OLC - Action Needed

[Ian Cant]

This OLC validation problem affects us all by turning
away a large proportion of participants and thus devaluing
the meaning of the contest.

I have sent the following e-mail to
and copied it to to see if we can get
some corrective action. I would encourage all other
participants to do the same.

Ian

'There is a most serious problem affecting OLC 2006.
A high proportion of
flights are being rejected as invalid, although there
is no reason to think
this is anything but a validation software deficiency.

For example, on Sunday 2 April, 14 out of 43 US flights
over 50 km were
rejected. Internationally, 25 out of 152 were rejected.
These include
flights by experienced OLC pilots who are accustomed
to the upload
procedures.

Rejection rates of this magnitude call into question
the validity of the
entire competition and undermine its intent to encourage
participation.

Please fix the problem. It would also be equitable
to reinstate all flights
wrongly rejected since the beginning of the OLC season.

Sincerely,

Ian Cant'

[Stewart Kissel]

Response from an email I sent to Dennis..


We have a team of volunteers working on the problem
with the older Cambridge loggers and the OLC. They
tell me that they think they have a fix identified
and in the works....so, stand by. Our goal is to make
it easy for everyone to participate in OLC

[Greg Arnold]

Yes, the OLC will die unless something is done. Anyone out there
interested in starting an OLC competitor?

I already sent an email to the OLC, but to . What
is their correct email address?


Ian Cant wrote:
> This OLC validation problem affects us all by turning
> away a large proportion of participants and thus devaluing
> the meaning of the contest.
>
> I have sent the following e-mail to
> and copied it to to see if we can get
> some corrective action. I would encourage all other
> participants to do the same.
>
> Ian
>
> 'There is a most serious problem affecting OLC 2006.
> A high proportion of
> flights are being rejected as invalid, although there
> is no reason to think
> this is anything but a validation software deficiency.
>
> For example, on Sunday 2 April, 14 out of 43 US flights
> over 50 km were
> rejected. Internationally, 25 out of 152 were rejected.
> These include
> flights by experienced OLC pilots who are accustomed
> to the upload
> procedures.
>
> Rejection rates of this magnitude call into question
> the validity of the
> entire competition and undermine its intent to encourage
> participation.
>
> Please fix the problem. It would also be equitable
> to reinstate all flights
> wrongly rejected since the beginning of the OLC season.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ian Cant'
>
>
>

[Greg Arnold]

Stewart Kissel wrote:
> Response from an email I sent to Dennis..
>
>
> We have a team of volunteers working on the problem
> with the older Cambridge loggers and the OLC. They
> tell me that they think they have a fix identified
> and in the works....so, stand by. Our goal is to make
> it easy for everyone to participate in OLC

Why not go back to last year's rule, which is that a file that fails
security gets a red mark, but still counts in the standings? If this
was done retroactively, it would change around the standings some, but
the new standings would correctly reflect the flights made this OLC year.

[[email protected]]

Please be polite when communicating your desires and concerns to the
OLC folks.

If you get really frustrated you can ask for a refund.

2NO

[[email protected]]

Gentle, but persistent urging to fix the interface makes the most sense
to me. The community is too small to support multiple OLC's.

That said, there are some real and persistent problems. In the past
two weeks, I've had a 300k plus flight up the Owens scored at 84 k. On
Saturday I posted a flight and had the validation fail. I removed it
and went through EXACTLY the same process and it took the second time.

I'm sure these and other problems can be fixed. Also, it would seem to
me that the programmers at SeeYou, StrePla and WinPilot would have some
incentive to make their products interface seamlessly with the OLC;
which ever one of them succeeds would, IMHO, have a real competitive
advantage.

Ray Warshaw
1LK

[Richard]

tuno,

Your email suggest that the OLC is free. It definitely is not! Ask
the manufacture's and software developers whose logos are on their
site. I believe the going rate is $1500 to $2000 per year or maybe $0
depending on who you are. They are also charging the SSA a fee.

Richard

wrote:
> Please be polite when communicating your desires and concerns to the
> OLC folks.
>
> If you get really frustrated you can ask for a refund.
>
> 2NO

[[email protected]]

Richard,

> Your email suggest that the OLC is free.

It does, and it is.

> It definitely is not!

You are surely smoking something good!

OLC is like a free newspaper. You don't pay a thing to be its consumer.
The advertisers who pay to make it possible to so as a voluntary
investment, for which they hope to get a return.

I did something similar to OLC for years and the reason I quit was
because of whining crybabies who complained too much about what they
weren't paying a dime for. I love the OLC and I don't want to see the
same thing happen to them.

~ted/2NO

[Greg Arnold]

wrote:
> Richard,
>
>> Your email suggest that the OLC is free.
>
> It does, and it is.
>
>> It definitely is not!
>
> You are surely smoking something good!
>
> OLC is like a free newspaper. You don't pay a thing to be its consumer.
> The advertisers who pay to make it possible to so as a voluntary
> investment, for which they hope to get a return.

I think the point is that the OLC is a money-making venture, and thus
the OLC people are not volunteers doing this for free. Also, regarding
the free newspaper that collects advertising revenue -- if it could be
improved in certain respects, you would not point this out to the
editors due to the fact that it was free to you?

>
> I did something similar to OLC for years and the reason I quit was
> because of whining crybabies who complained too much about what they
> weren't paying a dime for. I love the OLC and I don't want to see the
> same thing happen to them.

I think we all like the OLC. It is just that some of us are concerned
that it will not fulfill its potential unless changes are made.

>
> ~ted/2NO
>

[[email protected]]

Check my original comment, it says "If you get really frustrated you
can ask for a refund". I was making no direct comment about whether the
OLC folks are in it for the money; I was attempting to suggest that one
shouldn't complain carelessly about what one gets for free, or else you
run the risk of chasing it away, and you end up with zilch, zip, zero,
nada.

I viewed Ian's original complaint as a little borderline -- valid,
potentially, but lacking in technical detail and approaching the "wah,
wah, wah!" tone a little too closely for my comfort.

Long live OLC!

~ted/2NO

[Greg Arnold]

wrote:
> Check my original comment, it says "If you get really frustrated you
> can ask for a refund". I was making no direct comment about whether the
> OLC folks are in it for the money; I was attempting to suggest that one
> shouldn't complain carelessly about what one gets for free, or else you
> run the risk of chasing it away, and you end up with zilch, zip, zero,
> nada.

True. Or constructive comments may improve it.

>
> I viewed Ian's original complaint as a little borderline -- valid,
> potentially, but lacking in technical detail and approaching the "wah,
> wah, wah!" tone a little too closely for my comfort.
>
> Long live OLC!
>
> ~ted/2NO
>

[Frank Whiteley]

OLC was discussed at the SSA Governors and Record Keepers luncheon and
at the Colorado Governor's seminar with SSA input.

It is not free, cost of hosting and bandwidth is approximately $4US per
participant. It is hoped that those costs will be borne through
advertising.

Development is understood to be contributed. Perhaps paid staff could
be more responsive when there are issues of concern. Although there
appear to be some issues, there also appear to be work arounds and, but
even here the occassional glitch (maybe some testing of solutions?).
I've been dismayed at the number of unscored flights also, but I think
word is still getting out about the work arounds and patches and some
pilots are just finding this out. Maybe OLC should be like Google and
put Beta here and there.

Frank Whiteley

[[email protected]]

Greg, that was the intent of the "be polite" suggestion in my original
reply. I saw more demanding in Ian's original post than I did
constructive criticism, which would have included something specific or
detailed about why USA flights are being rejected where others are not.

As a total package, OLC is fantastic. They will respond better to
polite requests than they will to demands through the bureaucracy. Been
that, done there.

2NO

[Mike the Strike]

The OLC computers are infested by an alien life force. It now rejects
my Volkslogger files, downloaded with Connectme and uploaded with
SeeYou. No weird or outdated equipment here.

I can understand people getting frustrated as the system changes faster
than we can adapt to it.

Mike

[Mike the Strike]

So how come OLC is rejecting my Volkslogger files? No Cambridges in my
cockpit.

Mike

[Cliff Hilty]

Interestingly, my older EW downlaoded with ewuploader
then optimized with SeeYou then uploaded and flight
claimed to the OLC is accepted. However when, as happened
last Sat, I use ewuploader then edit by adding my name
and ship ect. under the HTDTE line, so that Winscore
can accept it, and did, the file is corrupt according
to OLC and was not scored. I loaded it through the
web this time not SeeYou. It just seems like it is
a lot more work this year than it was last and its
very frustrating!


At 13:12 04 April 2006, Mike The Strike wrote:
>So how come OLC is rejecting my Volkslogger files?
> No Cambridges in my
>cockpit.
>
>Mike
>
>

[jcarlyle]

I finally managed to upload a file from my Cambridge Model 25 today,
after a 3 hour hassle. While I understand Tim Newport-Peace's comment
about the "real problem lying with Cambridge", the problems I was
having appear to be due solely to the very poor OLC interface design.

I made my initial cai file by downloading from the flight recorder
using data-cam under DOS, which also created the initial igc file. This
igc file isn't acceptable to OLC, so I then used their cai2igc routine
under DOS to create an acceptable igc file. I then opened this igc file
with SeeYou (which has the 04/03/2006 patch), and after many tries got
OLC to accept the flight.

My suspicion is that what finally worked was, just before claiming the
flight, I clicked the button at the very bottom of the OLC Flight Claim
page labeled "read old OLC-claim into form". Before clicking this
button there was absolutely no indication that there was a problem with
the potential claim, and after clicking the button there was no
indication that anything had changed. However, when the claim was made
after this button was pushed, the flight had all green symbols, whereas
when it hadn't been pushed the flights always had a red validation
symbol.

In my opinion, the OLC people need to hire some professionals to
completely re-write their user interface. I might also suggest that
they simply accept valid cai files (checked with vali-cam), and process
these cai files themselves in any way they desire to get "valid" igc
files.

-John

[Greg Arnold]

jcarlyle wrote:
> I finally managed to upload a file from my Cambridge Model 25 today,
> after a 3 hour hassle. While I understand Tim Newport-Peace's comment
> about the "real problem lying with Cambridge", the problems I was
> having appear to be due solely to the very poor OLC interface design.
>
> I made my initial cai file by downloading from the flight recorder
> using data-cam under DOS, which also created the initial igc file. This
> igc file isn't acceptable to OLC, so I then used their cai2igc routine
> under DOS to create an acceptable igc file. I then opened this igc file
> with SeeYou (which has the 04/03/2006 patch), and after many tries got
> OLC to accept the flight.
>
> My suspicion is that what finally worked was, just before claiming the
> flight, I clicked the button at the very bottom of the OLC Flight Claim
> page labeled "read old OLC-claim into form". Before clicking this
> button there was absolutely no indication that there was a problem with
> the potential claim, and after clicking the button there was no
> indication that anything had changed. However, when the claim was made
> after this button was pushed, the flight had all green symbols, whereas
> when it hadn't been pushed the flights always had a red validation
> symbol.

Yes, I believe the OLC site continues to use the file you uploaded the
first time (without any further security check) unless you upload the
file again as you describe.

>
> In my opinion, the OLC people need to hire some professionals to
> completely re-write their user interface. I might also suggest that
> they simply accept valid cai files (checked with vali-cam), and process
> these cai files themselves in any way they desire to get "valid" igc
> files.
>
> -John
>

[charlie foxtrot]

Well, take one red mark off Sunday's OLC list! I now have two green
circles! What a pain in the butt this was!

What finally worked for me was to delete my original claim from the
OLC, then I installed all of the latest SeeYou patches, I opened my
..CAI file in SeeYou and saved it but with the new filename ending with
a "2" rather than a "1." Finally, I submitted the new flight to the
OLC, and it accepted it. Maybe my GPS-NAV will work for another
season!

Hopefully it works again tomorrow ;P
Chris "CF"

[David Leonard]

Mike the Strike wrote:
> So how come OLC is rejecting my Volkslogger files? No Cambridges in my
> cockpit.
>
> Mike
>
Because your file doesn't pass the validity check. I downloaded and ran
vali-gcs on it, and it gives the same message you see on the OLC. Either
one of your computers hiccupped, or your Volkslogger is homesick and
wants a trip back to Germany.

-Dave
ZL

[Doug Haluza]

Greg Arnold wrote:
> I think the point is that the OLC is a money-making venture, and thus
> the OLC people are not volunteers doing this for free. Also, regarding
> the free newspaper that collects advertising revenue -- if it could be
> improved in certain respects, you would not point this out to the
> editors due to the fact that it was free to you?
>

The OLC is not a "money-making" venture. Segelflugszene, the OLC parent
organization, is a German not-for-profit. All of the work is done by
volunteers. Please keep this in mind.

[Eric Greenwell]

Tim Newport-Peace wrote:

> The REAL problem does not lie with OLC or SeeYou or StrePla or Winpilot.
> It lies with Cambridge Instruments. This is a problem which affects
> files from Legacy Cambridge Recorders and no others.
>
> Despite multiple requests from IGC over many years they have refused to
> implement G-records in the .IGC files.
>
> Short of removing the IGC approval, there is not too much IGC can do.
>
> The proper and long-term fix would be for Cambridge to make their
> product conform to the Specification and their customer's requirements,
> and that is the action that is needed.

But why is it so much worse this year? The Cambridge loggers haven't
changed.


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

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
Operation"

[P. Corbett]

Eric Greenwell wrote:
> Tim Newport-Peace wrote:
>
>> The REAL problem does not lie with OLC or SeeYou or StrePla or Winpilot.
>> It lies with Cambridge Instruments. This is a problem which affects
>> files from Legacy Cambridge Recorders and no others.
>>
>> Despite multiple requests from IGC over many years they have refused to
>> implement G-records in the .IGC files.
>>
>> Short of removing the IGC approval, there is not too much IGC can do.
>>
>> The proper and long-term fix would be for Cambridge to make their
>> product conform to the Specification and their customer's requirements,
>> and that is the action that is needed.
>
>
> But why is it so much worse this year? The Cambridge loggers haven't
> changed.
>
>
SSA?

[Doug Haluza]

You cannot edit the IGC file in any way. If you do, the key will be
invalid. You must also keep the original file name because the date
code is important. The only thing you can do is change the last digit
on the file name. You need to do this to make multiple claims from the
same file. It also works to correct some errors where the original file
is already at the server, and you want to change the claim.

If the name and ship are wrong in the IGC file header, you must edit
them in the OLC web form.

[P. Corbett]

5Z wrote:
> P. Corbett wrote:
>
>>SSA?
>
>
> Some folks solved the problem instead of flinging mud at the wrong
> targets:
> http://tinyurl.com/zdyqz
>
> -Tom
>
Only a question, Tom. I noted that the OLC's problems seem to begin
about the same time period that the SSA became involved. A
coincidence...perhaps.

Paul

[Eric Greenwell]

P. Corbett wrote:
> Eric Greenwell wrote:
>> Tim Newport-Peace wrote:
>>
>>> The REAL problem does not lie with OLC or SeeYou or StrePla or Winpilot.
>>> It lies with Cambridge Instruments. This is a problem which affects
>>> files from Legacy Cambridge Recorders and no others.
>>>
>>> Despite multiple requests from IGC over many years they have refused to
>>> implement G-records in the .IGC files.
>>>
>>> Short of removing the IGC approval, there is not too much IGC can do.
>>>
>>> The proper and long-term fix would be for Cambridge to make their
>>> product conform to the Specification and their customer's requirements,
>>> and that is the action that is needed.
>>
>>
>> But why is it so much worse this year? The Cambridge loggers haven't
>> changed.
>>
>>
> SSA?

Are you guessing, or do you know something? Is the USA the only country
having problems with the older Cambridge loggers?

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

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
Operation"

[P. Corbett]

Eric Greenwell wrote:
> P. Corbett wrote:
>
>> Eric Greenwell wrote:
>>
>>> Tim Newport-Peace wrote:
>>>
>>>> The REAL problem does not lie with OLC or SeeYou or StrePla or
>>>> Winpilot.
>>>> It lies with Cambridge Instruments. This is a problem which affects
>>>> files from Legacy Cambridge Recorders and no others.
>>>>
>>>> Despite multiple requests from IGC over many years they have refused to
>>>> implement G-records in the .IGC files.
>>>>
>>>> Short of removing the IGC approval, there is not too much IGC can do.
>>>>
>>>> The proper and long-term fix would be for Cambridge to make their
>>>> product conform to the Specification and their customer's requirements,
>>>> and that is the action that is needed.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> But why is it so much worse this year? The Cambridge loggers haven't
>>> changed.
>>>
>>>
>> SSA?
>
>
> Are you guessing, or do you know something? Is the USA the only country
> having problems with the older Cambridge loggers?
>
Eric
In a recent personal discussion with Ian Cant, (the originator of this
thread), if I understood him correctly, said that Cambridge logged
flights out of Germany were not being rejected. My appologies to Ian if
I have misquoted him.

To be very clear, I have been an SSA member since 1973, left once and
came back. Over the years I have seen them do a great job at some things
and not so great at others. It seems that prior to the SSA/OLC
affiliation, American pilots could interface with the OLC with minimal
if any comlaints, even while using a wider variety of logger choices. Is
there cause and effect here? It's too early to say and we may never know
so my earlier comment was not an accusation (SSA!) but rather a question
(SSA?).

Soaring is struggling in the US and any barriers that are thrown up to
limit participation in the sport can only make it worse. I believe that
the OLC could be one of the most innovative ways to stimulate interest
in our sport that I have ever seen.

Paul

[Doug Haluza]

The Cambridge security problem was not caused by SSA, but the SSA has
been actively working to resolve the issues.

The problem stems from the fact that the older Cambridge GPS-NAV Model
10/20/25 loggers were designed before the FAI standards were issued.
Cambridge never made these loggers fully standards complient, so they
have always been a special case with their proprietary *.CAI file
format. The OLC has been phasing in security checks over time, and in
November 2005 they stopped letting the Cambridge GPS-NAV files score
without validation (all other loggers required validation by then).
This has nothing to do with the SSA involvement, and affects all
Cambridge GPS-NAV users worldwide.

The SSA-OLC committee has been working very hard on this, since there
are a large number of GPS-NAV users in the US that were affected,
starting with this spring flying season. We have verified that StrePla
users had no problems claiming flights, because StrePla used the same
DOS executable as the OLC to convert the CAI files to IGC format, and
append the CAI data for validation. So StrePla users never had a
problem.

We found that SeeYou users that were able to claim flights prior to
10/2005 could no longer claim flights because SeeYou was using the
Windows DLL, not the DOS executable for the conversion process. The DLL
conversion had different round-off errors that caused the validation to
fail, resulting in the red marks. We were able to encourage Team SeeYou
to quickly implement a patch to use the DOS executable to work around
the problem. This patch is available from their web site at:

http://www.seeyou.si/news/2006/04/gps-nav-patch.html

We also were able to work with Carl Ekdahl who wrote a freeware program
to do the *.CAI file conversion that the commercial programs do
automatically. GPS-NAV users who can barely afford a tow, much less a
commercial flight analysys software package, owe Carl a debt of
gratitude for saving them from the dreaded DOS prompt. ASC has posted
the beta program and detailed instructions at their web site:

http://www.abqsoaring.org/misc_files/CAI_fix.htm

So now there should be no reason that GPS-NAV users cannot post flights
to the OLC as they could before the security checks were enforced.

[Ian Cant]

At 14:18 09 April 2006, P. Corbett wrote:
>In a recent personal discussion with Ian Cant, (the
>originator of this
>thread), if I understood him correctly, said that Cambridge
>logged
>flights out of Germany were not being rejected. My
>appologies to Ian if
>I have misquoted him.
>

To avoid any misunderstanding, let me clarify. I made
a cursory check through the February and March 2006
German daily scores [weekends only] and noticed no
or very few red marks. This suggested to me that the
problem was not common in Germany, but there could
be a number of reasons for that. Later, I checked
one weekend of the International daily scores and found
that the USA was the most heavily affected but France
and Switzerland also had a significant number of red
marks. Other countries may have had some too, this
was only a quick glance through. Such limited samples
should not be relied on to draw broad conclusions,
but they did indicate that there is a serious problem
and it is not isolated to the USA.

The response from both SSA and OLC has been very positive.
Chip Garner and many others have worked to overcome
the technical difficulties and have generated and tried
to publicize effective workarounds and patches. Yesterday's
daily scores from USA show a few red marks [but a huge
number of greyed-out flights], suggesting that the
word is getting out but still has some way to go.
OLC have said that they are considering re-instating
wrongly-rejected flights - please look at

http://www.onlinecontest.org/olcphp/olc-i.php?olc=olc-i


for the full explanation of what has been happening.

I hope this helps.

Ian

[Stewart Kissel]

Hmmm, I coulda sworn the first time I looked at US
OLC from yesterday(Sat), the evil red mark had been
demonized.

I just took a glance again and there seems to be twice
as many unscored flights as those that scored....????

[Greg Arnold]

Ian Cant wrote:

> The response from both SSA and OLC has been very positive.

Is there a reason why the OLC can't design its site so that you upload a
CAI file, and the site takes care of the rest?

> Chip Garner and many others have worked to overcome
> the technical difficulties and have generated and tried
> to publicize effective workarounds and patches. Yesterday's
> daily scores from USA show a few red marks [but a huge
> number of greyed-out flights], suggesting that the
> word is getting out but still has some way to go.
> OLC have said that they are considering re-instating
> wrongly-rejected flights -

I don't understand why haven't they done this already. Otherwise, the
OLC measures two things -- your soaring ability, and your computer
ability. Why is your computer ability relevant?

please look at
>
> http://www.onlinecontest.org/olcphp/olc-i.php?olc=olc-i
>
>
> for the full explanation of what has been happening.
>
> I hope this helps.
>
> Ian
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[Doug Haluza]

OLC is working on rescoring all the Cambridge logs to get rid of the
red marks. Temporarily they all have yellow marks while they are
working on the program. Please be patient....

[Markus Gayda]

Ian Cant schrieb:
> To avoid any misunderstanding, let me clarify. I made
> a cursory check through the February and March 2006
> German daily scores [weekends only] and noticed no
> or very few red marks. This suggested to me that the
> problem was not common in Germany, but there could
> be a number of reasons for that. Later, I checked

There is a very obvious reason why the Cambridge-Problem doesnt really exist in
Germany: we dont usually USE Cambridge Loggers here.
At least i know of no Cambridge loggers anywhere nearby. :-)

Greetings
Markus

[Bill Daniels]

This is a bit of a success story.

After trying no less than six different USB 2.0 to Serial adaptors trying to
download a flight from a Volkslogger with SeeYou, StrePla and DOS, I finally
bought a $75 high-speed serial PCIe card. Using this card, SeeYou
downloaded a secure file from the Volkslogger in about 20 seconds. OLC
accepted the file from SeeYou just as quickly - no red mark.

The USB adaptors seemed to work and would download a non-secure file but the
secure file was always corrupted. USB 2 adaptors may be the source of some
of the problems.

Bill Daniels

[[email protected]]

I uploaded a file from a fairly new Cambridge 302, using SeeYou (3.4)
as always, and for the first time, it's red marked. Tried removing the
claim and uploading manually, no change. Don't see any with yellow
marks.

Will try the SeeYou patch tonight. Does anyone know of any free 3d
party software that does OLC claims like SeeYou? Naviter has a
ConnectMe program that's free. What they need is a SubmitMe program for
OLC!

Patiently,

~ted/2NO

[Greg Arnold]

wrote:
> I uploaded a file from a fairly new Cambridge 302, using SeeYou (3.4)
> as always, and for the first time, it's red marked. Tried removing the
> claim and uploading manually, no change. Don't see any with yellow
> marks.

I have always downloaded from my 302 to an Ipaq using the Cambridge
software. At the end of the download, it will tell you whether the file
passes the security test. Does SeeYou do the same? If not, download
the VALI-CAM2 file from http://www.cambridge-aero.com/300series.htm, and
see if the IGC file passes the security test. If not, download the IGC
file again from the 302. If the file still doesn't pass, contact Cambridge.

>
> Will try the SeeYou patch tonight.

I don't think it will work with the 302, as it is designed to solve a
problem that the 302 doesn't have.


Does anyone know of any free 3d
> party software that does OLC claims like SeeYou? Naviter has a
> ConnectMe program that's free. What they need is a SubmitMe program for
> OLC!
>
> Patiently,
>
> ~ted/2NO
>

[[email protected]]

Thanks Greg. The ValiCam2 program reports:

F:\>i:Valicam2.exe 649C40R1.IGC
ValiCam for the 302 Version 1.0.0

Checking File:649C40R1.IGC ...

Log Data Integrity OK
Signature Data Integrity OK
Security Fail

....

I wonder what would cause a 302's log file to fail? Could this have
been different if I'd used Cambridge's utility to download it instead
of ConnectMe?

-ted

[Marc Ramsey]

wrote:
> I wonder what would cause a 302's log file to fail? Could this have
> been different if I'd used Cambridge's utility to download it instead
> of ConnectMe?

Some versions of SeeYou have known problems with corrupting IGC files
when downloading from secure flight recorders. Make sure you have the
latest version of SeeYou, and if you to be absolutely certain of getting
a valid IGC file, use the short DOS program from the IGC web site...

Marc

[Ian Strachan]

Mike the Strike wrote:
> So how come OLC is rejecting my Volkslogger files? No Cambridges in my
> cockpit.

Question: What type of download are you using? The Garrecht
Volkslogger is a late 1990s design when processor speed and memory size
were not as easy to obtain cheaply as they are today. Therefore
Garrecht proposed two types of data download, a rapid one that had
little or no security encoding and a slower one that has IGC-standard
public/private key encoding embedded in the downloaded IGC file. The
IGC GFA Committee rather reluctantly accepted this, mainly to make it
quicker to deal with downloading in large gliding competitions. The
IGC-approval document for the Volkslogger says:

2.4. Data Transfer from the FR to a PC
The DATA-GCS.EXE file menu provides two modes of transfer, a "Test"
mode and a "High Security" mode. Only the High Security mode
provides the electronic security signature which is required for
validation of FAI/IGC record and badge flights. Data transferred by the
"Test" mode will not be accepted for such flights, and it will not
pass the VALI check (para 5), although competition organizers may allow
it for competition flights where rapid data transfer rather than
security is a priority in well-supervised centralized competitions.

--------- end of extract ----------

Two points:

(1) With the increased availability of cheap rapid processors (as
spin-off from the games industry), non-IGC security is no longer
allowed in an IGC-approved recorder. The Garrecht system above is
therefore a one-off, reflecting the conditions in April 1998 when the
IGC-approval was originally issued.

(2) Not being part of the OLC organisation, I do not know whether they
ask for Volkslogger flights to have the IGC security standard or not.
However, without it the free VALI-GCS.exe validation program will
reject the flight data file concerned.

Ian Strachan
Chairman IGC GFA Committee

[Mike the Strike]

Thanks for the comments, Ian. I am aware of the two modes and use the
fast unsecure method for casual flights. I have been using ConnectMe
to download secure logs from my Volkslogger since participating in the
OLC and have previously had no problems. In this case, there does
appear to be a problem with my file and maybe the issue is not the OLC.

It is frustrating, though, having made a great flight and having to
spend longer downloading and fixing the log than the flight time!
Clearly the security issues are causing more problems than they were
designed to prevent. Like many other glider pilots, I wonder how many
bogus logs there are and even if it would be possible to get away with
one, given so many people watching the forum?

Mike

[Greg Arnold]

It is interesting that the OLC page shows a flight yesterday by Andrej
Kolar (the SeeYou guy) at Ridge Soaring, and it has the red mark, with
the explanation that the Volkslogger file failed security. If Andrej
gets red marks, what hope do the rest of us have?


Mike the Strike wrote:
> Thanks for the comments, Ian. I am aware of the two modes and use the
> fast unsecure method for casual flights. I have been using ConnectMe
> to download secure logs from my Volkslogger since participating in the
> OLC and have previously had no problems. In this case, there does
> appear to be a problem with my file and maybe the issue is not the OLC.
>
> It is frustrating, though, having made a great flight and having to
> spend longer downloading and fixing the log than the flight time!
> Clearly the security issues are causing more problems than they were
> designed to prevent. Like many other glider pilots, I wonder how many
> bogus logs there are and even if it would be possible to get away with
> one, given so many people watching the forum?
>
> Mike
>

[Mike the Strike]

Yes - it looks like he has the same problem as me! At least he has an
incentive to fix it now!

Mike

[Doug Haluza]

No Andrej is testing a problem we found with this particular log file.
Because the claim time window has psassed, he had to deliberaly hack
the date to test it.

This shows one of the reasons why the security check is important. I
think many people are questioning the need for security checks because
it is hard to imagine someone going to all the trouble to completely
fabricate a flight log. That would be very difficult, and it would take
a very sick mind to do something like this. But it is not that hard to
imaging someone taking a little creative license by "fixing" an
airspace bust, or some other "minor" problem in the flight log. It is
also possible to take an old log and recycle it, especially if it was
never claimed to OLC before.

Without the security check, deception like this would be completely
undetectable. In this case, the security checks worked, and the hacked
file was red flagged.

[Paul Remde]

Hi,

I have heard a few rumors about 302 flight logs failing OLC security. There
are 2 possible causes of the issue.

- The flight recorder has lost it's security seal (rare, but it happens)
and must be re-sealed.
- The flight log download process had a hiccup. This is somewhat common
and easy to fix. Just re-download the flight log. The free Cambridge 300
Utility seems to be the most reliable download method - either using a PDA
of PC. After you download the flight log be sure to use the software to
validate the flight log. If the flight log does not pass the security test
then re-download it. I've never needed to re-download myself, but I can't
explain the issues that a few people have had.

Good Soaring,

Paul Remde
Cumulus Soaring, Inc.
http://www.cumulus-soaring.com

-
"Doug Haluza" > wrote in message
ps.com...
> No Andrej is testing a problem we found with this particular log file.
> Because the claim time window has psassed, he had to deliberaly hack
> the date to test it.
>
> This shows one of the reasons why the security check is important. I
> think many people are questioning the need for security checks because
> it is hard to imagine someone going to all the trouble to completely
> fabricate a flight log. That would be very difficult, and it would take
> a very sick mind to do something like this. But it is not that hard to
> imaging someone taking a little creative license by "fixing" an
> airspace bust, or some other "minor" problem in the flight log. It is
> also possible to take an old log and recycle it, especially if it was
> never claimed to OLC before.
>
> Without the security check, deception like this would be completely
> undetectable. In this case, the security checks worked, and the hacked
> file was red flagged.
>

[Bill Daniels]

"Mike the Strike" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Thanks for the comments, Ian. I am aware of the two modes and use the
> fast unsecure method for casual flights. I have been using ConnectMe
> to download secure logs from my Volkslogger since participating in the
> OLC and have previously had no problems. In this case, there does
> appear to be a problem with my file and maybe the issue is not the OLC.
>
> It is frustrating, though, having made a great flight and having to
> spend longer downloading and fixing the log than the flight time!
> Clearly the security issues are causing more problems than they were
> designed to prevent. Like many other glider pilots, I wonder how many
> bogus logs there are and even if it would be possible to get away with
> one, given so many people watching the forum?
>
> Mike
>

Mike, as I mentioned in another post, I just bought a new and expensive
($70) high-speed serial port card for my new winXP desktop. Secure
Volkslogger files now download in seconds using SeeYou and no problems (so
far) with the OLC.

Bill Daniels.

[Paul Remde]

Hi Bill,

I must be missing something. If the VL has its comm port set to 4800 baud,
or even 19,200 baud, how can a high speed comm port speed up downloads? My
experience with RS-232 serial communications is that 4800 to 19200 baud is
about as fast as it can go without errors, depending on the cable length.
Sync-serial communications can be much faster but most devices don't support
that. I'm very curious.

Sincerely,

Paul Remde

"Bill Daniels" <bildan@comcast-dot-net> wrote in message
...
>
> "Mike the Strike" > wrote in message
> ups.com...
>> Thanks for the comments, Ian. I am aware of the two modes and use the
>> fast unsecure method for casual flights. I have been using ConnectMe
>> to download secure logs from my Volkslogger since participating in the
>> OLC and have previously had no problems. In this case, there does
>> appear to be a problem with my file and maybe the issue is not the OLC.
>>
>> It is frustrating, though, having made a great flight and having to
>> spend longer downloading and fixing the log than the flight time!
>> Clearly the security issues are causing more problems than they were
>> designed to prevent. Like many other glider pilots, I wonder how many
>> bogus logs there are and even if it would be possible to get away with
>> one, given so many people watching the forum?
>>
>> Mike
>>
>
> Mike, as I mentioned in another post, I just bought a new and expensive
> ($70) high-speed serial port card for my new winXP desktop. Secure
> Volkslogger files now download in seconds using SeeYou and no problems (so
> far) with the OLC.
>
> Bill Daniels.
>

[Bill Daniels]

I set SeeYou parameters on 'AUTO' and my flight downloaded quickly with no
problems. I'm no expert on serial communications so I don't know the actual
baud rate. Possibly the card and SeeYou self-optimized the comm rate. The
manual that came with the "CyberPro PCI 2S" serial port card isn't very
helpful in answering your question.

Bill Daniels

"Paul Remde" > wrote in message
news:_79%f.94947$oL.27242@attbi_s71...
> Hi Bill,
>
> I must be missing something. If the VL has its comm port set to 4800
> baud, or even 19,200 baud, how can a high speed comm port speed up
> downloads? My experience with RS-232 serial communications is that 4800
> to 19200 baud is about as fast as it can go without errors, depending on
> the cable length. Sync-serial communications can be much faster but most
> devices don't support that. I'm very curious.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Paul Remde
>
> "Bill Daniels" <bildan@comcast-dot-net> wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> "Mike the Strike" > wrote in message
>> ups.com...
>>> Thanks for the comments, Ian. I am aware of the two modes and use the
>>> fast unsecure method for casual flights. I have been using ConnectMe
>>> to download secure logs from my Volkslogger since participating in the
>>> OLC and have previously had no problems. In this case, there does
>>> appear to be a problem with my file and maybe the issue is not the OLC.
>>>
>>> It is frustrating, though, having made a great flight and having to
>>> spend longer downloading and fixing the log than the flight time!
>>> Clearly the security issues are causing more problems than they were
>>> designed to prevent. Like many other glider pilots, I wonder how many
>>> bogus logs there are and even if it would be possible to get away with
>>> one, given so many people watching the forum?
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>
>> Mike, as I mentioned in another post, I just bought a new and expensive
>> ($70) high-speed serial port card for my new winXP desktop. Secure
>> Volkslogger files now download in seconds using SeeYou and no problems
>> (so far) with the OLC.
>>
>> Bill Daniels.
>>
>
>