44net-request@hamradio.ucsd.eduwrote:

Rob,

I have a dutch licence and there is nothing in there about host names.

Is this only a requirement for unattended gateways as these need a separate licence from the government there?

Bob (Boudewijn) VE3TOK

I reply to this item only to avoid posting several messages, but I have read the other replies as well.

Back in the days when we were still doing a packet network, the situation was like this: The license said "each packet should be identified by the callsigns of the station where the traffic originates from, and the station that is actually transmitting the packet". This made point-to-point packet legal, as well as digipeated packet. Both comply to that requirement. The method used by NET/ROM was illegal. It transmitted packets from the nodes using a modified originator callsign. The packets had the callsign of the original source, but not the callsign of the node that was transmitting them. When I adapted NET/ROM into NET, I created a system where the exit node transmitted a "faked" digipeated packet that looked like if the node had actually digipeated a packet (while it in fact was making a downlink connection). That made it formally compliant to the license requirements, and was also more convenient for the users as it showed where the traffic was actually coming from. The same thing was done in Germany, in other software.

Then look at IP. An IP packet transmitted via the network and sent by a node/router has the AX.25 callsign of the node transmitting it, but does not carry the callsign of the original source. Someone consulted the authorities about it. He got the assertion that it would be accepted as identification if there would be a publicly available mapping between IP address and callsign, so they could consult that when wanting to determine the source of the traffic. All the time after that, the hosts file for the Netherlands has been publicly available both on the BBS system and on telephone BBS (in those days) and Internet (later). And there was the Internet DNS with this information.

It may be that the current license no longer explicitly states the callsign requirements, there have been changes. I just have continued to always use the callsign as part of all hostnames assigned to allocated IP addresses within 44.137... (callsign.ampr.org or label.callsign.ampr.org)

Note that all this is only the situation in the Netherlands, I have no idea how regulations are in the US or elsewhere. Also note that all this is mostly academic, as packet radio is now formally illegal in the Netherlands except for stations with a "notice of variation" for unattended operation.

Why that, you ask? Well, it went like this. There has always been a NOV requirement for unattended stations. Nodes, repeaters, BBSes etc required such a notice from the authorities to allow operation without the operator being present. User's packet stations did not require this NOV as long as the operator was present during use of the station. And many operated on the edges of what was really allowed, it wasn't really enforcible anyway. (e.g. the station transmitting a file while you are watching TV or sleeping, is that "attended"?)

Of course an unattended phone repeater also requires a NOV. To get one, one needs to fulfill certain criteria like a minimal distance to another repeater on the same band. And there is co-ordination to distribute the limited number of channels. There are always some people do not want to play within those rules and started operating "attended repeaters" on all kinds of imaginable channels, and D-STAR hotspots, sometimes after a request for an NOV was denied to them. It somehow irritated the authorities and they redefined the "attended" requirement: it must be the operator himself, either directly or via some authenticated link guaranteeing it to be only him, who keys the transmitter. A repeater or hotspot, where the transmitter is keyed by the reception of a signal not from the operator, is now declared to be in requirement of an NOV no matter if the operator is actually present or not. And it is also stated that there will be increased effort to monitor and effectuate this regulation.

Unfortunately, a packet station, even with the operator sitting at the keyboard, is now outside these bounds. The transmitter is keyed as a result of someone transmitting towards you, if only to transmit an acknowledgement. And this is explicitly no longer allowed in the definition.

I have no idea if this has been the intention and what they now actually think about packet. It is very likely that we are only the victim of the desire to regulate the phone repeater mess, and it was not the intention to disallow point-to-point packet or user-to-node packet as well.

Rob