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A bigger issue is RM-11831 would also ban DMR, P25, and pretty much every digital mode used on VHF as well, because of its open source requirement, every ham di

• VLM 7y ago
  Yes that's pretty much how DSTAR got banned in France. My guess, or hope, for how it'll roll out is something like grandfathering in the closed source copyrighted codecs while banning all future closed codecs. Or sunset the closed source codecs in 2039 or similar. Also note the non-voice digital modes will be AFAIK mostly unaffected. All the classic modes, the K1JT open source modes for meteor scatter, EME and general contesting, all OK.
• tracker1 7y ago
  Are there any open, or at least out of patent protocols for use? As for encryption, what would be wrong with at least enough of the message being an open header... id: UUID from: user@CALLSIGN to: user@CALLSIGN content: XXX Content encrypted if both from and to have an associated keybase.io entry, for example. At least then you can identify the callsign via open protocol? content would include additional headers and encoded body content.
  • unoti 7y ago
    The idea is there shouldn’t be encryption. The ham spectrum is intended to be for educational and hobby use, and for emergency communications. If the message is for commercial use or for something that needs to be encrypted then it should be on a portion of the spectrum reserved for commercial or government use. The only exception to this is controlling satellites. That’s how the rules are written, and the reasoning behind that is to make sure there’s always good chunks of spectrum available for that kind of hobby, research, and free personal use.
    • tracker1 7y ago
      Reading in other threads, it seems there are amateur bands that do allow for encrypted transmissions, correct? In any case, it seems like a lot of the suggested use cases could easily be unencrypted digital messages with a crypto signature part for confirming the sender to control systems.
      • tjohns 7y ago
        Nope, none of the amateur bands allow encryption. There are “unlicensed” (technically licensed-by-rule) bands that do. Typically the ISM bands, which is what WiFi uses. But they aren't as open for experimental use as the amateur bands. (But yes, even on amateur bands a digital signature would be fine. You just can't obscure the meaning of the message.)
    • KirinDave 7y ago
      If I'm honest, it's weird that folks are pushing an internet dichotomy between "hobbyist" and "encryption" in 2019.
      • waste_monk 7y ago
        Ham radio was explicitly never meant to be private - if you're trying to communicate and don't want someone snooping on your conversation, you can pick up a phone or find some other channel instead. It should be possible for all stations to receive messages on the ham bands, and encryption is entirely orthogonal to that goal. Also, it's worth noting that some cryptography is allowed, just nothing that obscures the message - say you have a device which can be remotely controlled via radio and want to send it a control message ("turn on relay 1" for example), you're allowed to cryptographically sign your message to authenticate that it came from you - just not encrypt the message body.