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I had read, and maybe I'm misguided, that the law in the US was that you could listen to this stuff as an experiment with your amateur radio license and mess ar

by th0ma5 7y ago

I had read, and maybe I'm misguided, that the law in the US was that you could listen to this stuff as an experiment with your amateur radio license and mess around with all the decoding you wanted... It was just illegal to disclose to anyone anything you heard or read. Actually I don't think the amateur license may have had much to do with it at all, but anyway... I played with it for a minute and mostly saw automated messages about housekeeping needs, but I did occasionally see names, some kind of ID number but I don't think it was a SSN, and sometimes little "love you" notes and quite a lot of "please call me back". I got pretty bored with it pretty quickly that day.

JshWright 7y ago
> you could listen to this stuff as an experiment with your amateur radio license A license is only required to transmit. There is no license required to receive (how would that work, anyway?).
- msla 7y ago
  > There is no license required to receive (how would that work, anyway?). By prosecuting anyone who receives without a license. Laws are often passed without regard for how enforceable they are.
- lsaferite 7y ago
  > how would that work, anyway? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence Ask all of those countries.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  When I was young an inspector came to the door to see if we had a tv, as we had no licence. A parent said to the inspector that yes, we did, but it’s unused and boxed in a spare room. They came in and inspected it and put a bag over the power cable and taped it on. Solved. This was 1980s New Zealand.
jlgaddis 7y ago
The only thing I can think of that sounds even remotely close to what you're describing is when Congress made it illegal [0] to listen in on cellular phone calls a few decades ago but, notable, pager traffic was specifically excluded from the law. Until listening to cellular calls was made illegal, it had always been legal (AFAIK) to receive any transmissions on any frequency (the reasoning was that the signal was being broadcasted into, e.g., your home). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Priv...
- jacobush 7y ago
  AFAIK in Sweden it is legal to listen to the Police but not legal to disclose sensitive stuff. Of course, since a few years all communication is encrypted so it's not relevant anymore.

by th0ma5 7y ago

JshWright 7y ago

> you could listen to this stuff as an experiment with your amateur radio license A license is only required to transmit. There is no license required to receive (how would that work, anyway?).

msla 7y ago
> There is no license required to receive (how would that work, anyway?). By prosecuting anyone who receives without a license. Laws are often passed without regard for how enforceable they are.
lsaferite 7y ago
> how would that work, anyway? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence Ask all of those countries.
lostlogin 7y ago
When I was young an inspector came to the door to see if we had a tv, as we had no licence. A parent said to the inspector that yes, we did, but it’s unused and boxed in a spare room. They came in and inspected it and put a bag over the power cable and taped it on. Solved. This was 1980s New Zealand.

jlgaddis 7y ago

The only thing I can think of that sounds even remotely close to what you're describing is when Congress made it illegal [0] to listen in on cellular phone calls a few decades ago but, notable, pager traffic was specifically excluded from the law. Until listening to cellular calls was made illegal, it had always been legal (AFAIK) to receive any transmissions on any frequency (the reasoning was that the signal was being broadcasted into, e.g., your home). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Priv...

jacobush 7y ago
AFAIK in Sweden it is legal to listen to the Police but not legal to disclose sensitive stuff. Of course, since a few years all communication is encrypted so it's not relevant anymore.