Fake/Edited PIREPs from kACARS.

[SkilledPilotA320]

Hello everybody,

I suspect couple of my VA pilots are using some tricks to edit their flight log recorded by kACARS before filing PIREPs to servers. There is a guy who used to have super bad landing rates & too many over-speeds in his flight log. He was very desperate to get in Top 10 Landing List. All of the sudden he began reporting absolutely perfect PIREP with no over-speed, no sim-paused & landing rates always below -100fpm. Now he tops in landing list with -14fpm & 4th spot with -20fpm. Me & many of my VA members suspect if he is using some tricks to edit his flight log before filing PIREPs. We decided to perform research on internet & one of our loyal member found similar tricks can be done.

I hate cheaters & hence deactivated manual PIREP option. Since I dont have strong proof against him, I cannot take any action. If I kick him out without any genuine reason (without proving his guilt), it'll be unfair from general public point of view.

My question, is there any method to identify fake/edited kACARS PIREP? I know its not possible to do so yet, but there must be some provisions to bust such cheating acts. I'm not an software expert, but wonder maybe the upcoming versions of kACARS or any other software could be equipped to be able to identify & automatically refuse fake/edited PIREPs to be sent to servers. I've discussed this to one of my software developer friend & he confirmed that its possible to make such provision, but then the working system will be highly modified & different than how it is now.

Kind Regards,

Afsal Zain.

[Nighthawk]

Hi, or he use fspilot or something for autolanding?

[Guest lorathon]

I am not sure how the PIREP could be faked. Other than creating a program that send a false PIREP to the script. This of course could be done and could be done for any program (FSFK, FSPax, XACARS, etc). What are you suggesting to stop this?

[Guest lorathon]

We decided to perform research on internet & one of our loyal member found similar tricks can be done.

Please PM me this information so that I can take a look.

[Kyle]

interesting when cheaters makes things unfair on landing rates and showing their best but not really.

[Txmmy83]

Hi, or he use fspilot or something for autolanding?

I use fspilot but I was never able to produce landingrates of -20fpm or less

Realistic with fspilot are landingrates of -150fpm or higher!

Best regards

Thomas

[mischka]

That's pretty said actually, to cheat on something like this...

Maybe a kind of "checksum" can be made, where a code is added to every pirep line, which is calculated by the contents of the line? shouldn't be too difficult I guess

[Guest lorathon]

Still trying to see evidence that a PIREP has been "Cheated". Anyone with any information on this I would like to see it. I have searched myself (see Quote) and found nothing.

We decided to perform research on internet & one of our loyal member found similar tricks can be done.

[RogerB]

Still trying to see evidence that a PIREP has been "Cheated". Anyone with any information on this I would like to see it. I have searched myself (see Quote) and found nothing.

I agree, there is no way unless they can get into your database using mysql and alter the data tables. And really if you have to cheat at something like this you're an idiot and probably 13, i hope.