Cheap GPS Loggers for FAI Badges - Status?

If I want to learn how to interface with some garmin
gps from my pc, I can google for the specification
of the garmin interace and slap together some C code
to upload a trace or otherwise fiddle with my logger
unit.

And I can do the same by opening an approved FR and fiddling
with the GPS streams from the engine, and I can do that at
home without an OO watching and get a world record.

Actually, that is a false assumption.
The "Technical Specification" for IGC Approved FR specifically requires that
any "interference" (such as opening the box or electronically fiddling with
the unit) will activate an internal device that erases the Digital Security
code of the box, which is unique to each FR serial#.
So all traces generated during or after the "interference" will not
validate.
Their security signature will be invalid, as any IGC reading program will
say.
If you try to manually edit that file, it will generate yet another
inconsistency in the signature.

The only way to get a "violated" FR back to "secure" mode is to send it back
to the manufacturer, which has to insert a new, one-time digital security
code that is specific to that particular unit's serial #, assigned by the
IGC.

In other words, if you open your FR, the only way you will get it to
generate a secure (valid) tracklog is by involving the manufacturer and the
IGC.

I don't think this is something you can work around at home, no matter how
much of an electronic genious you are.

Arbr64 wrote:

In other words, if you open your FR, the only way you will get it to
generate a secure (valid) tracklog is by involving the manufacturer and the
IGC.

I don't think this is something you can work around at home, no matter how
much of an electronic genious you are.

Please read Mike Borgelt's post about this issue.

/Janos

Jamie Denton wrote:
Your silver, as it stands at the moment, says to an
insurance company that, with an amount of certainty,
that you have a certain level of competence neccesary
for the silver badge, introducing COTS loggers for
the silvers cannot help but reduce that level of certainty,
as cannot be avoided that it is easier to hack these
devices (due to there being easier ways to manipulate
files these devices, I'm not saying current loggers
are immune to hacking, but COTS systems certainly lower
the bar).

The security system surrounding badges isn't only the log file but the
entire set of circumstances surrounding the flight. That's why the OO
is still an integral part of the system despite all the IGC's efforts to
dehumanise it. It's unrealistic to try to build a system based solely
on "impregnable" technology as the IGC seems to have set out to do.

Here's how silly it is. The level of security around the logbooks and
licence required to get a pilot's job at an airline is orders of
magnitude less than for the documentation required to claim a Silver
Badge! The basis for the logbook and licence security (and it's not
perfect, it's adequate) is the web of checkable human contacts defined
in those documents. No sealed loggers are involved.

The OO is the link with a similar human web for the badge system and,
used properly, would provide adequate surety that the flight is genuine
while allowing significantly less secure - and much cheaper - technology
to be used.

Perfection in human affairs is unattainable. Adequate security is all
you can usefully aim for. Excessive security is very wasteful and
expensive as the soaring community now knows. Reducing excessive to
adequate would be a win for the entire gliding community.

Hypothetically, taken to it's extreme, if silver paperwork
became a self declaration job, involving you to simply
self declare you completed the task, with no OO or
logger evidence, we would not expect an insurance company
to take it seriously as a measure of competance, as
there is no worthwhile evidence.

Nobody suggested that. Adequate security doesn't mean no security.

If we allow COTS units, we lower the standard of proof
neccesary for badges, we devalue the Silver badge etc
in the eyes of the insurance companies...

I'd be careful before lowering the bar... few people
may cheat, but insurance companies don't always act
rationally....

Yes they do. They're going to set their premiums where they can make a
profit based on claims experience. Just like they do now.

Graeme Cant

Paul Repacholi wrote:
...
But you don't have to fake the file, just fake the signals into the
FAI logger and use a pressure chamber.

Some one should submit a `suitable' claim file, flown at 100K' with
all the security intact.

Logging raw satelite data and carrier phase would be a bit more
secure, it could be post proscessed when the prescision ephemeris data
is available a few days later. It would be REALLY hard to predict that!
...


Todd Pattist wrote:
...
He doesn't have to fake it. When you buy an approved FR, it
comes with software and hardware right inside the FR that
will create the digital signature he needs. All the fancy
cryptography we use is based on keeping the secret key a
secret, but the way we use it, we have to put the secret key
and the software and hardware that use that key to create
the digital signature inside the box the pilot owns. The
security boils down to a switch inside a box closed with
some screws.
...

But in these both cases we are no more at the level of what
a 12 years old boy can do with his home computer.

Never has so much been written by so many about so little.

Allan


"Graeme Cant" wrote in message
...
Jamie Denton wrote:
Your silver, as it stands at the moment, says to an
insurance company that, with an amount of certainty,
that you have a certain level of competence neccesary
for the silver badge, introducing COTS loggers for
the silvers cannot help but reduce that level of certainty,
as cannot be avoided that it is easier to hack these
devices (due to there being easier ways to manipulate
files these devices, I'm not saying current loggers
are immune to hacking, but COTS systems certainly lower
Snip

Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jun 2004 13:22:00 +0200, Janos Bauer

How does it devalue the Silver C? It's just another way of documenting
it...

Sure, if there's a proper paper trail - by that I mean with some sort
of approved FR and the paper work inspected, checked and signed off by
an OO then no problem. COTS is OK if they get type approval and/or the
IGC publish an FR requirements spec and mandate that the pilot must
demonstrate that his FR can match or exceed that spec.

I think a lot of us think that the O/O looking at the trace immediately
after the flight is really the key. It's hard to
fake a trace with the takeoff and release happening at
exactly the time and place the towpilot observed, and
then modifying it in flight. A good O/O should be
able to notice such discrepencies...

Just my opinion, but I think the O/O is the real key, not the
logger security...
--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA

Mark James Boyd wrote:


I think a lot of us think that the O/O looking at the trace immediately
after the flight is really the key. It's hard to
fake a trace with the takeoff and release happening at
exactly the time and place the towpilot observed, and
then modifying it in flight. A good O/O should be
able to notice such discrepencies...

Just my opinion, but I think the O/O is the real key, not the
logger security...

How about a distance flight that ends at a different airfield? It might
be hours - or the next day - before the OO can examine the trace. For
these kinds of flights, should the COTs be sealed in a box, or are you
assuming it already is?


--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Unrelated to security, but still on the thread.

Has anybody bothered to read Annex B, the section on altitude measurement.
It's a hoot. It's not really rules so much as a combination white
paper/position paper. But I digress...

In the same section, we have a statement that one can use "Optical
Measurement from the Ground" (ie. the good old fashioned start gate) and
Radar Ranging (!) if "accurate enough for the purpose" (with the word
"accurate" not defined) to validate start height followed by a section with
a long discourse on how GPS Altitude isn't suitably accurate for
measurement.

If that doesn't give everyone some indication of what a strange mix the IGC
has created in terms of standards and accuracy acceptability, I don't know
what does.

Erik Mann


"Mark James Boyd" wrote in message
news:40cd4e88$1@darkstar...
Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jun 2004 13:22:00 +0200, Janos Bauer

How does it devalue the Silver C? It's just another way of documenting
it...

Sure, if there's a proper paper trail - by that I mean with some sort
of approved FR and the paper work inspected, checked and signed off by
an OO then no problem. COTS is OK if they get type approval and/or the
IGC publish an FR requirements spec and mandate that the pilot must
demonstrate that his FR can match or exceed that spec.

I think a lot of us think that the O/O looking at the trace immediately
after the flight is really the key. It's hard to
fake a trace with the takeoff and release happening at
exactly the time and place the towpilot observed, and
then modifying it in flight. A good O/O should be
able to notice such discrepencies...

Just my opinion, but I think the O/O is the real key, not the
logger security...
--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA

Forgot the link:

http://www.fai.org/sporting_code/sc3b.pdf

"Papa3" wrote in message
ink.net...
Unrelated to security, but still on the thread.

Has anybody bothered to read Annex B, the section on altitude measurement.
It's a hoot. It's not really rules so much as a combination white
paper/position paper. But I digress...

In the same section, we have a statement that one can use "Optical
Measurement from the Ground" (ie. the good old fashioned start gate) and
Radar Ranging (!) if "accurate enough for the purpose" (with the word
"accurate" not defined) to validate start height followed by a section
with
a long discourse on how GPS Altitude isn't suitably accurate for
measurement.

If that doesn't give everyone some indication of what a strange mix the
IGC
has created in terms of standards and accuracy acceptability, I don't know
what does.

Erik Mann


"Mark James Boyd" wrote in message
news:40cd4e88$1@darkstar...
Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jun 2004 13:22:00 +0200, Janos Bauer

How does it devalue the Silver C? It's just another way of
documenting
it...

Sure, if there's a proper paper trail - by that I mean with some sort
of approved FR and the paper work inspected, checked and signed off by
an OO then no problem. COTS is OK if they get type approval and/or the
IGC publish an FR requirements spec and mandate that the pilot must
demonstrate that his FR can match or exceed that spec.

I think a lot of us think that the O/O looking at the trace immediately
after the flight is really the key. It's hard to
fake a trace with the takeoff and release happening at
exactly the time and place the towpilot observed, and
then modifying it in flight. A good O/O should be
able to notice such discrepencies...

Just my opinion, but I think the O/O is the real key, not the
logger security...
--

------------+
Mark Boyd
Avenal, California, USA

Pete Brown wrote
Let's keep a bit of perspective. These badges are primarily
a record of personal achievement, very little more.

Well, not quite. For one thing, they are used as a prerequisite for
entering contests. For another, lots of people seem determined to
prevent 'dilution' of the accomplishment, for whatever reason. Some
mention insurance, but I've never had an insurer inquire about my
badges.

I don't have a Silver badge. I suppose that had I been more concerned
with documenting rather than flying I might. I didn't own a logger,
or a barograph for that matter, but my club had barographs and I'm
certain that had I asked, I could have borrowed one. I know, because
I remember seeing a pilot trying to get a barograph to work and
filling in paperwork while I was getting ready to make a flight. It
didn't look like fun. See, that's what flying is about for me -
having fun.

I flew to a nearby (60 km) field, but that didn't seem like much of a
challenge. At that point I was glad I hadn't bothered with a
barograph, because I decided to turn around and come home. I knew
there was a way to make the flight count anyway, with a turnpoint
camera and a barograph, but the last time someone tried to explain how
that worked to me, my eyes glazed over. I guess I wasn't up to the
challenge.

Getting home, fighting a 30kt headwind in a metal ship, almost landing
out - THAT was a challenge. I'm really glad I made that flight - it
taught me things about soaring that no book can teach. I wrote about
that flight for this newsgroup when it happened.

Soon thereafter, I heard there was going to be a local contest. I
knew I had no chance of winning, but I considered entering anyway,
just for the experience. I was thinking about getting my glider
instructor rating, and I felt that flying in a contest was something I
ought to experience. Certainly participating in a skydiving
competition is required to become a skydiving instructor, and I always
thought the requirement was a good one.

Turned out I needed a Silver badge. It was kind of amusing, because
another pilot was dead set on entering the contest. Like me, he had
already flown a qualifying flight, and unlike me he actually attempted
to document it - but something had gone wrong with the documentation
and he needed to redo it. The day was marginal, but he declared the
flight, saying that he would either get his Silver that day or land
out. He landed out. I believe he eventually got the SSA to accept
his original documentation and entered the contest. He was
persistent. I guess I wasn't.

I never did enter a contest. I eventually got my glider instructor
rating and taught some. I still fly a great deal, but mostly in
power. Less hassle, more fun. I still teach too, but also mostly in
power. I just finished teaching a glider pilot to fly instruments.
He also doesn't have a Silver badge, even though he has made more than
one qualifying flight. He doesn't fly gliders anymore either. But
hey, I'm sure keeping guys like us out is a small price to pay for
maintaining the integrity of the badge system. After all, if we were
truly serious, we would have overcome the obstacles. I'm sure soaring
is better off without us.

Michael