Cheap GPS Loggers for FAI Badges - Status?

On Wed, 26 May 2004 16:41:57 GMT, "Papa3"
wrote:

Bingo - so why continue to require pressure altitude?

That's not the problem - there are pressure sensors in both eTrex and
Geko models for not much money, but would you want to use either model
for task navigation (buttons on the edge of the eTrex, tiny screen on
Geko)?

Or, are you talking about using a map and/or another GPS for
navigation while leaving the one used as a logger in the side pocket
or behind your head? In which case, ignore the last comment.

In terms of the other requirements, folks here are using Garmin and other
devices on a daily basis to successfully document claims. Why are they not
"technically adequate."?

Mainly relatively small track-log space. If you want to record an
entire day at 4 secs/point you'll need 10,000 points to deal with 11
hours. Changing the sample rate, e.g. up for turn points and then down
again is pretty fiddly - I'd not want to do it while flying and
keeping a lookout, so you're stuck with the 4 sec rate for the whole
flight. Now what about something like a soaring camp over a long
weekend? It would not be sensible IMO to rely on having a download
computer along, but if you don't have one then the ability to record
24 hours or so of logger files would be a big help.

Last but not least, if you run out of track log space the Garmins I've
looked at manuals for will silently overwrite the oldest tracklogs
and, if there's only one big one in memory, the start of it gets
stomped on. Not good behaviour for a flight recorder!


"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 25 May 2004 03:03:03 GMT, "Papa3"
wrote:


I'm not that bothered by security, but I do think that the majority of
COTS GPS systems are not technically adequate for the task in terms of
.... and/or presence of a pressure sensor. See an
earlier post for details.

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :



--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :

Martin,

All good points. However, I think (for example) the issue of the number of
data points is something for the market to decide. I'm sure there are
plenty of folks for whom an 11 hour trace is more than sufficient. At the
end of the day, once the standards are "reasonable" (let's not worry exactly
what that means for a moment) , market forces will dictate what is
available.

Here in the US, a lot of folks are using the Garmin 76 very successfully.

Erik


"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 26 May 2004 16:41:57 GMT, "Papa3"
wrote:

Bingo - so why continue to require pressure altitude?

That's not the problem - there are pressure sensors in both eTrex and
Geko models for not much money, but would you want to use either model
for task navigation (buttons on the edge of the eTrex, tiny screen on
Geko)?

Or, are you talking about using a map and/or another GPS for
navigation while leaving the one used as a logger in the side pocket
or behind your head? In which case, ignore the last comment.

In terms of the other requirements, folks here are using Garmin and other
devices on a daily basis to successfully document claims. Why are they
not
"technically adequate."?

Mainly relatively small track-log space. If you want to record an
entire day at 4 secs/point you'll need 10,000 points to deal with 11
hours. Changing the sample rate, e.g. up for turn points and then down
again is pretty fiddly - I'd not want to do it while flying and
keeping a lookout, so you're stuck with the 4 sec rate for the whole
flight. Now what about something like a soaring camp over a long
weekend? It would not be sensible IMO to rely on having a download
computer along, but if you don't have one then the ability to record
24 hours or so of logger files would be a big help.

Last but not least, if you run out of track log space the Garmins I've
looked at manuals for will silently overwrite the oldest tracklogs
and, if there's only one big one in memory, the start of it gets
stomped on. Not good behaviour for a flight recorder!


"Martin Gregorie" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 25 May 2004 03:03:03 GMT, "Papa3"
wrote:


I'm not that bothered by security, but I do think that the majority of
COTS GPS systems are not technically adequate for the task in terms of
.... and/or presence of a pressure sensor. See an
earlier post for details.

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :



--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :

I just completed a small sampling from a few national
(US an otherwise) contest IGC files. Of the 50 or
so I have looked at I have not found one to exceed
170kb. GPS units that are based on Pocket PC or Palm can record
to SD or CF cards which can be up to a gig. I have
an Ique with a 512M SD card (the one that is the size
of a postage stamp) running SoaringPilot. By my rough
calculation, and using a figure of 200kb, I figure
I can record roughly 2500 of these traces without running
out of space. Many of these flights exceed 6 hours.
I can only assume they are recording at 5 second intervals
or better as per the GNSS spec (2.4.4). Common sense
dictates we move inthat direction.I just spent the pasts couple of hours pouring over
the requirements for approval of a FR. I think The
security requirements exceed the level some nations
use for ensuring national security.;^0jeff

Papa3 wrote:
Martin,

All good points. However, I think (for example) the issue of the number of
data points is something for the market to decide. I'm sure there are
plenty of folks for whom an 11 hour trace is more than sufficient. At the
end of the day, once the standards are "reasonable" (let's not worry exactly
what that means for a moment) , market forces will dictate what is
available.

And we are talking about using it for badge claims, anyway. Presumably,
the OO would take possession of it after the flight until the trace had
been downloaded, so an 11 hour recording time should be plenty!


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

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Jeff,

Trust me - they do. I just completed a fairly extensive security audit for
our data center with a major, global financial company. I used the IGC
security specs as the benchmark.

Here's a novel idea (at least to me) regarding security as it relates to IGC
recorders. As I see it there are two approaches.

1. Prevent security breaches by building all sorts of sophisticated
encryption and physical security mechanisms to thwart would be hackers (ie.
the expensive method) required of financial services and other companies
which maintain critical data.

2. Identify potentially corrupted files retrospectively by applying a
"sniff test" after the fact. I would not advocate this for everyday files,
but, how hard would it be to define a few key algorithms that would at least
flag certain files for closer review? I'm thinking now in terms of
competitions, but for instance:

- Identify a few key attributes that would be useful in identifying
performance (e.g. average climb, achieved L/D, % time in cruise, etc.).
- Run a quick statistical analysis against all files from a competition
day, identifying gross deviations from the mean on these days.
- Utilize time/proximity based comparative analysis against a control group
for those logs where there are anomoalies (e.g. if one ship achieved an L/D
of 50 on a leg where the fleet achieved 30, it might be good to look more
closely)
- Other "signatures" that might indicate potential manipulation of data.
- etc.

Just knowing that you might be called in front of the stewards to explain
wildly inconsistent results might be enough to head off would-be cheaters.

I actually think I'm now heading down the path of creating additional
complexity, but I do think it is worth looking into alternatives to
encryption-based pre-emptive security.

P3


"Jeff Dorwart" wrote in message
...
I just completed a small sampling from a few national
(US an otherwise) contest IGC files. Of the 50 or
so I have looked at I have not found one to exceed
170kb. GPS units that are based on Pocket PC or Palm can record
to SD or CF cards which can be up to a gig. I have
an Ique with a 512M SD card (the one that is the size
of a postage stamp) running SoaringPilot. By my rough
calculation, and using a figure of 200kb, I figure
I can record roughly 2500 of these traces without running
out of space. Many of these flights exceed 6 hours.
I can only assume they are recording at 5 second intervals
or better as per the GNSS spec (2.4.4). Common sense
dictates we move inthat direction.I just spent the pasts couple of hours
pouring over
the requirements for approval of a FR. I think The
security requirements exceed the level some nations
use for ensuring national security.;^0jeff

Papa3 wrote:

Jeff,

Trust me - they do. I just completed a fairly extensive security audit for
our data center with a major, global financial company. I used the IGC
security specs as the benchmark.

Here's a novel idea (at least to me) regarding security as it relates to IGC
recorders. As I see it there are two approaches.

1. Prevent security breaches by building all sorts of sophisticated
encryption and physical security mechanisms to thwart would be hackers (ie.
the expensive method) required of financial services and other companies
which maintain critical data.

2. Identify potentially corrupted files retrospectively by applying a
"sniff test" after the fact. I would not advocate this for everyday files,
but, how hard would it be to define a few key algorithms that would at least
flag certain files for closer review? I'm thinking now in terms of
competitions, but for instance:

- Identify a few key attributes that would be useful in identifying
performance (e.g. average climb, achieved L/D, % time in cruise, etc.).
- Run a quick statistical analysis against all files from a competition
day, identifying gross deviations from the mean on these days.
- Utilize time/proximity based comparative analysis against a control group
for those logs where there are anomoalies (e.g. if one ship achieved an L/D
of 50 on a leg where the fleet achieved 30, it might be good to look more
closely)
- Other "signatures" that might indicate potential manipulation of data.
- etc.

Just knowing that you might be called in front of the stewards to explain
wildly inconsistent results might be enough to head off would-be cheaters.

I actually think I'm now heading down the path of creating additional
complexity, but I do think it is worth looking into alternatives to
encryption-based pre-emptive security.

The security at US contests is already more relaxed than this, except
for getting on the US team (I think that requires a secure logger). Are
you suggesting competition security should be increased?

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

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

Eric Greenwell wrote:
Janos Bauer wrote:


Sorry Eric, you are right. I wanted to point out that most of the
cases there is no check on declaration by the OO. Of course it can be
done before or after the flight. I know about cases where a certain
logger is used by several persons in different sailplanes and it was
simply forgotten to reprogram the pilot name and glider type. You know
it's an everyday mistake. But only the OO can prevent to use this
"fake" log for a badge claim...


In the USA, this "fake" claim would be discovered by the person
appointed by our national soaring organization to review badge claims.
Many claims are not accepted after this review because of errors of
various types. I don't know how a mistake like this one would be
handled, but it would be found. Perhaps in a club situation, a paper
declaration would be a good way to avoid the problem. I've made the
mistake myself, with my own logger, when I forgot to change the
declaration for a new task.

How? Does this guy check all club, plane, pilot logbook if there is
any mismatch?

Other example: do I get more scores on OLC (or on any logfile based
contest) if I change a Nimbus4 to a Ka8 in the declaration? Can I
collect more scores if I keep my logger at the airport and ask others
just to carry it any time they fly xc? Who will know about it, it
happens at the other side of the world?


The OLC (and many club contests of this type) are run on the "honor
system". There is no formal protection against it. As long as the system
isn't abused, the participants will be happy and continue to enter it.
If groups of pilots around the world begin to submit flights they didn't
make, I think eventually it will be found out, and the contest rules
will change or pilots will simply not enter it anymore.

Originally OLC was established to show the high level of sport
activity to convince governments. Now you are not allowed to load your
IGC file unless it comes from an IGC approved logger... It is true only
for gliding. Hanggliders and paragliders can load eg. soaringpilot
tracklog.
For me requiring a secure logger doesn't meet with the full "honor
system".
Regards,

/Janos

ps: I keep on uploading to OLC my soaringpilot generated IGC files

Marc Ramsey wrote:

This particular story comes up sooner or later when we get one of these
threads going, but no one has ever made the .igc files available, identified
the equipment used, or named the people who accomplished it. As far as I
can figure out, generating a convincing flight log would require an 8 to 12
channel programmable simulator, a fast programmable pressure device, and a
bunch of software development. This does not strike me as something cheap
and easy to do. If it is easy, then some verifiable information, along with
suggestions as to how we can improve the system, would benefit everyone.
Otherwise, this is just so much blowing of smoke...

No, Marc, you miss the point and so does the guy you're replying to.
It's not about geek's skills and technical crap. In fact, a good case
could be made that since the IGC believes nobody has been able to defeat
the system, It is probably excessively complex for the task required and
the level of security could be safely lowered.

THIS is the point. All security is only as good as the people involved.
A trusted person - the OO - is already a fundamental part of YOUR
system, what is YOUR objection to the COTS GPS in a lunchbox, placed,
sealed and retrieved by that same OO?

By the way, that "YOUR system" slipped out quite unconciously. I think
the vast majority of glider pilots see it that way though. The IGC and
its committees are unfriendly outsiders to most of us. Domination by
bureaucratically minded Europeans (including the UK reps I read here)
doesn't endear it.

Here's a suggestion for the next GFAC meeting: subvert the dominant
paradigm!

Graeme Cant

X-no-archive: yes
In article , Graeme Cant
writes


Marc Ramsey wrote:

This particular story comes up sooner or later when we get one of these
threads going, but no one has ever made the .igc files available, identified
the equipment used, or named the people who accomplished it. As far as I
can figure out, generating a convincing flight log would require an 8 to 12
channel programmable simulator, a fast programmable pressure device, and a
bunch of software development. This does not strike me as something cheap
and easy to do. If it is easy, then some verifiable information, along with
suggestions as to how we can improve the system, would benefit everyone.
Otherwise, this is just so much blowing of smoke...

No, Marc, you miss the point and so does the guy you're replying to.
It's not about geek's skills and technical crap. In fact, a good case
could be made that since the IGC believes nobody has been able to defeat
the system, It is probably excessively complex for the task required and
the level of security could be safely lowered.

We don't actually KNOW that nobody has been able to defeat security. In
fact we do know that this has been done as an intellectual exercise.

Flight Recorders do not have the ultimate in security, the level of
security is set at what is considered to be a reasonable level, being no
higher than it needs to be.

Tim Newport-Peace

"Indecision is the Key to Flexibility."

Graeme Cant wrote:
No, Marc, you miss the point and so does the guy you're replying to.
It's not about geek's skills and technical crap. In fact, a good case
could be made that since the IGC believes nobody has been able to defeat
the system, It is probably excessively complex for the task required and
the level of security could be safely lowered.

The "system" was demonstrated to have been defeated, at least once, and
the specifications were tightened in response. According to your
reasoning, we must now have the proper level of security.

Do understand, however, that the security requirements for approval of
badge-only flight recorders are pretty minimal. What makes these units
cost more than you or I might like are non-security related issues, such
as the pressure altitude recording requirement. None of the COTS GPS
units on the market record pressure altitude in a fashion that will
allow repeatable results. And, we can't eliminate pressure altitude
from the system, unless the IGC decides to accept geometric altitude.

THIS is the point. All security is only as good as the people involved.
A trusted person - the OO - is already a fundamental part of YOUR
system, what is YOUR objection to the COTS GPS in a lunchbox, placed,
sealed and retrieved by that same OO?

I have no objection. The IGC has objections. If you want to change
that, the person to browbeat is your IGC delegate.

By the way, that "YOUR system" slipped out quite unconciously. I think
the vast majority of glider pilots see it that way though. The IGC and
its committees are unfriendly outsiders to most of us. Domination by
bureaucratically minded Europeans (including the UK reps I read here)
doesn't endear it.

No, I think the majority of pilots don't spend much time thinking about
the IGC, GFAC, nor are they bothered by bureaucratic nightmares. Most
either happily jump through the little hoops to get their badges, or
blissfully fly without them, secure in the knowledge of their own
accomplishments.

Marc