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It seems like not allowing encryption for amateur radio bands is a showstopper for a lot of people, it would be nice if the FCC would change their position on i

by zoidb 11y ago

It seems like not allowing encryption for amateur radio bands is a showstopper for a lot of people, it would be nice if the FCC would change their position on it. Does anyone know if there has been any movement in this area?

hga 11y ago
It would be much harder to keep commercial traffic off the ham bands if hams and the government can't read the traffic.
- goda90 11y ago
  I hate the implications of such a system, but perhaps an encryption system could be developed such that both the sender and receiver are verifiable in any one message based on their public key but the message remains encrypted. Then only ham licensees are granted valid certificates. I don't think encryption should be allowed on most ham bands, but I was trying to come up with a solution(while making all sorts of new problems)
  - lmm 11y ago
    You could do that at the SSL level with client certificates, I think.
jlgaddis 11y ago
Ham radio is about communicating with others. How am I supposed to respond to your digital "CQ" if it's encrypted and I can't read it? There has not been any movement in this area and I hope that there never is.
- adrianN 11y ago
  Private communication is a form of communication. Public key cryptography makes it relatively easy.
  - unethical_ban 11y ago
    But the whole point of amateur radio historically has been making contact with strangers and/or being welcoming to new people to the hobby. I'm a privacy zealot, but the spirit and discoverability of amateur radio would be diminished if all the traffic was just static. PERHAPS a small band could be allocated for secure comms experiments... but I don't know. Besides, wouldn't encrypted noise over the air be confusing to others? Wouldn't people just broadcast over each other?
    - adrianN 11y ago
      The internet allows for encrypted communication, yet you can talk to me, a stranger. Allowing encryption doesn't mean that all traffic necessarily needs to be encrypted.
      - unethical_ban 11y ago
        Decentralized transmission with no easy attribution on a limited resource is different than posting to a central server via a virtually unlimited resource (the Internet).
VLM 11y ago
"showstopper for a lot of people" People trying to do what, exactly? And how would existing ham users benefit by having the bands taken over by those commercial activities that the FCC regulates under other parts? There are multiple roadblocks: FCC part 97.113(A) prohibited transmissions contains: "(5) Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services." So... if all you're trying to do is replicate a wirelessISP or satellite internet service, but do it for free on the ham bands, well, that's illegal in and of itself aside from encryption. This part of the law has occasionally caused controversy for the RC airplane people on the 6M band, the "text email service for sailboats" people on HF, couple others. And if you live near the border of a country or have impressive range there's part 97.117. And there are interesting regulations for 3rd party traffic across international boundaries. And there are pecuniary interest regulations, so no doing work or getting paid for it or having money change hands except under relatively weird and limited forms. Its not as simple as crossing out a couple words in 97.113(A)(4) that prevent "messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning". That alone will not magically let wireless ISPs offer service pretending to be ham radio.
csirac2 11y ago
The spirit of amateur radio rights in most jurisdictions is that of an open/public communications medium that any licensed person can join in on (it has twitter-like aspects in that sense). Education and technical investigations are also usually encouraged. In that sense, encryption might be viewed at the very least as being selfish by some; and at the worst, some jurisdictions would start having to think differently about threats on ham radio bands.
grandalf 11y ago
showstopper? the idea is that you are broadcasting. How is a public (low budget) radio system supposed to have the money to establish the widespread cryptosystem necessary to maintain the spirit of openness while also maintaining privacy? As such, privacy is not a goal of amateur radio at all. If you desire private communications, the FCC offers different (more costly) licenses for that. There's also the internet.

by zoidb 11y ago

hga 11y ago

It would be much harder to keep commercial traffic off the ham bands if hams and the government can't read the traffic.

goda90 11y ago
I hate the implications of such a system, but perhaps an encryption system could be developed such that both the sender and receiver are verifiable in any one message based on their public key but the message remains encrypted. Then only ham licensees are granted valid certificates. I don't think encryption should be allowed on most ham bands, but I was trying to come up with a solution(while making all sorts of new problems)
- lmm 11y ago
  You could do that at the SSL level with client certificates, I think.

jlgaddis 11y ago

Ham radio is about communicating with others. How am I supposed to respond to your digital "CQ" if it's encrypted and I can't read it? There has not been any movement in this area and I hope that there never is.

adrianN 11y ago
Private communication is a form of communication. Public key cryptography makes it relatively easy.
- unethical_ban 11y ago
  But the whole point of amateur radio historically has been making contact with strangers and/or being welcoming to new people to the hobby. I'm a privacy zealot, but the spirit and discoverability of amateur radio would be diminished if all the traffic was just static. PERHAPS a small band could be allocated for secure comms experiments... but I don't know. Besides, wouldn't encrypted noise over the air be confusing to others? Wouldn't people just broadcast over each other?
  - adrianN 11y ago
    The internet allows for encrypted communication, yet you can talk to me, a stranger. Allowing encryption doesn't mean that all traffic necessarily needs to be encrypted.
    - unethical_ban 11y ago
      Decentralized transmission with no easy attribution on a limited resource is different than posting to a central server via a virtually unlimited resource (the Internet).

VLM 11y ago

"showstopper for a lot of people" People trying to do what, exactly? And how would existing ham users benefit by having the bands taken over by those commercial activities that the FCC regulates under other parts? There are multiple roadblocks: FCC part 97.113(A) prohibited transmissions contains: "(5) Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services." So... if all you're trying to do is replicate a wirelessISP or satellite internet service, but do it for free on the ham bands, well, that's illegal in and of itself aside from encryption. This part of the law has occasionally caused controversy for the RC airplane people on the 6M band, the "text email service for sailboats" people on HF, couple others. And if you live near the border of a country or have impressive range there's part 97.117. And there are interesting regulations for 3rd party traffic across international boundaries. And there are pecuniary interest regulations, so no doing work or getting paid for it or having money change hands except under relatively weird and limited forms. Its not as simple as crossing out a couple words in 97.113(A)(4) that prevent "messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning". That alone will not magically let wireless ISPs offer service pretending to be ham radio.

csirac2 11y ago

The spirit of amateur radio rights in most jurisdictions is that of an open/public communications medium that any licensed person can join in on (it has twitter-like aspects in that sense). Education and technical investigations are also usually encouraged. In that sense, encryption might be viewed at the very least as being selfish by some; and at the worst, some jurisdictions would start having to think differently about threats on ham radio bands.

grandalf 11y ago

showstopper? the idea is that you are broadcasting. How is a public (low budget) radio system supposed to have the money to establish the widespread cryptosystem necessary to maintain the spirit of openness while also maintaining privacy? As such, privacy is not a goal of amateur radio at all. If you desire private communications, the FCC offers different (more costly) licenses for that. There's also the internet.