6 ms·

This is great news. I would also love to see some (not all) uhf band allow encryption. While amateur radio service is about communicating with others, services

This is great news. I would also love to see some (not all) uhf band allow encryption. While amateur radio service is about communicating with others, services like winlink and digital messaging are hampered without encryption and become unsafe for the operators. This would also make internet relay possible and legal in uhf.

NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
>services like winlink and digital messaging are hampered without encryption and become unsafe for the operators How so?
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  Your messages are cleartext, can be forged, and your password can be trivially grabbed across just a few logins. It's like pre-https internet basically. This also means winlink shouldn't be used for PII (which is sort of important in an emergency!). If you can at least key exchange and encrypt between you and the next node, you have some safeguards and your messages aren't in the clear - but that is currently prohibited by the regs.
  - skullone 3y ago
    I don't think scammers will be listening in on shortwave to grab names or an address during an emergency :p
    - baz00 3y ago
      Have you been to a hamfest recently? Do you want half the participants getting your details?
      - piperswe 3y ago
        If you put your address on your license application, then they have your details if they have your callsign.
    - vorpalhex 3y ago
      Security through obscurity is no security at all. SDRs that will record everything across a nice swath of frequency are $20.
      - Forgotthepass8 3y ago
        +those fantastic websdr sites will have it captured
  - kwk1 3y ago
    > Your messages are cleartext, can be forged Digital signatures are permissible under the current rules and in principle avoid this issue although the software tooling around it isn't there. Similar example: Debian packages are transmitted over HTTP, but this isn't a problem because they are authenticated with GPG.
finnthehuman 3y ago
I want to agree with encryption but I think we’d see tunneling unapproved use though approved use. I don’t use my license enough to know is cryptographic signing is kosher but if it’s not that would be cool. If the idea is an “if you have a license, send whatever data you want because it’s encrypted” limited allocation then I might be into that. Sharing the spectrum would be complicated.
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  Yeah that's why I suggest a small subset of the UHF spectrum - it's naturally range limited to your local repeaters and it has the room to carve some space for whatever encrypted traffic is flowing. Whether that space is used for meshtastic, AREDN, etc is up to the local band plan. Leave some for experimenters. Even APRS (which I realize is usually vhf) would benefit - sms over aprs meant all your phone numbers were public.
  - giantrobot 3y ago
    If you are transmitting an encrypted signal and I am not the recipient, I just see it as noise. There's no way for me to know its not noise. Since I have no insight into the transmission other than it's noise I don't have any idea when I get to use the shared medium you decided you wanted to monopolize. IIRC there's more bandwidth in just the 2.4GHz ISM band than all of the ham bands combined. If you want to blast noise (what your encrypted signal appears as) use ISM bands. Don't blast noise on ham bands.
- thrtythreeforty 3y ago
  Signatures on a cleartext transmission should be okay, I think. The FCC prohibits obscured meaning and as long as the encoding scheme is published (and you're courteous and follow the band plan) then I don't think there's anything forbidding making traffic un-forgeable with cryptography.
  - myself248 3y ago
    That's my understanding as well. But I'd also bet a dollar that someone fails to understand the difference and gets their undies in a massive twist about it.
twiclo 3y ago
They actually never explicitly say no encryption. I can't find the section right now but it says something like "no obstructing the purpose of your transmission". So theoretically you could add a header to every packet that says "purpose: testing hardware" and you'd be fine. It's only other groups, not the FCC, who have interpreted that to mean no encryption.
- emptybits 3y ago
  > I can't find the section right now but it says something like "no obstructing the purpose of your transmission". So theoretically you could add a header to every packet that says "purpose: testing hardware" and you'd be fine. I think Section 97 is what you're referring to. If so, it's not obstruction of purpose the FCC forbids; it's obstruction of meaning. Section 97: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-97 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- chriscjcj 3y ago
  I'm not an experienced ham; I only have my technician license. Throughout part 97, there is a repeated prohibition of transmitting "messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning." If I understand it correctly, there are many accepted ways to encode a message, but those encoding methods are (and must be) published and publicly accessible. I think that encrypting a message so that only certain people could decipher it would fall under the category of "messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning." Yes, you could encrypt a message with a published standard, but to be legal I think there would have to be some specific exceptions made to allow it because it ultimately runs afoul of the spirit of that rule.
ozim 3y ago
I’m sorry but encryption is not required to test your antenna setup and get reading of your output power from another station. You miss the point, it is not about communication as in having a conversation. HAM radio is about testing technical skills of setting it up and being able to test those technical skills to set up communication channel. If you want to have encryption go to enterprise solutions and restricted bandwidths. Encryption will make asshole companies to use bandwidth for their use without paying and will make all spectrum suck. That is why you have call signs and all communications open for everyone to listen to because it is for public experimentation not for some private chats or data exchange.
- lostapathy 3y ago
  > You miss the point, it is not about communication as in having a conversation. Yes, but, running a "yep, I can hear that" test is a lot less interesting and motivating, for most people, than being able to actually do something quasi-practical with the radio link.
- sterlind 3y ago
  what about allowing authentication, rather than encryption? like, let people send MAC-protected checksums and signatures to make plaintext verifiable. I think it'd open up the possibilities of like, weather balloons streaming their telemetry openly, while ensuring the data they're reporting hasn't been forged, or letting anyone send random commands to it.
  - jcalvinowens 3y ago
    > what about allowing authentication, rather than encryption? like, let people send MAC-protected checksums and signatures to make plaintext verifiable. That's already allowed, and commonly done. 97.113(a)(4) doesn't say "no cryptography", it says (in part): >> No amateur station shall transmit [...] messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning. The scheme you're describing doesn't obscure the meaning of your transmissions, so it is perfectly legal. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-97 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D...
vvoid 3y ago
My fear would be Helium and rightwing extremist groups. Currently happy to have the encrypted P25 users on the wrong side of part 97.
- thrtythreeforty 3y ago
  Do people operate pirate/unlicensed P25 nets? Seems like that's the kind of thing hams would like to foxhunt.
  - vvoid 3y ago
    Judging by amateur radio subreddits, there is significant crossover interest in this among the prepper and mutual aid community. Rhetorically speaking, what does one do with the fox once it's caught? In particular one experimenting with TAK?
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  Don't let your fear of boogeymen impact your opinions on how we use spectrum
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
I have to see anyone take things seriously enough to sign their messages. We could easily assert a public key then send a chirp at the end that signs the transmission we just made, with our corresponding private key, for folks to verify. I don't see any real push for a public service like ham to allow outright encryption. Channels feel like they should be for public use. We can get many guarantees, if we need them, without obfuscating the messages.
- myself248 3y ago
  Yeah, it would be nice to see some protocols to do just that, implement authentication over cleartext messages in a way that's compatible with the rules, and then wedge that under some useful apps.
throw0101a 3y ago
> I would also love to see some (not all) uhf band allow encryption. I disagree: with a finite, shared resource like radio spectrum (and especially the amateur bands), I think it would be too easy for people to abuse if other folks couldn't inspect it. As it stands, many find it annoying that PACTOR (as useful as it is) is able to keep hidden their proprietary encoding secret (though generally used on marine bands, which doesn't necessarily have the same open-ness restrictions): * 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20386875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20386875 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACTOR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACTOR * https://www.bwsailing.com/bw/ssb-email-and-weather-made-easy/ https://www.bwsailing.com/bw/ssb-email-and-weather-made-easy... * https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/PACTOR_IV https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/PACTOR_IV
GuB-42 3y ago
> This would also make internet relay possible and legal in uhf. That's exactly the reason why encryption is banned. The authorities, as well as amateur radio representatives don't want ham radio to become yet another internet channel, with all the commercial activity that happens there. There are many ways of sending secure messages, but few truly public spaces.

NovemberWhiskey 3y ago

>services like winlink and digital messaging are hampered without encryption and become unsafe for the operators How so?

vorpalhex 3y ago
Your messages are cleartext, can be forged, and your password can be trivially grabbed across just a few logins. It's like pre-https internet basically. This also means winlink shouldn't be used for PII (which is sort of important in an emergency!). If you can at least key exchange and encrypt between you and the next node, you have some safeguards and your messages aren't in the clear - but that is currently prohibited by the regs.
- skullone 3y ago
  I don't think scammers will be listening in on shortwave to grab names or an address during an emergency :p
  - baz00 3y ago
    Have you been to a hamfest recently? Do you want half the participants getting your details?
    - piperswe 3y ago
      If you put your address on your license application, then they have your details if they have your callsign.
  - vorpalhex 3y ago
    Security through obscurity is no security at all. SDRs that will record everything across a nice swath of frequency are $20.
    - Forgotthepass8 3y ago
      +those fantastic websdr sites will have it captured
- kwk1 3y ago
  > Your messages are cleartext, can be forged Digital signatures are permissible under the current rules and in principle avoid this issue although the software tooling around it isn't there. Similar example: Debian packages are transmitted over HTTP, but this isn't a problem because they are authenticated with GPG.

finnthehuman 3y ago

I want to agree with encryption but I think we’d see tunneling unapproved use though approved use. I don’t use my license enough to know is cryptographic signing is kosher but if it’s not that would be cool. If the idea is an “if you have a license, send whatever data you want because it’s encrypted” limited allocation then I might be into that. Sharing the spectrum would be complicated.

vorpalhex 3y ago
Yeah that's why I suggest a small subset of the UHF spectrum - it's naturally range limited to your local repeaters and it has the room to carve some space for whatever encrypted traffic is flowing. Whether that space is used for meshtastic, AREDN, etc is up to the local band plan. Leave some for experimenters. Even APRS (which I realize is usually vhf) would benefit - sms over aprs meant all your phone numbers were public.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  If you are transmitting an encrypted signal and I am not the recipient, I just see it as noise. There's no way for me to know its not noise. Since I have no insight into the transmission other than it's noise I don't have any idea when I get to use the shared medium you decided you wanted to monopolize. IIRC there's more bandwidth in just the 2.4GHz ISM band than all of the ham bands combined. If you want to blast noise (what your encrypted signal appears as) use ISM bands. Don't blast noise on ham bands.
thrtythreeforty 3y ago
Signatures on a cleartext transmission should be okay, I think. The FCC prohibits obscured meaning and as long as the encoding scheme is published (and you're courteous and follow the band plan) then I don't think there's anything forbidding making traffic un-forgeable with cryptography.
- myself248 3y ago
  That's my understanding as well. But I'd also bet a dollar that someone fails to understand the difference and gets their undies in a massive twist about it.

twiclo 3y ago

They actually never explicitly say no encryption. I can't find the section right now but it says something like "no obstructing the purpose of your transmission". So theoretically you could add a header to every packet that says "purpose: testing hardware" and you'd be fine. It's only other groups, not the FCC, who have interpreted that to mean no encryption.

emptybits 3y ago
> I can't find the section right now but it says something like "no obstructing the purpose of your transmission". So theoretically you could add a header to every packet that says "purpose: testing hardware" and you'd be fine. I think Section 97 is what you're referring to. If so, it's not obstruction of purpose the FCC forbids; it's obstruction of meaning. Section 97: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-97 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
chriscjcj 3y ago
I'm not an experienced ham; I only have my technician license. Throughout part 97, there is a repeated prohibition of transmitting "messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning." If I understand it correctly, there are many accepted ways to encode a message, but those encoding methods are (and must be) published and publicly accessible. I think that encrypting a message so that only certain people could decipher it would fall under the category of "messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning." Yes, you could encrypt a message with a published standard, but to be legal I think there would have to be some specific exceptions made to allow it because it ultimately runs afoul of the spirit of that rule.

ozim 3y ago

I’m sorry but encryption is not required to test your antenna setup and get reading of your output power from another station. You miss the point, it is not about communication as in having a conversation. HAM radio is about testing technical skills of setting it up and being able to test those technical skills to set up communication channel. If you want to have encryption go to enterprise solutions and restricted bandwidths. Encryption will make asshole companies to use bandwidth for their use without paying and will make all spectrum suck. That is why you have call signs and all communications open for everyone to listen to because it is for public experimentation not for some private chats or data exchange.

lostapathy 3y ago
> You miss the point, it is not about communication as in having a conversation. Yes, but, running a "yep, I can hear that" test is a lot less interesting and motivating, for most people, than being able to actually do something quasi-practical with the radio link.
sterlind 3y ago
what about allowing authentication, rather than encryption? like, let people send MAC-protected checksums and signatures to make plaintext verifiable. I think it'd open up the possibilities of like, weather balloons streaming their telemetry openly, while ensuring the data they're reporting hasn't been forged, or letting anyone send random commands to it.
- jcalvinowens 3y ago
  > what about allowing authentication, rather than encryption? like, let people send MAC-protected checksums and signatures to make plaintext verifiable. That's already allowed, and commonly done. 97.113(a)(4) doesn't say "no cryptography", it says (in part): >> No amateur station shall transmit [...] messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning. The scheme you're describing doesn't obscure the meaning of your transmissions, so it is perfectly legal. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-97 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D...

vvoid 3y ago

My fear would be Helium and rightwing extremist groups. Currently happy to have the encrypted P25 users on the wrong side of part 97.

thrtythreeforty 3y ago
Do people operate pirate/unlicensed P25 nets? Seems like that's the kind of thing hams would like to foxhunt.
- vvoid 3y ago
  Judging by amateur radio subreddits, there is significant crossover interest in this among the prepper and mutual aid community. Rhetorically speaking, what does one do with the fox once it's caught? In particular one experimenting with TAK?
vorpalhex 3y ago
Don't let your fear of boogeymen impact your opinions on how we use spectrum

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

I have to see anyone take things seriously enough to sign their messages. We could easily assert a public key then send a chirp at the end that signs the transmission we just made, with our corresponding private key, for folks to verify. I don't see any real push for a public service like ham to allow outright encryption. Channels feel like they should be for public use. We can get many guarantees, if we need them, without obfuscating the messages.

myself248 3y ago
Yeah, it would be nice to see some protocols to do just that, implement authentication over cleartext messages in a way that's compatible with the rules, and then wedge that under some useful apps.

throw0101a 3y ago

> I would also love to see some (not all) uhf band allow encryption. I disagree: with a finite, shared resource like radio spectrum (and especially the amateur bands), I think it would be too easy for people to abuse if other folks couldn't inspect it. As it stands, many find it annoying that PACTOR (as useful as it is) is able to keep hidden their proprietary encoding secret (though generally used on marine bands, which doesn't necessarily have the same open-ness restrictions): * 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20386875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20386875 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACTOR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACTOR * https://www.bwsailing.com/bw/ssb-email-and-weather-made-easy/ https://www.bwsailing.com/bw/ssb-email-and-weather-made-easy... * https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/PACTOR_IV https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/PACTOR_IV

GuB-42 3y ago

> This would also make internet relay possible and legal in uhf. That's exactly the reason why encryption is banned. The authorities, as well as amateur radio representatives don't want ham radio to become yet another internet channel, with all the commercial activity that happens there. There are many ways of sending secure messages, but few truly public spaces.