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keybase / keybase-issues

A single repo for managing publicly recognized issues with the keybase client, installer, and website.
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integration discussion - amateur radio license #2456

Open brandoncurtis opened 8 years ago

brandoncurtis commented 8 years ago

I would love a way to two-way verify an amateur radio callsign. In the US, radio licensing is handled by the FCC and published in the publicly-accessible FCC Universal Licensing System. Callsigns ARE mutable, but all callsign changes are published and the user's identity is attached to an immutable Federal Registration Number and License ID Number; using the FRN or LID, the change history can be traversed and an individual's current licensing status and callsign can be unambiguously determined. Now, how to publicly publish a proof-of-ownership statement...

If you are willing to look like an idiot, you can get the FCC to publish ordered random strings associated with your FRN by submitting an online application to change your callsign. You may submit up to 25 choices, and while valid callsigns must follow formatting rules, it appears that they will happily publish requests that are not valid callsigns.

The American Radio Relay League allows users to have profiles, but I don't think they are public. This looked promising:

ARRL members can sign up for ARRL's e-mail forwarding service and have email sent to your ARRL address ("your-callsign@arrl.net") forwarded to the email account you specify. Join today!

...but unlike the FCC database records that require a once-every-ten-years $10 application fee, it requires paid annual ARRL membership dues and is less general.

I have added this idea to the verification suggestions thread in #518.

Any other ideas?

virtualdxs commented 8 years ago

QRZ has public profiles. And it scrapes from the FCC, so you can't create a profile without having an actual license.