44net

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3196 discussions

Re: [44net] Thanks to everyone for a good 44net community call!
by Phil Karn 12 Oct '20

12 Oct '20

On 10/11/20 14:03, Stuart Longland wrote: > > I'd imagine for repeater linking, you'd be wanting sufficient bandwidth > for RTP streams. Would DMR be capable of this or would we have to look > to other solutions? I hadn't even considered DMR (by which I assume you mean C4FM). Waaaay too slow and inefficient. I was thinking either of WiFi on point-to-point microwave a la AREDN, or some new medium speed modem on UHF non-line-of-sight links. NPR could be a candidate, though I don't know about its multipath tolerance. > None of that is any use for linking internationally, which is one of the > draw-card use cases for things like IRLP, EchoLink, AllStarLink, … etc. > I'd imagine we'd need some sort of high-speed trunk links over HF radio > for that. Seems like a tall order in solar minimum. Admittedly I am biased by living in southern California, but I was thinking about the large linked repeater networks we have here. Some networks include dozens of mountaintop repeaters spread across several states linked full time. Traditionally a lot of that linking was done directly between hilltops on (hidden) analog UHF links, and I'm sure that today much of it is done over the commercial Internet. At least until the US gets its own QO-100, the regular Internet is likely to remain the only practical approach for long haul links, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility to move many of the intrastate or adjacent-state links to an IP network on ham frequencies. Phil

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Thanks to everyone for a good 44net community call!
by Phil Karn 11 Oct '20

11 Oct '20

Thanks to everyone who participated in today's online meeting! Sorry about the glitches at the beginning. Jitsi was giving us problems (frozen or long-delayed video, etc) so I made the call to switch to Zoom. We regularly use zoom internally within ARDC for Board and Grant Advisory Committee meetings and it has performed well; it also seemed to work well today. Thanks for all the helpful comments and suggestions on our grantmaking activities. I invite everyone interested in ARDC and its mission to further amateur radio and related digital technologies to continue to make your helpful thoughts and suggestions known and to consider becoming more involved. But I want to reiterate: you might think that giving money away is the easiest thing in the world. It's not! (I keep thinking of the old Badfinger song, "Come and Get It!") It's surprisingly hard work to do it legally, effectively and efficiently, and I think those of you on the call today got a taste of that. Some of it is WAY too much like real work, like managing our finances and understanding and complying with the myriad IRS and state rules for nonprofit grant-making foundations like ours. As we explained, we do NOT want to limit our activities to the United States, but we have to jump through a lot of extra hoops when making grants to organizations in other countries. But we are determined to do this, just as we are determined to eventually give grants to individuals and groups that aren't formal charities. The terms of our IP address sale required an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) that kept many details confidential for a time. We didn't like it, but there would have been no sale without it. Now that our 2019 tax returns and financial audit statements are a matter of public record, we won't have to be cagey about our finances. Except for Rosy, our executive director, and Chris, our 44net support guy, all of us are doing this as volunteers. Rosy has really hit the ground running in her new position, working with prospective grantees, politely reminding the rest of us of our action items and in general keeping things running smoothly. We do anticipate getting additional paid help as our work expands. Our treasurer, Bdale Garbee, NB0G, has done a stellar job of managing our finances, dealing with the regulatory and tax authorities, lawyers, auditors, grantees and support organizations. Our endowment, which we are conservatively managing ourselves, is split between low cost US and international stock and bond index funds as well as short term reserves. The reserves cover our expected expenses for the next few years. We hope the rest will generate enough income to keep us going indefinitely, but that depends on the markets. Our plan right now is to grant at least US $5 million every year. No other amateur radio foundation has ever operated on this scale, and we're still just getting started. Since we don't know what will pay off, we want to cast our nets broadly. We can afford to take risks with some high-risk, high-reward projects knowing full well that some -- maybe even most -- won't pan out. There's simply no other way to find out what works. What makes it all worthwhile is seeing the results of our work. We've only gotten started, but the new ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) gear that we helped support is installed and operational. The power supply carries a plaque memorializing our founder, Brian Kantor WB6CYT, and his family was delighted to see the pictures. And I've just been going through the thank-you cards and letters (56 at last count) we've received from this year's recipients of ARRL Foundation scholarships. Back to where it all began -- the 44 net -- we invite suggestions on how it should evolve and expand. We certainly have the money to support a solid and growing infrastructure. So...we're just getting started! 73, Phil Karn, KA9Q ARDC President

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!! Switching from Jitsi to Zoom this morning
by Rosy Wolfe 10 Oct '20

10 Oct '20

Hi folks, Due to some technical difficulty, we are switching to Zoom this morning: Please use the information below, and many apologies for the last-minute switch. Rosy // ARDC is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3100460055?pwd=RS9SMlFRZTBXbjZCT2c2Y2llY09KQT09 Meeting ID: 310 046 0055 Passcode: 655698 One tap mobile +12532158782,,3100460055#,,,,,,0#,,655698# US (Tacoma) +13462487799,,3100460055#,,,,,,0#,,655698# US (Houston) Dial by your location +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) Meeting ID: 310 046 0055 Passcode: 655698 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/ko6SfVytQ -- Rosy Wolfe Executive Director Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) ampr.org

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2019 Financial report + Amazon sale + Brokerage
by Paul Sladen 10 Oct '20

10 Oct '20

2019 financial filings for the ARDC, Inc. have been published by the Californian Register of Charities: * http://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Download.aspx?saveas=Amateur+Radio+D… * http://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Download.aspx?saveas=Amateur+Radio+D… * https://www.ampr.org/about/legal/ (links) TL;DR summary: 1. Sale price of $26/IP (to Amazon) minus 0.5% brokage commission [1] 2. $109 million raised, $545 thousand paid to Nationwide as broker 3. Funds now classified as Board-designated Endowment 4. Majority raised now invested in government bonds Trustees for 2019 are listed as: Brian Kantor - Former president Bdale Garbee - Treasurer Phil Karn - New president John Gilmore - Secretary KC Claffy is listed as a non-officer director---possibly for CAIDA conflict-of-interest handling(?) Erin Kenneally is no longer listed (nor referenced at all). (Suspect that a clear answer may not be easier to find). During Financial Year 2019, two grants were disbursed: 1. $10k - TAPR student scholarships 2. $110k - ARISS (International Space Station HAM) Variations of the wording use in different places (paraphrased): * "[support of] Amateur Radio Digital Communications" * "[support of] Amateur Radio _and_ Digitial Communcations". The latter is much wider than the former. Hopefully the trustees can make their own announcement in due course; but this should pre-answer the quick questions that people may have, [2] Before laying into the Trustees, this is pretty positive---cash was raised, and has been sensibly invested. The way the sale was handled was sub-optimal---picking the most dense/actively used part (HamNET) to sell...; but hopefully lessons from that have been learnt. Plus John Gilmore's long statement this week about the MoU with CAIDA/UCSD, will hopefully allow Amprnet's most significant R&D/ experimentation/academic contribution over the last 20 years to be finally be acknowleged openly, -Paul [1] To put things into perspective; had estimated was $24/IP, minus 1% brokage commission---so the amount realised by the Trustees was significantly higher; probably related to the size of the block sold, and clean nature of the IPs. [2] E&OE---refer to the actual documents for exact numbers + wording! Do not rely on this TL;DR---spend your own time, and do your own reading!

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Please let us know if you're coming to Saturday's call!
by Rosy Wolfe 08 Oct '20

08 Oct '20

Hi 44net, Given how many people have responded to the survey (68!), I want to make sure that Jitsi can handle the number of people who might show up to our call on Saturday. In service of collecting a head count, please let us know if you're planning to join the call by filling out your name here: https://www.ampr.org/community-meeting/ Many thanks! If it looks like we're going to exceed the 75 person limit, we may switch to a Zoom call. In either case, we're planning on recording the meeting for anyone who can't make it. I'll post information here if anything changes. I'm looking forward to e-meeting many of you and am compiling ideas from your emails and the survey as we speak. All the best, Rosy PS here's the survey link in case you haven't taken it yet: https://www.mysurveygizmo.com/s3/5789610/ARDC-Grantmaking-Feedback-Survey -- Rosy Wolfe Executive Director Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) ampr.org

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Re: [44net] Education about networking (Was Re: Inviting you
by f6cnb＠hutin.org 08 Oct '20

08 Oct '20

Just to clarify. 44.168.x.y/16 IS ROUTED via BGP on Internet. But the firewall is blocking most of the communications from outside the 44 world. 73 Remi F6CNB N5CNB Message: 1 Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2020 14:51:12 +0200 From: Toussaint OTTAVI <t.ottavi(a)bc-109.com> To: <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> Subject: Re: [44net] Education about networking (Was Re: Inviting you to ARDC Grantmaking Survey + Community Jitsi Call) Message-ID: <68fa5d64-3b71-2326-3ab5-1a20b0c61d0d(a)bc-109.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; format=flowed Le 05/10/2020 ? 10:40, Rob Janssen via 44Net a ?crit?: > > Please understand that in the topology I am proposing (and have > proposed several times in the past) you don't need to do that as an > individual, it is left to local groups or ARDC to do that. +1 We are using a similar topology here. Anyway, the details of our implementation differ : - We are currently testing Wireguard as a replacement for OpenVPN (too much odd behaviors with OpenVPN) - Our endpoints are $20-$50 OpenWRT routers. We configure them, and send them to the local users / sites. - On any site, we typically route /29 (5 usable IPs) on small sites and /28 (13 usable IPs) on more important sites - We typically route a 44.190 subnet for things that requite public Internet addressing (D-Star, DMR, XLX) (as defined by DG8NGN), and a 44.168 subnet for all ham-related machines. - Any site can have a 44.190 subnet, a 44.168 subnet, or both. - There's no more dual adressing. All machines only have a 44.168 or 44.190 IP. Except for the central gateway, no machine / no server is using public Internet IP anymore. - Due to the highly experimental nature of the network and the tiny size, we do not have full internal dynamic routing yet, and we use static routing for now. Our dynamic experiments on some sites are using OSPF. - 44.190 subnet is routed on Internet with BGP via a Vultr VPS (which costs $5/month, is easy to implement, and is independent of local ISP BGP capabilities) - 44.168 subnet is currently not routed on Internet via BGP, because this does not have much sense. For now, it's not routed outside of our island. But we plan to implement IP-IP routing on the central gateway (as we had in our previous iteration) Maybe we should try to identify all people using this kind of topology all over the world (what I called a "Regional" or "local" gateways) ? Then, we may try to "normalize" our implementations : - Adoption of dual-addressing : 44.190 for things that require Internet access, and 44.<country> for other things - Choice of internal VPN tunneling protocol(s) - Choice of internal routing protocol - Choice of external routing method (tunnels and routing between gateways) 73 de TK1BI ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2020 15:27:49 +0200 From: Toussaint OTTAVI <t.ottavi(a)bc-109.com> To: <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> Subject: Re: [44net] Inviting you to ARDC Grantmaking Survey + Community Jitsi Call Message-ID: <6833ec63-d59d-530b-3ffa-ef2b5585a99f(a)bc-109.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; format=flowed Le 03/10/2020 ? 18:55, Corey Dean via 44Net a ?crit?: > Part of the BrandMeister network is using some of the 44 range. The > main bm webpage is using it. Here are some quick and dirty stats : XLX is an open-source digital gateway used all over the world to interconnect D-Star and DMR repeaters (and many other protocols) XLX API provides a "hosts" file of all registered XLX nodes with their IP This file has approx. 1700 lines. Due to triple REF, DCS, XRF naming, we can assume there are roughly 560 independent nodes. The file contains only 36 entries using AMPR 44.x IP addressing, and among them, only 12 are unique *-> Only 2% of the XLX-connected reflectors are using AMPR addresses !!!* And this is only for reflectors (=servers), who are managed by people with more than average skills. I didn't find how to obtain stats for all the repeaters connected to all the reflectors, but adoption rate will be even lower ! COMMENTS : - AMPR addressing is used on country-wide servers, and by isolated teams around the world (including myself, HI)? mostly because people who maintain servers have the skills and equipment to do that. - We still have some work until mass adoption by the local reflectors and repeaters SysOps - And even more work for mass adoption by any HAM in the world... CONCLUSION : As I already said, IMHO, our #1 goal should be : make AMPR addressing easier to use, both for local SysOps/teams, and for end users. 73 de TK1BI ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2020 14:01:29 +0000 From: pete M <petem001(a)hotmail.com> To: AMPRNet working group <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> Subject: Re: [44net] Inviting you to ARDC Grantmaking Survey + Community Jitsi Call Message-ID: <MWHPR2201MB14551B41D83E8BD2DF4F56A9970A0(a)MWHPR2201MB1455.namprd22.prod.outl ook.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I am 100% with you. I don't count myself as top sys admin. But I am far from being a noob. And I have been struggling to have Ipip or other ways of connecting to the net. I have multiple site connected by VPN to my vps . I run multiple wireless link with fallback to lte modem. In case of a trouble with the link and yet, the only way I think I will achieve a stable way to have a connection and 44 net IP will be by bgp. That bring that I need a /24 at a minimum. Do I need a /24? Not at first and I hope I will be able to have other hams in my region to take some of my /24 ( will give them with the VPN server) but frankly this also mean the I will be responsible for there action on the 44 net. And that is putting some pressure on me. T?l?chargez Outlook pour Android<https://aka.ms/ghei36> ________________________________ From: 44Net <44net-bounces+petem001=hotmail.com(a)mailman.ampr.org> on behalf of Toussaint OTTAVI via 44Net <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 9:27:49 AM To: 44net(a)mailman.ampr.org <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> Cc: Toussaint OTTAVI <t.ottavi(a)bc-109.com> Subject: Re: [44net] Inviting you to ARDC Grantmaking Survey + Community Jitsi Call Le 03/10/2020 ? 18:55, Corey Dean via 44Net a ?crit : > Part of the BrandMeister network is using some of the 44 range. The > main bm webpage is using it. Here are some quick and dirty stats : XLX is an open-source digital gateway used all over the world to interconnect D-Star and DMR repeaters (and many other protocols) XLX API provides a "hosts" file of all registered XLX nodes with their IP This file has approx. 1700 lines. Due to triple REF, DCS, XRF naming, we can assume there are roughly 560 independent nodes. The file contains only 36 entries using AMPR 44.x IP addressing, and among them, only 12 are unique *-> Only 2% of the XLX-connected reflectors are using AMPR addresses !!!* And this is only for reflectors (=servers), who are managed by people with more than average skills. I didn't find how to obtain stats for all the repeaters connected to all the reflectors, but adoption rate will be even lower ! COMMENTS : - AMPR addressing is used on country-wide servers, and by isolated teams around the world (including myself, HI) mostly because people who maintain servers have the skills and equipment to do that. - We still have some work until mass adoption by the local reflectors and repeaters SysOps - And even more work for mass adoption by any HAM in the world... CONCLUSION : As I already said, IMHO, our #1 goal should be : make AMPR addressing easier to use, both for local SysOps/teams, and for end users. 73 de TK1BI _________________________________________ 44Net mailing list 44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2020 09:54:30 -0700 From: Rosy Wolfe <rosy(a)ampr.org> To: Amprnet 44 Net <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> Subject: [44net] Please let us know if you're coming to Saturday's call! Message-ID: <745510ee-aeb4-0cad-7ace-8ec9abe9b0d5(a)ampr.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Hi 44net, Given how many people have responded to the survey (68!), I want to make sure that Jitsi can handle the number of people who might show up to our call on Saturday. In service of collecting a head count, please let us know if you're planning to join the call by filling out your name here: https://www.ampr.org/community-meeting/ Many thanks! If it looks like we're going to exceed the 75 person limit, we may switch to a Zoom call. In either case, we're planning on recording the meeting for anyone who can't make it. I'll post information here if anything changes. I'm looking forward to e-meeting many of you and am compiling ideas from your emails and the survey as we speak. All the best, Rosy PS here's the survey link in case you haven't taken it yet: https://www.mysurveygizmo.com/s3/5789610/ARDC-Grantmaking-Feedback-Survey -- Rosy Wolfe Executive Director Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) ampr.org ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2020 17:01:41 +0000 From: Ruben ON3RVH <on3rvh(a)on3rvh.be> To: AMPRNet working group <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> Subject: Re: [44net] Please let us know if you're coming to Saturday's call! Message-ID: <AM0PR01MB3890CE45891B0A0C5286F569D30A0(a)AM0PR01MB3890.eurprd01.prod.exchange labs.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Rosy, If I may give a suggestion: have everyone turn off their camera's and things will go much smoother with Jitsi. Most of the issues come from everyone sharing their camera and having a smallband internet connection, thus filling up that pipe with everyone's camera is a bad idea ;) 73 Ruben ON3RVH -----Original Message----- From: 44Net <44net-bounces+on3rvh=on3rvh.be(a)mailman.ampr.org> On Behalf Of Rosy Wolfe via 44Net Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 18:55 To: Amprnet 44 Net <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> Cc: Rosy Wolfe <rosy(a)ampr.org> Subject: [44net] Please let us know if you're coming to Saturday's call! Hi 44net, Given how many people have responded to the survey (68!), I want to make sure that Jitsi can handle the number of people who might show up to our call on Saturday. In service of collecting a head count, please let us know if you're planning to join the call by filling out your name here: https://www.ampr.org/community-meeting/ Many thanks! If it looks like we're going to exceed the 75 person limit, we may switch to a Zoom call. In either case, we're planning on recording the meeting for anyone who can't make it. I'll post information here if anything changes. I'm looking forward to e-meeting many of you and am compiling ideas from your emails and the survey as we speak. All the best, Rosy PS here's the survey link in case you haven't taken it yet: https://www.mysurveygizmo.com/s3/5789610/ARDC-Grantmaking-Feedback-Survey -- Rosy Wolfe Executive Director Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) ampr.org _________________________________________ 44Net mailing list 44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2020 10:17:25 -0700 From: Rosy Wolfe <rosy(a)ampr.org> To: 44net(a)mailman.ampr.org Subject: Re: [44net] Please let us know if you're coming to Saturday's call! Message-ID: <aeffc385-d2ac-781f-b2c5-8bf4c656eeca(a)ampr.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed On 10/7/20 10:01 AM, Ruben ON3RVH via 44Net wrote: > Rosy, > > If I may give a suggestion: have everyone turn off their camera's and things will go much smoother with Jitsi. Most of the issues come from everyone sharing their camera and having a smallband internet connection, thus filling up that pipe with everyone's camera is a bad idea ;) Copy! The suggestion is most welcome. Thank you, Ruben. Rosy Rosy Wolfe Executive Director Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) ampr.org > > -----Original Message----- > From: 44Net <44net-bounces+on3rvh=on3rvh.be(a)mailman.ampr.org> On Behalf Of Rosy Wolfe via 44Net > Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2020 18:55 > To: Amprnet 44 Net <44net(a)mailman.ampr.org> > Cc: Rosy Wolfe <rosy(a)ampr.org> > Subject: [44net] Please let us know if you're coming to Saturday's call! > > Hi 44net, > > Given how many people have responded to the survey (68!), I want to make sure that Jitsi can handle the number of people who might show up to our call on Saturday. > > In service of collecting a head count, please let us know if you're planning to join the call by filling out your name here: > > https://www.ampr.org/community-meeting/ > > Many thanks! If it looks like we're going to exceed the 75 person limit, we may switch to a Zoom call. In either case, we're planning on recording the meeting for anyone who can't make it. I'll post information here if anything changes. > > I'm looking forward to e-meeting many of you and am compiling ideas from your emails and the survey as we speak. > > All the best, > Rosy > > PS here's the survey link in case you haven't taken it yet: > https://www.mysurveygizmo.com/s3/5789610/ARDC-Grantmaking-Feedback-Survey > > -- > Rosy Wolfe > Executive Director > Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) ampr.org _________________________________________ > 44Net mailing list > 44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org > https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net > > _________________________________________ > 44Net mailing list > 44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org > https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net > ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ 44Net mailing list 44Net(a)mailman.ampr.org https://mailman.ampr.org/mailman/listinfo/44net ------------------------------ End of 44Net Digest, Vol 9, Issue 97 ************************************

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Re: [44net] Education about networking (Was Re: Inviting you to ARDC Grantmaking Survey + Community Jitsi Call)
by Rob Janssen 07 Oct '20

07 Oct '20

>Yeah this thread kinda went off the rails. Originally we WERE talking about global Internet BGP. That is what the folks need that are using net-44 for IRLP, Allstar, Echolink, D-Star and various types of DMR. 44-net addresses that need access to and from the global Internet. >It took my local data center provider about three weeks to set up advertising one of my /23. Mostly waiting for all of their upstream providers to accept the newly advertised routes. Vultr.com has a very slick set of tools allowing one to get it going in a few hours, assuming proper license from ARDC is obtained. Neither one charges anything extra for doing that. >But it is nothing anyone here can do on their own from home. Basically it requires support from a large data center or ISP. All of my blocks are globally routable, courtesy of my data center providers. I run an implementation of OpenVPN on a Linux VM to pass individual addresses (/32) to client IRLP nodes. Please understand that in the topology I am proposing (and have proposed several times in the past) you don't need to do that as an individual, it is left to local groups or ARDC to do that. You would have a local router in some datacenter that advertises some segment of the net-44 space on internet (or preferably, the ISP does the advertising and just statically routes the incoming traffic to you). Then in that datacenter you have a router that allows incoming VPN connections from small routers at the individual's homes or repeater locations. Those individual routers talk BGP as well, but that only travels between their router and the datacenter router. It is used to tell the datacenter router what subnet(s) of the net-44 space each one wants to receive. It does not influence what happens on the internet side, there it always receives the full /16../24 that is advertised on internet. Now, the individuals and repeaters can build radiolinks between them, they will form the AMPRnet over radio for that region. Traffic will (with proper setup) select those radiolinks first, the link to the datacenter is used for traffic towards internet or when there is no radiolink available. ARDC would arrange there is a full mesh (or almost full mesh) of GRE tunnels between all those datacenter routers where BGP is running as well. That means that redundancy can be built into the network, so you would not be dependent on a single router when you don't like that. You could setup a VPN to more than one datacenter router and again BGP will arrange that you will receive your network traffic, at least the AMPRnet traffic, at any time even when your main router is down. In my opinion that is a much better solution than the IPIP mesh we have now, which is completely static and has your gateway system as a single point of failure. Also it requires a mostly static IP, and possibility to forward the protocol 4 traffic to the gateway system. This is ever harder to get going on a modern internet connection that has a dynamic address and maybe even CGNAT. A VPN system does not suffer from that. Rob

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Update on AmprGW, UCSD, and Network Telescope
by John Gilmore 05 Oct '20

05 Oct '20

Someone asked a few weeks ago: ... the Trustees would presumably be completely free to give an update on the planned relationship with CAIDA (UCSD Network Telescope), and long-term sustainable plans for AmprGW? The relationship between ARDC and UCSD's CAIDA research group remains as it was before Brian Kantor's death. There is a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between UCSD and ARDC that defines this relationship. The MoU was negotiated between Brian (for ARDC), and the UCSD management (for CAIDA). In particular, Brian wanted and succeeded to get this arrangement nailed down before he retired from being on staff at UCSD. The Network Telescope and the amateurs-to-Internet relay operate from the same network infrastructure in a lab at UCSD. Both parties gain from the arrangement. UCSD observes traffic sent to a large section of unused address space, and has created an analysis environment to facilitate its sharing of this data with vetted researchers. ARDC gets a well maintained, high speed interconnect between its users and the Internet. Typical amateur tunneled traffic through AmprGW is well under a gigabit per second, averaging about 30-60 megabits/sec, with bursts 60-90Mbps. (This traffic occupies twice that bandwidth, since every packet that comes in, then goes back out through one of hundreds of tunnels; and vice verse.) Typical non-amateur, Telescope traffic, bursts to 800Mbps and averages between 500 and 600 megabits/sec. There are currently no plans to change this arrangement. However, the main source of funding for the Telescope project expired this year, and it is not yet clear whether or how the data-sharing (i.e., the expensive) aspect of the project will continue. On the plus side, the existing hardware and software that supports ARDC is all paid for, installed, and running; it would involve work to tear it down. From the ARDC side, Chris Smith, G1FEF, has full access to AmprGW from the UK, and continues to maintain it as Brian did, with intermittent "hands-on" help from a local CAIDA sysadmin. As BDale recently reminded us, Chris also maintains other ARDC infrastructure such as the Portal and the website, which run in virtual machines hosted in various data centers. If UCSD and CAIDA ever decided to cancel the MoU, shut down the Telescope, and/or stop collaborating with ARDC, ARDC could move AmprGW to a virtual machine in a well connected data center anywhere in the world. Now that ARDC has more than nominal amounts of money, it can afford to pay for bandwidth and servers. AmprGW remains at UCSD today, partly because continuing that arrangement was simplest while scrambling to pick up the pieces after Brian died; and partly to honor the MoU, and Brian's history there, and to continue enabling Internet research worldwide, since CAIDA provides access to telescope data to vetted academic researchers. There are 4 pages of explanation, signatures, etc in the MoU, which is a public record of the Regents of the University of California, accessible under the California Public Records Act. Here are the relevent bits: This agreement is not intended to be legally binding, and instead is an aspirational document between the parties outlining responsibilities, and expectations of the parties. UCSD SHALL: o Operate network hardware and software to provide colocation services for the AMPRNet(TM) TCP/IP networks for Amateur Radio on UCSD infrastructure. o Agree to safeguard the UCSD equipment and network resources using best practices for network management. o Agree to use and comply with best practices for safeguarding data to mitigate privacy and security concems and to comply with legal requirements when using the data collected on AMPRnet's network for research critical to the Center for Applied Internet Analysis (CAIDA) research group located at the San Diego Super Computer Center. COLLABORATOR SHALL: o Agree to allow UCSD to collect, filter and curate data destined for the AMPRNet(TM) network for the purposes of network research and responsible data sharing with the network and security research communities. COMMENCEMENT/EXPIRATION DATE. This agreement is executed as of the date of last signature and is effective through [July 31, 2023] at which time it will expire unless extended. The U.S. federal research funding that supports the Telescope is: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1730661 The proposal that NSF funded is this one: https://www.caida.org/funding/stardust/ CAIDA's most recent slide deck about the Telescope is: https://www.caida.org/publications/presentations/2019/stardust_dust/stardus… The Principal Investigator of the Network Telescope is Alberto Dainotti <alberto(a)caida.org>. He intends to release a new web site and documentation for this project by the end of 2020. This will include a list of research enabled by the telescope (papers, data, analysis tools). In the meantime, there is a preliminary Grafana dashboard that shows that the Network Telescope is seeing (in real time, or from the past). https://explore.stardust.caida.org/d/ClIeIwOMk/stardust-public-protocols (It's work in progress! BTW, it uses Keycloak for authentication, so people can now use github or globus credentials to log in). Access to the Telescope data is controlled to preserve the privacy of the users all over the Internet whose (typically malware-contaminated) sites originated the packets. Researchers who use the data must sign a contract agreeing to maintain that privacy. Note that none of the data in this Network Telescope is the traffic of authorized amateur users. All that traffic is filtered out before it is recorded for researchers by the Telescope. We are happy to take questions or feedback on this list or at the community meeting next week. John Gilmore, W0GNU Board member and Secretary, ARDC

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Re: [44net] Education about networking (Was Re: Inviting you to ARDC Grantmaking Survey + Community Jitsi Call)
by Rob Janssen 04 Oct '20

04 Oct '20

>>>/AMPRNet / HamNet routing is quite complicated for a non-IT guy... / >>/The advantage of using BGP even in this trivial case is... / >I don't think the most important question is about selling BGP or any >particular technology (I'm well versed in internetwork engineering and >worked in that field professionally for many years; I'm in academia >now). >I'm writing this because education was a specific question in the >survey. >The reason that we have amateur radio is to enable experimentation with >using the radio spectrum in a way that is otherwise not permitted or >practical. With the Internet, there are certain things that are only >possible to experiment with if you have your own addresses and other >network numbers. AMPRNet is (perhaps that's too strong, and we could >say, "can be") a way of enabling a kind of experimentation on the >Internet similar to what we do with the radio spectrum. It is not clear to me what you are getting at here! These are different layers of the cake. Your radio experimentation will result in some way to transport bits from A to B, but not in a network. To build a network you need another layer, and a way to define what you need to send where to get your message to the destination. That is what BGP is handling. By using BGP instead of static routing, we can connect many radio links and other links together and make a network out of it without getting buried in manual routing chores. Please make sure you understand that the use of BGP I am mentioning here has nothing to do with the use of BGP on internet to route all the internet networks. It is the same protocol, but they are different use cases. Don't get confused when people say they have their AMPRnet subnet BGP routed to them on internet, and other people propose to use BGP internal to the AMPRnet network to route things the correct way, these are two different things. Rob

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Re: [44net] Inviting you to ARDC Grantmaking Survey + Community Jitsi Call
by Rob Janssen 04 Oct '20

04 Oct '20

> - AMPRNet / HamNet routing is quite complicated for a non-IT guy. BGP requires huge equipment and skills. IPIP requires hacking protocol redirect on Internet boxes. Those are not easy things for people operating a voice repeater or hotspot. They just build a Pi image, plug the machine, and it works. Why should they bother with complex addressing ? We have quite some repeaters that are connected via AMPRnet. We normally use MikroTik routers. I do not consider these "huge equipment" and they are not difficult to configure with BGP. I have some example configs for setting up an endpoint with L2TP/IPsec tunnel to our gateway router and using BGP to advertise their own subnet. This is much easier to get going than IPIP, for example there is no need to touch the existing internet router (open ports/protocols not required). This even makes it suitable for installation on buildings where the owner may make available some guest internet access but would not want you to tweak their network to pass IPIP. The advantage of using BGP even in this trivial case is that the network can now be extended when the opportunity arises without having another hurdle of complexity. A WiFi link to another station can be added, e.g. in some cases people have an internet connection at an amateur nearby the repeater, and then a WiFi link to the repeater itself. I would be all for rolling out such a system worldwide to replace the IPIP mesh. Routers (e.g. MikroTik CHR that can run as a VPS) in datacenters all over the world interconnected with a static tunnel mesh and offering VPN service for local amateurs to connect, and routing using BGP on private AS (this only routes AMPRnet, not full internet). In different places those routers could have the AMPRnet subnet(s) for that region announced on internet, like we do for 44.137.0.0/16 and others do for other country networks. And each of those can offer different VPN technologies so you are able to follow the trend of the day without having to do a migration in the entire network. Rob PE1CHL

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