Hoppie's ACARS and access control

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Just because many people know more than one and discussion tends to be enlightening.

I always had some "jokers" on my ACARS system that like to get themselves a throwaway e-mail account, register a logon code, and start sending offensive and harassing messages to random targets. Some of these targets then contact me to see whether there is anything to be done (they are always very friendly and understanding concerning my role in this). I implemented some traditional weak stoppers with word filters and I block out accounts that have sent stupid stuff but this, obviously, won't break the chain.

I don't have the resources and don't plan to implement hard identity verification on Hoppie's ACARS.

E-mail addresses used to be an okay way to link an ACARS account to a person, but nowadays it is not even close to sufficient. SMS texts would be better, but I don't know about free services that are not selling the phone number on to commercial spammers. Using Microsoft, Google, or Apple oauth services may be a way out, but also introduces maintenance work when they change. The same for using oauth to VATSIM, IVAO, or some other organisation. But it may work.

So, let's discuss.


Hoppie

[Gary Oliver]

Integration with the VATSIM oauth probably isn't as difficult as it sounds when someone creates an acars account going forward, could probably put you in touch with someone that knows it inside out, helped me out during AFV development.

All issues with people being bellends is when messaging VATSIM users after all.

[ASCTU744]

Just because many people know more than one and discussion tends to be enlightening.

I always had some "jokers" on my ACARS system that like to get themselves a throwaway e-mail account, register a logon code, and start sending offensive and harassing messages to random targets. Some of these targets then contact me to see whether there is anything to be done (they are always very friendly and understanding concerning my role in this). I implemented some traditional weak stoppers with word filters and I block out accounts that have sent stupid stuff but this, obviously, won't break the chain.

I don't have the resources and don't plan to implement hard identity verification on Hoppie's ACARS.

E-mail addresses used to be an okay way to link an ACARS account to a person, but nowadays it is not even close to sufficient. SMS texts would be better, but I don't know about free services that are not selling the phone number on to commercial spammers. Using Microsoft, Google, or Apple oauth services may be a way out, but also introduces maintenance work when they change. The same for using oauth to VATSIM, IVAO, or some other organisation. But it may work.

So, let's discuss.


Hoppie

What a shame, especially considering most people on there are adults. Is it just people using nicknames or actually imitating groundstations/dispatch?

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Mostly with a fake, sometimes offending callsign and then usually hard racistic slurs. It ain't subtle.

[andrej]

Is it possible to block certain names / callsigns? People are beyond stupid, but that is not surprising. After 7 years in EMS, I am not surprised by actions of people. Quite sad, but not surprising.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

I have a blacklist for e-mail addresses that once did proven stupid. But it is extremely hard to keep people from making another throw-away e-mail address. When I get to it, I'm going to implement a verification for the ACARS accounts that are associated to subnet VATSIM, which should make it a bit more complicated to do stupid. It's more a matter of finding enough time to properly do this.

[asboyd]

What about those of us who are not part of Vatsim?

Will the verification process lock us out?

Cheers,
AlexB

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

That is why Hoppie's ACARS has the subnetworks. Next to VATSIM, also IVAO and None.

Think of these as a prefix. VATSIM:KLM123 is not the same callsign as IVAO:KLM123. If you fly as None:KLM123, you're for sure not stepping on anybody flying online on one of the ATC networks.

VATSIM:xxx callsigns will be checked in some way to get better confidence that this is actually the same plane as visible on VATSIM, with the same pilot.


Hoppie

[asboyd]

Of course. I thought you would have placed a solution on the site.

Cheers,
AlexB

[Will]

Silly beginner's question: how would someone use Hoppie's ACARS when not connected to VATSIM? I thought the utility was that Hoppie provided communications on the VATSIM network.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

It's simple but not straightforward.

Hoppie's ACARS is completely subnetwork-unaware and totally independent, except for a few lookup features.

Subnetworks are, nearly literally, callsign prefixes. None:KLM123 is different from VATSIM:KLM123. You set your subnetwork affiliation in your account (on my web site) and every time you make any ACARS transaction, your affiliation is added to your callsign. This means that only the other stations on the same subnetwork hear you and can send to you.

So if you happen to fly online on VATSIM, you want Hoppie's ACARS to be set to VATSIM, otherwise you would not be talking to the correct controllers. There are no links between VATSIM and Hoppie's ACARS. Every ACARS station contacts Hoppie's ACARS directly. There are a few superstations that aggregate links (KUSA is one), but there is no VATSIM ACARS.

For all lookup functions, the callsign is irrelevant and only used to return responses. So if you ask for a METAR, you get NOAA's METAR. Always.

Now there are specific subnetwork-aware lookups. For example there is a specific lookup for VATATIS, and IVAOATIS. I never made a silent switch that gives you VATSIMATIS if you are on the VATSIM subnetwork and ask for ATIS. The reason (next to lazyness) is that the various subnetworks are quite different in their approach to callsign naming. You need some software logic at the client end to determine the actual code for the ATIS you want. Hoppie's ACARS does some reasonable guesswork but it is not solid enough to just rely on that. See: https://www.hoppie.nl/acars/system/tech.html and in there InfoReq Messages.

So you want to set your account to subnetwork affiliation None. This assures you won't accidentally step onto any ATC network's callsign. And you can also bring up your own dispatch or ATC ground station for whatever. The system won't allow duplicate callsigns within the same namespace, but that is something else.

By default your account will be for VATSIM, because the vast majority of users wants exactly that. It's a one-time update and can be changed any moment you want to.
https://www.hoppie.nl/acars/system/account.html


Hoppie