Flooding!

[Tuicemen]

Flooding AHP with steady commands (eg: holding down a button on your palm pad) makes AHP & all plug-in useless
What is needed is a means of detecting this!
The option to send a e-mail, play a wave file, or open another program on detecting  a flood of signals would make this plug-in a true security must have!
In the mean time a thirdparty software developer is creating this option!
Why is he always one step ahead of x10?
He listens to what users want and  adds it quickly!
Does he secretly work for them?
Oviously not, all thier programers are working 24/7 on getting AHP Windows Vista certified!

[Charles Sullivan]

i'm wondering how one would define a "flood".  Perhaps the same signal (RF or PLC) repeated continually for some period of time?  How about a continuous stream of any combination of signals - how to distinguish this from a long macro?  How about collided signals, i.e., suppose one held down a different button on two or more PalmPads at the same time?

I suggest that given the nature of X10 transmissions the problem may not admit of a straightforward solution.

[Tuicemen]

It probably isn't a straight forward solution!  But I've found if I hold down a button on a palm pad I get a steady signal on commands every second no other remotes that I have or motion sensors can be picked up by AHP during this time!
The planed option will require some setting up!
I haven't seen a beta of this but the plan is for the user to set the  X number of redundant events in Y number of seconds!
This may need some tweeking but at least  after X & Y are met an alarm can be triggered and maybe after 2 consecutive alarms, a phone call sent!
These are just some examples if you can think of any thing which would add  to this option feel free to email X10dispatcher Admin

[Tuicemen]

Well I've tested this flood detection (x10dispatcher) and it does what I want! [/b]
I can have it call my cell phone(or any phone) tell me there is a Security/Flooding problem
At the same time play a continuous TTS wav(over the PC speakers) as long as the flooding persists.
Have tested with X10WavPlayer as well,but I may need to tweak that program for this application!
I haven't tested the e-mail send or MSN Alerts yet!
Those alerts work for other things so there isn't a reason for them not to work here!
This makes for a must have security fail safe!

If anyone wants to test out the flood protection then you can download x10dispatcher here :
http://x10dispatcher.com/Downloads.aspx

Once you've got that, download the 366beta here and extract the exe over the original :
http://x10dispatcher.com/Downloads/Dispatch366beta.zip

[KDR]

I posted in another thread Topic: Disarming DS7000 remotely?  (Read 4261 times) which near the end turned into a similar topic. I have a few cams set up on Ninja pan tilt units. When you use iWitness to pan or tilt it sends a RF signal and I see in activity monitor it sends once every second until you stop panning or tilting. Would this be seen as flooding? Also the hand held remote for the ninja sends a stream of RF as long as the pan/tilt buttons are held down. Activity monitor doesn't seem to record the same activity as compared to using iWitness (less activity). Again I wonder if it would be seen as flooding? Do you have any Ninjas that you could test the X10Dispatch software with the panning and tilting?

[Tuicemen]

I posted in another thread Topic: Disarming DS7000 remotely?  (Read 4261 times) which near the end turned into a similar topic. I have a few cams set up on Ninja pan tilt units. When you use iWitness to pan or tilt it sends a RF signal and I see in activity monitor it sends once every second until you stop panning or tilting. Would this be seen as flooding? Also the hand held remote for the ninja sends a stream of RF as long as the pan/tilt buttons are held down. Activity monitor doesn't seem to record the same activity as compared to using iWitness (less activity). Again I wonder if it would be seen as flooding? Do you have any Ninjas that you could test the X10Dispatch software with the panning and tilting?

Yes I have a pan & tilt!
You have to play with X10dispatcher to find the proper settings for your setup.
I found that the default setting was to short a duration and it could be triggered with mutiple dims!
The pan and tilt will not trigger a flooding alert with the tests I ran in AHP.
Panning from one side to the other in AHP with iWitness also in a macro sweeping presets had no effect.   

How ever I did trigger a flooding alert by holding down the pan button on the pan & tilt remote.
If I press and release steadily it won't trigger!
Steadily holding down any remote button seems to send to many continuious RF signals.
But thats what we want to catch!
Since this is only a beta version, Now is the time to try this and suggest some improvements to Dave!
Hope this helps KDR

[vhoang]

Not sure it's useful info, but when I try this against the W800, I get mixed results.   I can only jam other signals
if I hold the palm pad right next to the other transmitter.    At a distance of about 5 ft away from the jammer, I
can pick up a complete signal from any other transmitter.   Of course my W800 software will trigger an event on
the first complete (validated) x10 message-burst that matches a list of known codes.   Second, third, forth burst are optional and
constitue and unknown x10 device (recorded for later review) if compliment checks are valid with repeats within a 700ms window.

I know not checking for repeats leave me open for stray signals, but two years and I have yet to record a stray signal that
matches my list of 300 or so learned codes.   It also allows me to cut the response time to valid signal down
to N x (the number of skipped duplicates).   It's all configurable, should I have issues in the future, I can adjust to make
certain signal burst match N times before being valid.

I took a slight trade off for response time vs certainty, and it has paid off in this particular case.

[Knightrider]

Cross reference this thread here : http://forums.x10.com/index.php?topic=27772.15;topicseen.   I have found the options to make this work, will hammer it out and post a tutorial this week-end.

[Knightrider]

http://tuicemen.com/forum/index.php?topic=469.msg2226#msg2226

Here you will find the tutorial.

[HA Dave]

Interesting to see a thread with posts from both Charles Sullivan and KDR.... reminded me of the old days.

[birdzeye]

http://tuicemen.com/forum/index.php?topic=469.msg2226#msg2226

Here you will find the tutorial.

Thanks for the tutorial, Knightrider!
However it's the setting up the macro that I'm having trouble with. I don't have a clue what to do in the dispatch macro tab.

[Tuicemen]

Since I found a old copy on a laptop I added a step by step macro build sample to Knightriders tutorial with a pic.

[birdzeye]

http://tuicemen.com/forum/index.php?topic=469.msg2226#msg2226

Here you will find the tutorial.

Has this link been broken? I can't find the tutorial. I need to read it because I still can't get x10dispatcher to email me in case of flooding. If I continually press a button on my palmpad and then look under STATUS in x10dispatcher it says my flooding macro is running but I'm not receiving an email.

[Tuicemen]

Forum is back up link should work now.
There was a issue with the server, Sorry for the delay!

[birdzeye]

Maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Maybe I should be asking how to set up the emailing part of this thing, because mine is not working. I have the macro set up correctly, at least I'm pretty sure I do, and it says under STATUS that dispatcher is emailing a flooding alert, but I'm not getting an email. What am I doing wrong?

BTW HAPPY NEW YEAR!