-signal generator. I
think so. The first rule of security is to look at the system as a whole.
Financial services companies learned long ago that all of the firewalls in
the world can't prevent a couple of individuals on the inside from doing a
world of harm.

The only solution to the intransigence of certain parties (I have agreed to
refrain from name calling) is for the grass roots folks to go directly to
their national Soaring Associations and say - "enough". As long as there
is a role for an OO in the system (and there always will be), security is
simply a matter of good process. It will never be perfect.

Erik Mann (P3)