[Dxspider-support] Spider Nodes used by ROS to auto-spot

[VK3AMA]

While researching ROS cluster spots arriving at HamSpots.net via the 
Cluster, I have discovered how the ROS software is auto-spotting to a 
list of nodes that may be of concern to the Node Sysops.

The following Spider Node addresses are hard-coded in the software.

dxc.us6iq.com
dxc.ham.hr
9a0dxc.hamradio.hr
remo3.renet.ru
cluster.sk4bw.net
ax25.org
sk3w.se
sector7.nu
sm7gvf.dyndns.org

ROS software establishes a connection at startup using your callsign and 
varies which node it connects to, not always the same node.

When a qso is logged  a spot is auto generated (there is no option in 
ROS to turn this off that I could find) and the text of the spot is 
changed based on another hard-coded list of messages. This is obviously 
done to give the impression that the spot is sent from a human (unlike 
the past flooding of the network, same text and same node). No where in 
the ROS FAQ or User Guide is this behaviour documented.

I ran ROS in RX mode today, after a callsign was decoded, I hit the log 
button and it sent a spot to the cluster without permission with my name 
and call thanking the other station for the QSO.

A quick review of recent ROS spots shows the same nodes being used and 
similar style comments.

What other surprises are hidden in this software?

de Laurie, VK3AMA