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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

by 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.

by unoti 7y ago

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.