Guys I'd love to know in more detail about the troublesome things that were discovered in the js8call source code.
Having gone to have a look at the repositories, I can see at practically a casual glance that the testing effort (at least) involved a large base of international hams, and I suspect development did as well.
It seems, shall we say, less than probable that they all cooperated to bring hidden features to the code.
In any case, lets get the deets out into the light.
@KI5SMN @n6cta @k2za sort of less about the code itself and more about the context around it.
Speaking directly to the code, JS8Call includes a hard-coded channel for the American Redoubt Radio Operators Nerwork, specifically a way to configure AmRRON callsign. American Redoubt is a sort of Christian survivalist movement that has a lot of ties to un-Christian things like white supremacists and anti-semites. One of their more famous members was a Washington state rep who collaborated with...
@KI5SMN @n6cta @k2za ...the Bundy weirdos who took over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, and published a pamphlet called "Biblical Basis for War" where he described tactics for a 'Christian War' that included instructions to kill all males in uncompliant populations.
Then there's a recent video describing something called GhostNet, which looks to be a sort of survivalist emcomm plan. However, the maker of rhe video made a reference to using JS8Call in "very alternative ways"...
@KI5SMN @n6cta @k2za ...specifically if the FCC was no longer an issue. Most of us assume this is some kind of encryption, but there's a lot of wink-wink nudge-nudge around the video in regards to it. However, it's not specific to JS8Call.
However, the video was posted in a few places, namely the JS8Call groups.io board, where most people got excited about it. In another thread in the group, several members stated they were AmRRON members.
As far as I can see, them's the facts thus far.
@bud_t also raised some concerns about the GhostNet video being posted in a Chameleon Antennas telegram group, which prompted a statement trom them about the content of the video. But that's in another thread.
I will say I don't think the solution is as easy as "don't use it". I don't believe in ceding territory - including airwaves - to fascism. There's also a lot of value in knowing how those types use it, and who those types are.
No worries about the long reply, the local msg format all but demands it of anything approaching meanigful articulation.
Because of this concern, I've become educated about the redoubt crowd, and I've no particular love for them or their ilk.
Nor do I think it incredible that some motivated crew might embed themselves in this way.
I do find it a bit incredible, however, that the international HAM community would be complicit in this 'capture' of js8call by arron.
@KI5SMN I think it's likely that to most people, Americans included, it's just an acronym in a hobby full of acronyms. Honestly, even if you read the first few paragraphs of their wikipedia page, they don't sound -that- bad. The creator was vocally against prejudice, for instance.
I don't think it was some conspiracy, most people probably just see that and go "weird" without context, so it's easy to ignore and just keep submitting pull requests.
This is the problem: You're the second person I've heard say this; but no one seems to be able to put fingers and cursors on lines of code that do this.
Open source code does not happen in a dark closet. It happens out in a brightly lit room. There are potentially thousands of eyes on a project like js8call.
This should by no means be taken as an assurance that the code is clean.
It does make it very unlikely that it isn't.
@KI5SMN @n6cta @k2za I've been pretty careful not to make implications about the code that I'm not 100% certain on. I think I specifically even mentioned it isn't the code, it's the context.
It's less about what the program is doing and more the actors surrounding it, and I even said I don't think the answer is not to use it, because there was value in knowing who they are and what they're doing.
I don't think you should have your station offline, to be clear. We are on the same wavelength.
sparseMatrix 📻
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