Hotspot position OFF

[WA8YXM]

As it stands the Pi-Star hotspots report the entered GPS (or an attached dongle's output) to aprs/dprs.

I see no reason to do this on most of my hotspots (The one in the CAR ok but only one in the house moves and it's hard wired to a radio that reports, it also runs alternative software so only the radio reports).

How about a toggle to disable position reports for the hotspot?

[MW0MWZ]

I'm in the process of moving to APRSGateway, this is a unified APRS gateway that better handles APRS (thank you Jonathan G4KLX), once we get moved over I intend to add a simple on/off switch for it.

[KM6HK]

I see no reason to do this on most of my hotspots (The one in the CAR ok but only one in the house moves and it's hard wired to a radio that reports, it also runs alternative software so only the radio reports).

How about a toggle to disable position reports for the hotspot?

I posted else where about the issues with APRS reporting geolocation and having that data available to the public via pi-star on the public internet:
see my post viewtopic.php?f=27&t=3331&p=16880#p16880

We need a way to toggle OFF all goelocation information relayed by Pi-Star to the public internet. It is a dangerous and uncontrolled situation.

[MW0MWZ]

We need a way to toggle OFF all goelocation information relayed by Pi-Star to the public internet. It is a dangerous and uncontrolled situation.

I'm surprised at this, dangerous? As hams we have to have registered addresses, so its not like that information isn't in the public domain.

as for turning it off, set your hotspot lat/lon both to 0, and turn off GPS on your radio - hey presto NO information about your location.

[KM6HK]

We need a way to toggle OFF all goelocation information relayed by Pi-Star to the public internet. It is a dangerous and uncontrolled situation.

I'm surprised at this, dangerous? As hams we have to have registered addresses, so its not like that information isn't in the public domain.
as for turning it off, set your hotspot lat/lon both to 0, and turn off GPS on your radio - hey presto NO information about your location.

Well, thanks for expressing your point of view, which is not the same as mine. Reasonable men can disagree. I will not argue all this, but a couple of points: 1.) Here in the USA our FCC recognized this as an issue decades ago. On our FCC control panel we click a toggle that turns off public access to that 'registered address'. 2.) I know it makes us feel uncomfortable to consider: But not all of the persons on the planet are on the same footing. Hams are by and large on solid moral footing. . But not all non-Hams are so level headed. We must give due diligence to avoid dangerous situations in the real world. Many people return to their cars in a dark parking lot in the middle of the night with out paying attention to their surrounding, don't be one of them.

And yes, many Hams do set all lat/long info on their radios to Zero as a way of handing this exact problem. A sad comment on the world we live in. (I won't go so far as to say that the world is dark parking lot, but it does seem that it gets a little closer to that every day)

Here in the USA there is a very fast developing discussion going on about passing laws that require those in control of servers that are pubic facing to honor any request to be responsible and remove identifiable information if asked to do so.

Whether it is FACEBOOK or GOOGLE or Pi-Star or APRS the core principle is the same. -->>> No one has the right to post personally identifiable information about a named individual without their express permission.

Just a simple "toggle On/OFF" is all I ask... thanks.

[MW0MWZ]

We need a way to toggle OFF all goelocation information relayed by Pi-Star to the public internet. It is a dangerous and uncontrolled situation.

I'm surprised at this, dangerous? As hams we have to have registered addresses, so its not like that information isn't in the public domain.
as for turning it off, set your hotspot lat/lon both to 0, and turn off GPS on your radio - hey presto NO information about your location.

Well, thanks for expressing your point of view, which is not the same as mine. Reasonable men can disagree. I will not argue all this, but a couple of points: 1.) Here in the USA our FCC recognized this as an issue decades ago. On our FCC control panel we click a toggle that turns off public access to that 'registered address'. 2.) I know it makes us feel uncomfortable to consider: But not all of the persons on the planet are on the same footing. Hams are by and large on solid moral footing. . But not all non-Hams are so level headed. We must give due diligence to avoid dangerous situations in the real world. Many people return to their cars in a dark parking lot in the middle of the night with out paying attention to their surrounding, don't be one of them.

And yes, many Hams do set all lat/long info on their radios to Zero as a way of handing this exact problem. A sad comment on the world we live in. (I won't go so far as to say that the world is dark parking lot, but it does seem that it gets a little closer to that every day)

Here in the USA there is a very fast developing discussion going on about passing laws that require those in control of servers that are pubic facing to honor any request to be responsible and remove identifiable information if asked to do so.

Whether it is FACEBOOK or GOOGLE or Pi-Star or APRS the core principle is the same. -->>> No one has the right to post personally identifiable information about a named individual without their express permission.

Just a simple "toggle On/OFF" is all I ask... thanks.

Don't mis-understand, this isn't an argument, I've pointed out here that you can choose not to provide any location information, there is no need for an off-switch in Pi-Star, I'd also like to suggest why I specifically don't want to add a position data off switch - it would be miss-leading.

So if Pi-Star does not send your position data, because of my master off-switch - thats all done right? No, if you have GPS enabled on your DMR radio, and configured to push data to a DMR network for example, Pi-Star has no AMBE chip - it cannot read the encoded data and as such cannot stop position information from being sent.

I will not add an off switch for position data unless I can fully commit to that switch doing what it is intended to.

[W0CHP]

Even adding a global “switch” won’t guarantee anything. Case in point: POCSAG. As long as you configure and run a POCSAG transmitter/client, APRS information is published via some random ham’s program that aggregates all functioning DAPNET clients, and there’s no way to disable it.

The “switch” becomes moot.

There are simply too many APRS variables, completely outside of pistar itself.

[KM6HK]

Even adding a global “switch” won’t guarantee anything. (...)
The “switch” becomes moot.
There are simply too many APRS variables, completely outside of pistar itself.

Yes this is a valid point. The "cat is out of the bag" and there is no way to put it back in cases where previous software has allowed it to escape..

But that does not mean that we have free license to ignore the issue from here on out. All I (and others here that are not so vocal) are asking is that anyone writing software that propagates sensitive geolocation data into any public facing form is responsible about how they do that. That responsibility is fulfilled if proper notice and warring is given to the user, and if a reasonably functional way is provided to take that data off their system if asked to do so by the rightful owner of the sensitive data.

As I said this is going to be legislated very soon. The congress of the USA has already held several high profile committee meetings where they have dragged folks like FACEBOOK in front of them and sworn them in to give testimony and basically answer questions that resolve to : "Just what the hell is going on with you guys, are there any controls, or is just a money driven free-for-all ?" -

-If you want a mind bending trip down the yellow brick road of self serving (logic?), then just read the Term of Service at APRS.FI https://aprs.fi/page/tos

In that document he explains how (in the same paragraph) that:
" you're generally only allowed to publish your own tracking data, and the position of your own vehicles, unless express permission from the target of the tracking is obtained."
then he claims that he has publishing rights & ownership of that data, which he has not obtained any "express permission" in this sentence:
"If it (your data) gets to aprs.fi using the APRS-IS or other means, it will be published and retained on the service."
(without your ability to request its removal.. in other words he claims current ownership and forward indefinitely into the future ownership and control of data that he acks requires "express permission")

-further he has also reserved for himself the latitude to re-sell your data. He is actively involved in making this a business. To his credit he is very straightforward about disclosing his relation ship with Google and how he is selling your data to Google Adwords. See https://aprs.fi/page/advertising

[WA8YXM]

I suspect if you wanted to turn it off just change the APRS host to something like 127.127.0.1 though you can't do that from Configure. might from expert or some other (SSH) I don't knwo. don't want to do it either.