3 ms·

There is a bit of antiquated rules, but yeah most of them have their reasons. The whole point behind it amateur radio is to promote technology and communication

by ajford 10y ago

There is a bit of antiquated rules, but yeah most of them have their reasons. The whole point behind it amateur radio is to promote technology and communications, as well as provide an emergency backbone and fallback that the government doesn't have to fund, or really upkeep (since most of ham radio relies on self regulation and reporting). Allowing encrypted comms would essentially destroy one of the primary tenets of amateur radio, inter-operability without massive coordination. Now this doesn't mean you can't have security over the air. Just not really privacy. Nothing states you can't use modern crypto to generate signing keys and sign your message (not exactly feasible for voice, but digital yes) using asymmetric keys and common message authentication techniques. There's some modern digital modes and messaging systems developing, but the lack of privacy and sometimes the nature of the common demographic within ham radio (non-pc savvy users, oddly) prevent the growth on new tech.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
w8rbt 10y ago
One reason much of radio is antiquated and old-fashioned is that the old technology is dead simple and just works. With a piece of wire and a simple radio, you can communicate regionally or globally without network infrastructure or mains power.
superuser2 10y ago
Still, it's really frustrating that we have to pay intermediaries for their centralized infrastructure in order to have general-purpose private conversations, even though we have the technology to do it on a peer-to-peer basis. I understand private traffic isn't in the spirit of amateur radio, but it's frustrating that the only alternative is to go through the oligopoly of cell-phone networks. I still have "cyberpunk" dreams of wide area mesh networks between peers, owned by no one, available to anyone who can cobble together the right equipment. Obviously we'd need some limitations to keep people from stomping on each other's traffic, but surely there's a middle ground.

by ajford 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

w8rbt 10y ago

One reason much of radio is antiquated and old-fashioned is that the old technology is dead simple and just works. With a piece of wire and a simple radio, you can communicate regionally or globally without network infrastructure or mains power.

superuser2 10y ago

Still, it's really frustrating that we have to pay intermediaries for their centralized infrastructure in order to have general-purpose private conversations, even though we have the technology to do it on a peer-to-peer basis. I understand private traffic isn't in the spirit of amateur radio, but it's frustrating that the only alternative is to go through the oligopoly of cell-phone networks. I still have "cyberpunk" dreams of wide area mesh networks between peers, owned by no one, available to anyone who can cobble together the right equipment. Obviously we'd need some limitations to keep people from stomping on each other's traffic, but surely there's a middle ground.