In article , Chris Kirby wrote:
nana wrote:


Certainly, the Echolink system has it's weeknesses, but it isn't under
discussion here, IRLP is. And that's part of the issue, the confusion, or
lack of understanding of the vital security differences between the two
systems.



What's "vital" about security? Is someone going to get hurt?

As has been said many times before, anyone with or without a licence
can invent a callsign and go "on-air". Once they done that, the IRLP
network is just as easy to access as any other frequency. All this PGP
authentication between nodes is just a spin-off from the fact that
Dave Cameron invented the system primarily as a VOIP system to replace
land-lines for commercial applications. It is quite unnecessary on the
ham bands.



The entry level to pirate on an IRLP node requires a radio. PGP
is equally used in the Commercial IRLP systems as on Amateur Radio.

Unnecessary, thats one point of view. The other is, another good demonstration
of how PGP can be used to authenticate computers on the internet.
IRLP uses bi-directional authentication with PGP...so your not going
to masquerade...

Would you prefer PGP authentication or a QRZ database lookup ?
You decide.............