Help us with this petition for security on anti-collision systems

On Friday, May 22, 2015 at 9:33:48 PM UTC+1, wrote:
"Well said Wolf. It's not a win-win situation. Simply said Flarm uses its dominant position to try to make more money. Business decision. What is wrong is that someone ask to have Flarm on board. They should ask an anti collision system based on a protocol certified by a third party (IGC???)"

That would be fair enough - if (and its a big if) the IGC had established both a communication protocol and (crucially) a collision prediction algorithm tailored for gliders that they were prepared to continually develop and update - then it would have been perfectly logical for those to be made open to all developers. That is a route that could have been taken but it is extremely unlikely that a body such as the IGC could have had the idea, the means and the will to have done so. In the real world it was done commercially and there are 25,000 Flarm units already installed and you have simply missed the boat. Many of those will be in club gliders and many others in syndicated gliders so a very conservative estimate would be 50,000+ pilots flying using Flarm at present. 500 supporting the petition is probably about 1% of the number of users. It would be very interesting to know how many of those signing the petition are actually current Flarm users.

Your petition only mentions the communication protocols. Flarm is both the communication protocol plus the collision warning algorithm. For the rest of us who have already paid for, and are using, Flarm the prospect of competing systems has no gain and increases the possibility of incompatible warning algorithms.

John Galloway

Well this is an interesting point. I personally believe that the Flarm's users should also sign and the reason is easy: if they are a monopolist they can always decide to charge, as an example, a fee for using their device. If you put (always as an example) 100 EURO per year they could make 2.5 million per year on license fee. Not bad for them, not so sure for the users.....

Apparently you don't like democracy but you definitely like the Internet. CISCO has the vast majority of the router but they do not own the IP protocol. This is just to make an analogy with a market a bit bigger ....

Sergio Elia

Well this is an interesting point. I personally believe that the Flarm's users should also sign and the reason is easy: if they are a monopolist they can always decide to charge, as an example, a fee for using their device. If you put (always as an example) 100 EURO per year they could make 2.5 million per year on license fee. Not bad for them, not so sure for the users.....

Apparently Alexander doesn't like democracy on this but we all definitely like the Internet. CISCO has the vast majority of the router but they do not own the IP protocol. This is just to make an analogy with a market a bit bigger ....

At 10:30 22 May 2015, wrote:
Hi,
we recently launched a petition against Flarm decision to encrypt
their
communication protocols.

Although Flarm have the majority of the market for anti-collision
systems
there are others vendors and we think that monopolies are not a
good things
in any market and more important security comes first.

For this reasons we invite you to subscribe our campaign.

https://www.change.org/p/mr-urs-roth...larm-chairman-
petition-against-flarm-decision-to-encrypt-the-communication-
protocol


Thank you so much!
Sergio

I'm afraid this is all a bit pointless, flarm is yesterday's company. If
I held them I'd be selling the stock, and if I could I'd be shorting it.
In 10 years you'll be saying flar...who? Why do I say this? Well as a
typical monopoly they have refused to innovate, and as usual this
works for a while, but the writing is now on the wall... The OGN
have published their tracker spec.. and if you look at it, it 'could' do
everything a flarm does... but at $30.. Now I know it doesn't right
now, but look through their code.. it's like 10 lines extra... and at a
size weight and power that would appeal to a whole host of other
users, paragliders, hanggliders, UAVS... a few glider pilots will be
irrelevant.... do you really think they won't?

I'd leave flarm to their own little bubble... you'll have exactly what
you want in a few years..

Why does Ebay have a monopoly when anyone could build a site and undercut them?

It's because the market for auctions is winner takes all. As a buyer you don't care which site you go to, you are just after the cheapest price.

As a seller you can only use one site per item, and you go to the one with the biggest number of users and hence the greatest number of people trying to buy. The listing costs in most cases are dwarfed by the money you make from the competition.

So with flarm, its a case that people are going to go with one system, and that's going to be determined by the number of users, or its mandated by law.

I don't "own" a Flarm, but I fly sailplanes that have them.

-I think it's good for the "intended user".
-I wish it "talked" to other "users" (namely commercial/private USA pilots)
-I "believe" a large "user group" of Flarm users have a bigger impact on what Flarm does than "petition" does.

In general, the market drives the company. If the company IGNORES the users, then the company dies.
Sorta "Business 101".

While I understand this thread, I feel there is a better way to drive Flarm.
If they're resistant, then they will fail and thousands of users will "jump ship" and go another direction.

Just saying.........

PS, Flarm, are you listening?!?!?........ "Poop or get off the pot".

PPS, not saying this has to be open source, but if you want to sell more systems, it "should" cover upcoming regulations (in various countries) reg's for collision avoidance.
The superfulace (sp) stuff may be nice, but NOT regulated/mandated.

On 22/05/2015 12:30, wrote:
Hi,
we recently launched a petition against Flarm decision to encrypt their communication protocols.

Although Flarm have the majority of the market for anti-collision systems there are others vendors and we think that monopolies are not a good things in any market and more important security comes first.

For this reasons we invite you to subscribe our campaign.

https://www.change.org/p/mr-urs-roth...ation-protocol

Thank you so much!
Sergio


There is going to be a lot of emotion around this. But from my personal
viewpoint. My club adopted Flarm back in 2004/2005. I think we were one
of the first sites outside of Europe to attempt to reach threshold usage
level required to make the system effective.

At the time Flarm was an experimental idea. Nobody knew if it would
work. As much as some US pilots have indicated reluctance to accept the
idea when first introduced to them, some of our members were also
sceptical. Yet a number of our members risked our own cash to buy the
first and 2nd batches of flarm for our private gliders (which took
nearly a year to arrive). Then we used club cash to buy units for the
club ships.

We made this risk investment on the understanding that Flarm was a
non-profit, good for glider pilots movement, empowered to a large extent
by voluntary man hours. We added to their efforts with testing and
regular feedback.

Now Flarm is commercially viable. I see it as having application in a
lot of GA aircraft as well as unmanned drones as well as gliders. It
works and I am a fan of the technology.

But I feel that encrypting the protocol goes against the spirit with
which I, and many other early adopters made risk investments.

On Sunday, May 24, 2015 at 12:00:10 AM UTC+3, Nick wrote:
Why does Ebay have a monopoly when anyone could build a site and undercut them?

It's because the market for auctions is winner takes all. As a buyer you don't care which site you go to, you are just after the cheapest price.

As a seller you can only use one site per item, and you go to the one with the biggest number of users and hence the greatest number of people trying to buy. The listing costs in most cases are dwarfed by the money you make from the competition.

So with flarm, its a case that people are going to go with one system, and that's going to be determined by the number of users, or its mandated by law.

Ebay is a good example. In New Zealand they got their arses kicked by local site TradeMe.

Or Starbucks. Why is Starbucks a virtual monopoly in the USA? They also got their arses kicked in both New Zealand and Australia, where they couldn't compete with local boutique cafes (not even another chain) and have closed something like 80% of their stores.

But I feel that encrypting the protocol goes against the spirit with
which I, and many other early adopters made risk investments.

As a matter of fact a FLARM customer might very well receive this communication soon:

"Dear Flarm customer, as already announced four years ago the new firmware release 6.0 prevents DSX devices from exchanging position, speed and altitude data with our products operating this release. In case of a mid air collision we do not take responsibility for the DSX pilot as he/she chose to buy an incompatible device. As for that one of our customers, who will happen to be involved in accident we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for choosing FLARM."

ROTFL