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> can you do encrypted communications with a ham license? No. It's prohibited internationally and enforced by all ITU member states, the only exception which e

> can you do encrypted communications with a ham license? No. It's prohibited internationally and enforced by all ITU member states, the only exception which encryption is acceptable is the control uplink to aircraft and spacecraft. Although in some countries, using encryption domestically, purely for access control (not for confidentiality) is acceptable under some circumstances, if you publish your key. > does spread spectrum qualify? No. There are additional rules governing spread spectrum communications, but it doesn't automatically imply encryption. Many spread spectrum systems use weak PRNG and not meant for encryption.

Causality1 7y ago
So what's the motivation for disallowing encryption on ham channels?
- Danieru 7y ago
  No doubt to prevent abuse and allow identification of violators. Encryption would open the bands to general commercial usage. My uncle works in Canada's spectrum enforcement. You would be surprised at how many small business attempt to violate band licenses to save a few bucks. Think taxi or logging services with commms on protected bands.
  - Causality1 7y ago
    ... But if they're violating the rules in some other way why wouldn't they also encrypt?
    - tlrobinson 7y ago
      You have it backwards. They can't violate the rules now because it would be obvious. If encryption were allowed it would be impossible to know if a transmission is violating certain rules or not.
      - Causality1 7y ago
        Like what? Plotting to kill somebody over the radio? Logically there must be rules about hogging spectrum or harassing people but I'm having a hard time imagining how encryption could stop someone from knowing if you're breaking another law.
        dannypgh 7y ago
        Commercial usage of amateur bands is prohibited. How can you tell if communication is commercial if you can't understand what's being communicated?
    - yipbub 7y ago
      AFAIK encryption doesn't hide you if you're broadcasting; you can be found with a directional antenna.
    - luxpir 7y ago
      You can be located pretty trivially, encryption or not. Look up fox-hunting (radio version).
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  It served three important purposes. (1) To persuade the governments to allow the existence of amateur radio, (2) To force the publication of technical specifications, and (3) To restrain its use (abuse?) by commercial vendors. First, it's important to understand that radio communication is a modern creation, not a post-modern creation like the Internet. From the beginning, telecommunication and radio communication was/is an area under heavy regulations by powerful governments. Since a hundred years ago, almost all aspects of communications (modulation, equipment, content, frequencies, price, recipients), even whether one is allowed to listen a broadcast station, were heavily regulated, often under the name of national security (and commercial interests). Today's regulations still follow the same framework. Amateur radio service was created to allow noncommercial technical experimentation - encryption is prohibited as parts of the compromise made by experimenters, in exchange, Big Brothers allowed experimenters to perform noncommercial communications under greatly reduced regulations, this even includes some authoritarian regimes such as the Soviet Union. Without such a compromise, amateur radio service wouldn't even exist at all. Unless the underlying political landscape and framework of radio and telecommunication is changed greatly, such as the vision advocated by the supporters of spectrum commons theory [0], this situation will remain. Second, what has been prohibited is not encryption itself, but all forms of encoding that cannot be understood by others ("secret code"), this includes encryption, and also includes proprietary protocols. This regulation forces all communicators and commercial equipment vendors to document the technical information of the communication protocols being used to facilitate experimentation, thus it serves as a barrier against the use of proprietary protocols that is detrimental to the community. There is only one major flaw - there are no rules about patents, and there are already protocols designed by commercial vendors that cannot be legally decoded without obtaining a patent license. Nevertheless, the non-encryption rule works well to keep all protocols open, at least, its specification. Third, amateur radio is, by definition, non-commercial, and it's not negotiable. There is the fact that the existence of amateur radio frequency allocation is constantly under the threat of reallocation to commercial services (the latest one is 5G). And there is also an opinion commonly held by many in the community, that there's always a trend that some commercial users may choose to abuse amateur frequencies to avoid the costs of using a commercial radio service, and that if proprietary protocols or encrypted communication is allowed, there's a danger of a de facto commercial exploitation of the amateur radio service when the nature of communication cannot be determined. So, in conclusion, encryption was originally prohibited for "national security" to allow the existence of amateur radio, and many members in the community today believes the rule is still necessary to keep the proprietary protocols out of amateur radio, and/or to keep commercial abusers out of amateur radio. Although there are many situations which encryption can be beneficial for the community, but the consensus seems to be that, even if the state allows it (which is unlikely), its threats to the community is greater than its benefits. Any argument to allow encryption in amateur radio will be faced with suspect by many that it's only a disguised attempt to introduce proprietary protocols or commercial uses. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_commons_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_commons_theory
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
kelnos 7y ago
Wait, I don't get it. How can you enforce access control using encryption if you publish your encryption key?
- coryrc 7y ago
  The unencrypted message includes a validation hash, which you can verify with a public key.
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago
  The motivation is to keep (accidental) unlicensed users out of amateur radio service. For example, 2.4 GHz is both an unlicensed band usable under Part 15, and simultaneously an amateur radio band usable under Part 97, these are very different rules. Since amateur radio operators can use any public protocols (including 802.11) on the air, there is a risk of accidentally exchanging communication with devices owned by unlicensed operators (such as your neighbor's laptop), which violates radio regulations. Under this circumstance, some people believed that in the United States, encryption with a key published in a publicly accessible place is allowed (and there are still other people who says it's not allowed, but the debate has never been legally challenged until a high-profile abuse appears in the future, but so far there is none, so currently it is a de facto acceptable practice).

Causality1 7y ago

So what's the motivation for disallowing encryption on ham channels?

Danieru 7y ago
No doubt to prevent abuse and allow identification of violators. Encryption would open the bands to general commercial usage. My uncle works in Canada's spectrum enforcement. You would be surprised at how many small business attempt to violate band licenses to save a few bucks. Think taxi or logging services with commms on protected bands.
- Causality1 7y ago
  ... But if they're violating the rules in some other way why wouldn't they also encrypt?
  - tlrobinson 7y ago
    You have it backwards. They can't violate the rules now because it would be obvious. If encryption were allowed it would be impossible to know if a transmission is violating certain rules or not.
    - Causality1 7y ago
      Like what? Plotting to kill somebody over the radio? Logically there must be rules about hogging spectrum or harassing people but I'm having a hard time imagining how encryption could stop someone from knowing if you're breaking another law.
      - dannypgh 7y ago
        Commercial usage of amateur bands is prohibited. How can you tell if communication is commercial if you can't understand what's being communicated?
  - yipbub 7y ago
    AFAIK encryption doesn't hide you if you're broadcasting; you can be found with a directional antenna.
  - luxpir 7y ago
    You can be located pretty trivially, encryption or not. Look up fox-hunting (radio version).
segfaultbuserr 7y ago
It served three important purposes. (1) To persuade the governments to allow the existence of amateur radio, (2) To force the publication of technical specifications, and (3) To restrain its use (abuse?) by commercial vendors. First, it's important to understand that radio communication is a modern creation, not a post-modern creation like the Internet. From the beginning, telecommunication and radio communication was/is an area under heavy regulations by powerful governments. Since a hundred years ago, almost all aspects of communications (modulation, equipment, content, frequencies, price, recipients), even whether one is allowed to listen a broadcast station, were heavily regulated, often under the name of national security (and commercial interests). Today's regulations still follow the same framework. Amateur radio service was created to allow noncommercial technical experimentation - encryption is prohibited as parts of the compromise made by experimenters, in exchange, Big Brothers allowed experimenters to perform noncommercial communications under greatly reduced regulations, this even includes some authoritarian regimes such as the Soviet Union. Without such a compromise, amateur radio service wouldn't even exist at all. Unless the underlying political landscape and framework of radio and telecommunication is changed greatly, such as the vision advocated by the supporters of spectrum commons theory [0], this situation will remain. Second, what has been prohibited is not encryption itself, but all forms of encoding that cannot be understood by others ("secret code"), this includes encryption, and also includes proprietary protocols. This regulation forces all communicators and commercial equipment vendors to document the technical information of the communication protocols being used to facilitate experimentation, thus it serves as a barrier against the use of proprietary protocols that is detrimental to the community. There is only one major flaw - there are no rules about patents, and there are already protocols designed by commercial vendors that cannot be legally decoded without obtaining a patent license. Nevertheless, the non-encryption rule works well to keep all protocols open, at least, its specification. Third, amateur radio is, by definition, non-commercial, and it's not negotiable. There is the fact that the existence of amateur radio frequency allocation is constantly under the threat of reallocation to commercial services (the latest one is 5G). And there is also an opinion commonly held by many in the community, that there's always a trend that some commercial users may choose to abuse amateur frequencies to avoid the costs of using a commercial radio service, and that if proprietary protocols or encrypted communication is allowed, there's a danger of a de facto commercial exploitation of the amateur radio service when the nature of communication cannot be determined. So, in conclusion, encryption was originally prohibited for "national security" to allow the existence of amateur radio, and many members in the community today believes the rule is still necessary to keep the proprietary protocols out of amateur radio, and/or to keep commercial abusers out of amateur radio. Although there are many situations which encryption can be beneficial for the community, but the consensus seems to be that, even if the state allows it (which is unlikely), its threats to the community is greater than its benefits. Any argument to allow encryption in amateur radio will be faced with suspect by many that it's only a disguised attempt to introduce proprietary protocols or commercial uses. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_commons_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_commons_theory
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

kelnos 7y ago

Wait, I don't get it. How can you enforce access control using encryption if you publish your encryption key?

coryrc 7y ago
The unencrypted message includes a validation hash, which you can verify with a public key.
segfaultbuserr 7y ago
The motivation is to keep (accidental) unlicensed users out of amateur radio service. For example, 2.4 GHz is both an unlicensed band usable under Part 15, and simultaneously an amateur radio band usable under Part 97, these are very different rules. Since amateur radio operators can use any public protocols (including 802.11) on the air, there is a risk of accidentally exchanging communication with devices owned by unlicensed operators (such as your neighbor's laptop), which violates radio regulations. Under this circumstance, some people believed that in the United States, encryption with a key published in a publicly accessible place is allowed (and there are still other people who says it's not allowed, but the debate has never been legally challenged until a high-profile abuse appears in the future, but so far there is none, so currently it is a de facto acceptable practice).