Last year I contacted ARRL staff about accepting eQSL's for awards. They were extremely opposed, indictating that the level of security was not high enough. I pointed out that hard copy QSLs were quite easy to forge, if one really wanted to be dishonest. This is a hobby and nothing really is damaged in the world if someone's lack of ethics leads one to claim to have done that which he or she did not really accomplish - happens every day in our society, unfortunately. As a believer in Karma, I worry very little about that kind of thing.
I've decided not to support LOTW because it is just too time consuming and cumbersome and it may lead to the extinction of the hard copy QSL. which I really enjoy collecting. There are already too many people who do not honor their verbal commitments to send QSLs and display that final courtesy of a QSO. As a K6 is not exactly a rare item on the DX cicuit, I doubt that my abstaining will do any harm to any one. When I reach another milestone in my casual quest for dx, I'll just print up a nice certificate for myself to admire! 73 - have fun with the hobby, it just isn't something to get concerned about, at least outside of dealing with emergency situations. Jack

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K6INM John K. Helmbold

Hello Jack:

You are absolutely correct when you say that LotW may lead to the extinction of the hard copy QSL. Think about it ! LotW does nothing at all to allow those that enjoy viewing a QSL card, because LotW does not, in fact, supply a QSL card. LotW is a device that simply allows ARRL's to track claim of award credits that are acceptable, for a fee, by ARRL.

I believe that you make other valid points within your posted comments, but my above reply is what I wanted to express my agreement toward.

73 and Happy Hamming.
de ~ Vince ~
WA2RSX
Stuck on IOTA NA-026

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WA2RSX 73 de OPR: VINCE

I have an old friend who is quite strident about eQSLs not being valid I try to use all forms of confirmations -- cards, eQSLs and LOTW.
My questions on eQSL is that if I have a hard copy of it mailed to me and submitted that with my cards? are they valid?
I have eQSLs that I printed out and others mailed to me -- which is nice --; LOTW QSLs (are they QSLs I can hang on my wall?) -- and good old paper.
Now if I combine all of those I my have 100 countries or more. To me it;s the accomplishment of the total contacts not justnthe paper.
Any thoughts?
73
Bill
W3EMA
wmhwilson@comcast.net
7

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W3EMA Bill Wilson

Bill,

Unfortunately, the ARRL do not accept eQSLs that you have printed and mailed to you. Having said all that, some people have commented that eQSLs that have been printed with the Handwritten fonts option can be very hard to distinguish from a regular QSL - so who knows what will happen if you submit one!

It's a shame that ARRL don't accept eQSLs. But, ARRL awards aren't the only game in town. I happily use eQSL and LOTW. I have more countries confirmed through LOTW - so I'm looking forward to getting my eDX100 to go alongside a completely electronic DXCC.

But at the end of the day, I'm with you on the fact that it's the contacts that interest me, not the paper!

Happy New Year.

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Tim, G4VXE

I have heard from a few eQSL members who have submitted eQSLs that were printed on card stock in a stack of other 'traditional' cards. Since they could not distinguish them from other cards, they got the credits. Your mileage may vary. Their so-called 'security concerns' are bogus. This is not banking. It's a hobby.

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Of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong!

73,
Dave Morris, N5UP

I am using XMLOG and I read a thread there that LOTW now supports ARRL WAS awards. Has this always been the case or is this something new does anyone know?

Would now be a good time to bring up eQSL once again to ARRL?

How many ARRL members use eQSL do we know?

Scott
KQ8RP

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KQ8RP Scott Gordon

If ARRL does not accept eQSL cards, why is ARRL on the website list of organizations that do accept them?

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WB7DE David E Garlock

It would be nice if the ARRL, or W1AW to be precise, would upload their logs to eQSL at least. How tough is that?

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WV0T Philip Leonard

I haven't seen anyone post the official ARRL stance on eQSL's so here is a link to the ARRL policy statement.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2002/03/07/100/

If someone has submitted printed eQSL's they are in violation of ARRL's policy even though the QSL may have slipped through the cracks and may have been accepted.

I don't like their policy of not accepting eQSL's but if you want a valid DXCC...well read their policy...

One way they will accept an eQS, per their DXCC Q&A:

Q: Is there any other way that an e-QSL might be acceptable for DXCC credit?

A: Yes. If you receive an electronic QSL that you can print on your printer you can then mail it to the station you worked for his signature. If the station makes a handwritten notation on the card, acknowledging the QSO, this can be used for DXCC credit.

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W6ZF James J. Martin Jr.

Edited by W6ZF James J. Martin Jr. on Feb 4, 2007 at 08:01 AM

If you go to all the trouble of printing the card out, then getting an SASE ready, or SAE + IRC's, put that and your printed card inside, mail it off to be signed.....why not just SKIP the "printed card" part, and just have them send you a REAL QSL card?

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KB5IBT Steve Hutchinson

I don't know if it's a joke or real ?.....
I've worked W1AW on the 8th of november 2007, received their confirmation via LOTW november 23rd,....well, I could expect it.
And now, today, I RECEIVE AN EQSL, but without an "AG" status. Is there a way to know if it's the real W1AW or a fake ? I upload ALL my logs, to EQSL and LOTW, so it's easy to register as one of the 6500 callsigns I have worked.....

Guy F6DKQ

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F6DKQ Guy FALCOZ

I too have gotten 4 or 5 w1aw eQSLs trhat were not AG, so I promptly sent back an e-mail requesting them to become AG. Who knows, maybe pigs will fly and hell will freeze over.
73
Andy - N1ORK

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N1ORK Orest 'Andy' Zajac

I'd like to understand why LOTW thinks their cards are so much more secure? Sure, it has a digital signature, but a digital signature is only as secure as the process by which the digital certificate is issued... and in that, it's no different than AG here.

So really, it boils down to "they don't want to take eQSL because they don't have to" not because there's a real reason.

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VE3OIJ P. Darin Cowan

I realized, after I wrote that, that not everyone works in the security field. What follows is a frank discussion of the strength of LOTW's "security". It is not intended to be some kind of slag on LOTW, but is truthful observation.

Here's the issue with LOTW. In essence, it allows you to input your log data, just like EQSL. The data is digitally signed with a cryptographic certificate and sent to LOTW, where it is matched up, just like here.

Now, LOTW would probably say "we use cryptographic technology to assure the veracity of QSLs in our system". But really, that is not a true claim.

It is true that a digitally signed bit of log data is protected from modification WHILE IN TRANSIT. If someone modified your LOTW QSL while it was being sent from your machine to the LOTW servers, the digital signature would fail.

However, they are also using the digital signature to verify that the person sending the QSL is who they claim to be. The whole identity system is based on the TRUST that the person using the certificate is who they claim to be. There is nothing magical about digital signatures that gives this trust. At the bottom line there is a person who issues a certificate to an applicant, and everyone grants their trust that the certificate was issued properly.

So what are LOTW's requirements:



In essence, anyone who can fake an operators licence and a drivers licence photocopy can pass this ARRL requirement. I'm not saying anyone has done this, I'm saying that it could be done... Just like it could be done for eQSL. The TRUST in the LOTW system is that nobody faked documentation to get a certificate in LOTW. That's what the whole system is based on.

At the most fundamental level, the ARRL LOTW security requirement is not significantly stronger than eQSL. All they do is put some fancy technology in there to make it SEEM more secure. But don't kid yourself. There's nothing special about LOTW security - it's complicated, but it's not better in a significant way.

The insignificant way that it is better is protecting log entries from modification in-transit. However, since it is unlikely that both sides of a QSO would submit at the same time AND have their data stream accessible to some nefarious entity that would want to fake the QSO for both people, the fact that the data could be modified in transit with eQSL is very, very low risk. If eQSL was really concerned about it, this could be corrected by moving submissions to an SSL enabled web server.

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VE3OIJ P. Darin Cowan
Edited by VE3OIJ P. Darin Cowan on Feb 14, 2008 at 06:34 PM

Darin,
Well said. It would be great if you went to the LOTW Yahoo group (ARRL-LOTW) and copied what you wrote above to that site, assuming you're a member of that group. I would be interested to see the comments. Great job explaining what many of us suspected.
73
Andy - N1ORK

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N1ORK Orest 'Andy' Zajac

I am not a member of anything LOTW. I was interested until I found out that they would be issuing a cryptographic certificate, and I immediately lost interest. This is ham radio, not biological weapons research. NOTHING we do is worthy of a cryptographic identity solution. Worse, I don't feel that their certificate issuing process provides adequate trust to be bothered going through the hassle of getting a certificate and digitally signing my log entries. I don't want to run their software, since it comes from an essentially unknown source. Actually, that latter is what got me to come to eQSL - same functionality, no public key infrastructure or custom software, web-based and accessible from any device with a browser (don't need my computer, my phone can get the job done).

I'm sure the people who developed the LOTW system thought it was pretty cool (it is, from a techy-nerdy point of view), and had a lot of fun building it. But it's a security measure applied poorly to a system where there was no significant risk to mitigate.

Just so it's clear... I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong, bad, evil, etc. They're just applying too much security to mitigate a very minor risk, in my opinion, and they're doing it in a way that isn't particularly secure in the first place, so it's questionable whether it actually even mitigates the risk. But what they're doing doesn't hurt anything.

I was just thinking... if you used LOTW and submitted your digitally signed log entry via packet radio on ham frequencies, you'd be violating amateur radio regulations in Canada as you would be using a secret code (the digital signature is a hash of the message encrypted with the signer's private key). I expect that regulation issue would apply in most other countries as well. I guess people don't do that.

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VE3OIJ P. Darin Cowan

Edited by VE3OIJ P. Darin Cowan on Feb 15, 2008 at 03:29 AM

Hi Andy,

When I opened my windows this morning, I saw a flying pig ;-) Yes, W1AW has the 'AG' status' now !

73, Guy F6DKQ

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F6DKQ Guy FALCOZ

Guy,
I see that also! Will wonders ever cease? I have 2 eQSLs from them that must have been from some vhf contest, because there is no RST on the cards in my archive. I wonder if they count for awards without RST? Well, I guess one step at a time.
73

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N1ORK Orest 'Andy' Zajac

The ARRL has "The Only Show In Town Mentality," (TOSITM).


We are not talking about preventing nuclear war here, this is a hobby!

The end of the world as we know it, (TEOTWAWKI) will be the result of a fraudulently posted QSL card, according to the logic at the ARRL.

I use LOTW only because DX insists on it.

DXCC is exclusive to the ARRL.

I don't really care if I am awarded a DXCC or not!

I know that I worked them and that is good enough for me!

A piece of paper on the wall does not make me a better person, or ham.

Its nice to have, and I will accept it if I earn it, but it is not a king maker in my life.

The ARRL is jealous of e-qsl, in my opinion.

I end every qso with an exhortation to view a nice photo QSL card at www.eqsl.cc that is waiting for them.

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AA1IK Ernest Gregoire

Dave, I have asked that same question on QRZ and had several different answers. I do not see how they could actually catch the eQSL card, heck, they all look just alike when they are printed off a computer, and if the same design is used for eQSL and a paper card (both are *real* QSL cards), there is NO possible way to tell the difference that I can see.

And if you really wish to check, contact the other party and they will confirm you are in the log.... as long as they didn't say "eQSL" {grinning}

You have a very good system here Dave and I for one really appreciate your efforts.

Ken H.
K9FV

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K9FV Ken Holland