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This is such a weird topic in the ham community. The reason this restriction exists has nothing to do with the retro-justifications used by the community. For

This is such a weird topic in the ham community. The reason this restriction exists has nothing to do with the retro-justifications used by the community. For a long time, the US government genuinely feared that ham radio would be used for espionage. It had listening stations across the nation to monitor all communications. It flat out shut down the entire service (!) during WWII. And it came up with the idea that you have to communicate in the open, and that no form of obfuscation or encryption is permissible. And then hams came up with this roundabout explanation that actually, it's good that you can't have privacy. No matter that it holds back a hobby that is by all usage metrics dying, and that there are many countries where encryption is allowed and doesn't lead to any terrible outcomes. Privacy is useful in hobby uses. Maybe you want to talk to your spouse without a nosy neighbor listening. Maybe you want to periodically beacon your GPS location without the whole world knowing. There are so many cool things you can do, and there is spectrum that is... quite frankly, largely dead right now, and if you don't encourage new uses, it will be reclaimed by the government.

scotteric 3y ago
How would one distinguish legal traffic from illegal? If encrypted communications were to be allowed, what is stopping people using the amateur bands for commercial use? This is the main concern of hams, not that it's good that you can't have privacy.
- edrxty 3y ago
  You can still have an In-The-Clear ID requirement, ie frame packets as: AB0CDE--*UI93.8u[3u9,8husoa...
  - Crunchified 3y ago
    Sure you can. This still does not ensure that the communications embedded within the encrypted portion of the data does not violate amateur rules. Encryption of communications effectively removes the ability of hams (and government regulators) to monitor their service for rule breakers. It would invite commercial users to exploit hams' valuable bandwidth. I would go so far as to say encryption is not needed in the amateur radio domain, outside of limiting access to the control and configuration of remote devices. The established goals of the amateur radio service can be achieved without encrypted communications.
    - lrvick 3y ago
      My goal is to be able to privately communicate with other people at a distance without relying on cell phone carriers, ISPs, or other brittle corporate infrastructure. Privacy is a human right, and that applies over radio. If I need to register my public keys like a license plate, fine, but the content is only the business of the recipient.
      - mike_d 3y ago
        Think of Ham like Usenet or posting to a forum. You are in the public square talking for all to hear. If you want something more akin to private email, that is possible you just need a difference license. https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/industrial-business/industrial-business-licensing https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-divis... I have frequency allocations (well technically a radio shop manages them for us) and use AES128 encryption with no issues.
        lrvick 3y ago
        So by this license only businesses are allowed to have private communications, not individuals?
        mike_d 3y ago
        Hypothetically you could get a license just for yourself, but only you'd be able to use it which might get kinda lonely. Using a LLC is much more practical as the entity can own the radios and assign them to authorized users acting on behalf of the company. Forming a corporate entity and paying the frequency coordination fees are going to be minimal in comparison to the hardware costs to communicate at a distance (encrypted or clear) reliably.
        withinboredom 3y ago
        Businesses are the only legal way to “group” people together and hold them accountable. Since you are purchasing a license for some spectrum, they need a way to hold that group accountable. A common business arrangement is to create a “co-op” to work together, usually owned equally by the members. For example, there are a couple of developer co-ops around here to get discounts on IDEs and resources by appearing as a large org. Almost like what you’d expect from a union, but most clearly not a union.
- deepsun 3y ago
  I think because any commerce is visible (e.g. they register with Secretary of State, pay taxes etc). If it's a tiny commerce, no-one would notice. Probably. Neither ham community. But no one seriously would invest time and money in a business that's, well, illegal.
  - wiml 3y ago
    > But no one seriously would invest time and money in a business that's, well, illegal. I ... what? That really doesn't jibe with my observations of the world.
    - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
      FCC don't play when they assign fines.
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Which they can only do for unencrypted traffic, encrypted traffic by definition would not be examinable by the FCC for determining whether to assign fines.
        I_Am_Nous 3y ago
        They don't have to know what you are sending to know you are sending in a way you shouldn't. It's not even about the content of the encrypted traffic at that point. They just see broadcasts (which...good luck hiding them from the FCC) and if they see the bandwidth being used but aren't receiving a usable audio/data stream from it, it's really easy to tell if the rules are being followed.
        MichaelZuo 3y ago
        How would anyone determine whether 'a usable audio/data stream' exists in encrypted traffic?
- apple4ever 3y ago
  Why does that matter? I don't think it does.
edrxty 3y ago
The secret is there's already tons of encrypted communications on the bands because of cheap chinese DMR radios that unlicensed teenagers use for airsoft and the like. It has yet to ruin ham radio and nobody has even noticed enough to attempt enforcement.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Those radios are very low power, so they don't really get in anyone's way.
  - edrxty 3y ago
    There are power limitations on spread spectrum emissions in some of the bands, you could have the same thing here.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  DMR isn’t encrypted. You can listen to them with any SDR. The voice codec is patented but well known. DMR itself is a standard.
  - piperswe 3y ago
    DMR can be encrypted, and I know from experience that there are people (not me, but people) running encrypted DMR on ham bands.
- Johnythree 3y ago
  Occasional, random uses of encryption would not attract much interest. But as soon as some company sets up an encrypted node in a location that will attract users, there will be much interest in what it's purpose is. The whole point of the regulation is to make defying the regulations on a commercial scale a risky operation.
abstractbeliefs 3y ago
You talk about retrojustification, but in many parts of the world this has long been written into law, for example in the UK's Wireless Telegraphy act: 1(1) The Licensee shall ensure that the Radio Equipment is only used: a) for the purpose of self-training in radio communications, including conducting technical investigations; and b) as a leisure activity and not for commercial purposes of any kind As for it being "good" not to have privacy, it's really not about having privacy or not, but respecting the situation that there are different tools for different needs. If you need to speak to your spouse, there are tools to speak to them privately! Amateur radio isn't the only option, and it isn't the best. The problem is that encrypted comms tie up spectrum space without giving anything back. Now, I don't ragchew, I think it's incredibly boring and unnecessarily toxic chat given most of the personalities and topics involved, but at least anyone can choose to drop in/out of that as needed. What I'm more interested in is radio as a sport, where I can climb mountains and operate from them, pushing myself and engaging in that competitive activity with others. It's hard to do that if everyone has decided to start using the 2m band as their private internet link because it goes further than WiFi.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lrvick 3y ago
  > If you need to speak to your spouse, there are tools to speak to them privately! Apart from amateur radio, what tool exist, that does not require the assistance of private corporations, ISPs, service fees, patents etc? I go camping way outside of cell phone tower ranges and it would be should be legal to communicate with my group privately. Radio is the only form of totally citizen controlled real time distance communication we have, if we do not count smoke signals. Snail mail encryption is already allowed. Encryption must be allowed on radio as well.
  - cornholio 3y ago
    I think a legitimate fear of radio amateurs is that encrypted, fully autonomous, long distance communication is such a killer application that usage would explode from commercial devices sold to take advantage of the ham space, leading to some kind of WiFi cacophony. Perhaps some kind of compromise is possible, where all encrypted ham must broadcast their callsign in the clear every few seconds.
threemux 3y ago
What countries allow general encryption on the ham bands (e.g. not limited exceptions for particular cases) "The hobby is dying" has been a trope longer than nearly everyone in this thread has been alive - give it a rest. We've always had allocations because there wasn't a commercial use for it. As soon as there is, we lose it. See the loss of part of 220mhz and all the higher frequencies we're in the process of losing to 5G/other commercial use. I recommend embracing this reality
- apple4ever 3y ago
  It is dying. ARRL has even said so. I don't care about the past. It's true now. Nobody said it has to be commercial (but I also disagree with that part), but allowing encryption actually will get people using the radio waves. Because right now, they are dead. 24/7, nobody transmitting.
ztetranz 3y ago
>there are many countries where encryption is allowed I don't think that's true. I assume you mean on the ham bands.
justin66 3y ago
> For a long time, the US government genuinely feared that ham radio would be used for espionage. It had listening stations across the nation to monitor all communications. Well this is all somewhat ahistorical. The people monitoring ham radio for abuses were, and are, ham radio operators. A task which would, you know, be more difficult if everything was encrypted.
apple4ever 3y ago
Agreed. I just got into the hobby, and the whole not allowing encryption or obfuscation is such a silly rule. It really limits what we can do. And your point about unused spectrum is spot on. Outsides of a couple repeaters on VHF and UHF, there is near zero radio transmissions in those bands 24/7.
mlyle 3y ago
> The reason this restriction exists has nothing to do with the retro-justifications used by the community. The original reasons not being such a big concern anymore don't mean that we've not spotted that these restrictions have a lot of useful features. There are some great use cases that encryption would allow... and also, if it became commonplace on ham bands, turn them into an opaque, uninviting mess, too.

scotteric 3y ago

How would one distinguish legal traffic from illegal? If encrypted communications were to be allowed, what is stopping people using the amateur bands for commercial use? This is the main concern of hams, not that it's good that you can't have privacy.

edrxty 3y ago
You can still have an In-The-Clear ID requirement, ie frame packets as: AB0CDE--*UI93.8u[3u9,8husoa...
- Crunchified 3y ago
  Sure you can. This still does not ensure that the communications embedded within the encrypted portion of the data does not violate amateur rules. Encryption of communications effectively removes the ability of hams (and government regulators) to monitor their service for rule breakers. It would invite commercial users to exploit hams' valuable bandwidth. I would go so far as to say encryption is not needed in the amateur radio domain, outside of limiting access to the control and configuration of remote devices. The established goals of the amateur radio service can be achieved without encrypted communications.
  - lrvick 3y ago
    My goal is to be able to privately communicate with other people at a distance without relying on cell phone carriers, ISPs, or other brittle corporate infrastructure. Privacy is a human right, and that applies over radio. If I need to register my public keys like a license plate, fine, but the content is only the business of the recipient.
    - mike_d 3y ago
      Think of Ham like Usenet or posting to a forum. You are in the public square talking for all to hear. If you want something more akin to private email, that is possible you just need a difference license. https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/industrial-business/industrial-business-licensing https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-divis... I have frequency allocations (well technically a radio shop manages them for us) and use AES128 encryption with no issues.
      - lrvick 3y ago
        So by this license only businesses are allowed to have private communications, not individuals?
        mike_d 3y ago
        Hypothetically you could get a license just for yourself, but only you'd be able to use it which might get kinda lonely. Using a LLC is much more practical as the entity can own the radios and assign them to authorized users acting on behalf of the company. Forming a corporate entity and paying the frequency coordination fees are going to be minimal in comparison to the hardware costs to communicate at a distance (encrypted or clear) reliably.
        withinboredom 3y ago
        Businesses are the only legal way to “group” people together and hold them accountable. Since you are purchasing a license for some spectrum, they need a way to hold that group accountable. A common business arrangement is to create a “co-op” to work together, usually owned equally by the members. For example, there are a couple of developer co-ops around here to get discounts on IDEs and resources by appearing as a large org. Almost like what you’d expect from a union, but most clearly not a union.
deepsun 3y ago
I think because any commerce is visible (e.g. they register with Secretary of State, pay taxes etc). If it's a tiny commerce, no-one would notice. Probably. Neither ham community. But no one seriously would invest time and money in a business that's, well, illegal.
- wiml 3y ago
  > But no one seriously would invest time and money in a business that's, well, illegal. I ... what? That really doesn't jibe with my observations of the world.
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    FCC don't play when they assign fines.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      Which they can only do for unencrypted traffic, encrypted traffic by definition would not be examinable by the FCC for determining whether to assign fines.
      - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
        They don't have to know what you are sending to know you are sending in a way you shouldn't. It's not even about the content of the encrypted traffic at that point. They just see broadcasts (which...good luck hiding them from the FCC) and if they see the bandwidth being used but aren't receiving a usable audio/data stream from it, it's really easy to tell if the rules are being followed.
        MichaelZuo 3y ago
        How would anyone determine whether 'a usable audio/data stream' exists in encrypted traffic?
apple4ever 3y ago
Why does that matter? I don't think it does.

edrxty 3y ago

The secret is there's already tons of encrypted communications on the bands because of cheap chinese DMR radios that unlicensed teenagers use for airsoft and the like. It has yet to ruin ham radio and nobody has even noticed enough to attempt enforcement.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
Those radios are very low power, so they don't really get in anyone's way.
- edrxty 3y ago
  There are power limitations on spread spectrum emissions in some of the bands, you could have the same thing here.
ianburrell 3y ago
DMR isn’t encrypted. You can listen to them with any SDR. The voice codec is patented but well known. DMR itself is a standard.
- piperswe 3y ago
  DMR can be encrypted, and I know from experience that there are people (not me, but people) running encrypted DMR on ham bands.
Johnythree 3y ago
Occasional, random uses of encryption would not attract much interest. But as soon as some company sets up an encrypted node in a location that will attract users, there will be much interest in what it's purpose is. The whole point of the regulation is to make defying the regulations on a commercial scale a risky operation.

abstractbeliefs 3y ago

You talk about retrojustification, but in many parts of the world this has long been written into law, for example in the UK's Wireless Telegraphy act: 1(1) The Licensee shall ensure that the Radio Equipment is only used: a) for the purpose of self-training in radio communications, including conducting technical investigations; and b) as a leisure activity and not for commercial purposes of any kind As for it being "good" not to have privacy, it's really not about having privacy or not, but respecting the situation that there are different tools for different needs. If you need to speak to your spouse, there are tools to speak to them privately! Amateur radio isn't the only option, and it isn't the best. The problem is that encrypted comms tie up spectrum space without giving anything back. Now, I don't ragchew, I think it's incredibly boring and unnecessarily toxic chat given most of the personalities and topics involved, but at least anyone can choose to drop in/out of that as needed. What I'm more interested in is radio as a sport, where I can climb mountains and operate from them, pushing myself and engaging in that competitive activity with others. It's hard to do that if everyone has decided to start using the 2m band as their private internet link because it goes further than WiFi.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lrvick 3y ago
> If you need to speak to your spouse, there are tools to speak to them privately! Apart from amateur radio, what tool exist, that does not require the assistance of private corporations, ISPs, service fees, patents etc? I go camping way outside of cell phone tower ranges and it would be should be legal to communicate with my group privately. Radio is the only form of totally citizen controlled real time distance communication we have, if we do not count smoke signals. Snail mail encryption is already allowed. Encryption must be allowed on radio as well.
- cornholio 3y ago
  I think a legitimate fear of radio amateurs is that encrypted, fully autonomous, long distance communication is such a killer application that usage would explode from commercial devices sold to take advantage of the ham space, leading to some kind of WiFi cacophony. Perhaps some kind of compromise is possible, where all encrypted ham must broadcast their callsign in the clear every few seconds.

threemux 3y ago

What countries allow general encryption on the ham bands (e.g. not limited exceptions for particular cases) "The hobby is dying" has been a trope longer than nearly everyone in this thread has been alive - give it a rest. We've always had allocations because there wasn't a commercial use for it. As soon as there is, we lose it. See the loss of part of 220mhz and all the higher frequencies we're in the process of losing to 5G/other commercial use. I recommend embracing this reality

apple4ever 3y ago
It is dying. ARRL has even said so. I don't care about the past. It's true now. Nobody said it has to be commercial (but I also disagree with that part), but allowing encryption actually will get people using the radio waves. Because right now, they are dead. 24/7, nobody transmitting.

ztetranz 3y ago

>there are many countries where encryption is allowed I don't think that's true. I assume you mean on the ham bands.

justin66 3y ago

> For a long time, the US government genuinely feared that ham radio would be used for espionage. It had listening stations across the nation to monitor all communications. Well this is all somewhat ahistorical. The people monitoring ham radio for abuses were, and are, ham radio operators. A task which would, you know, be more difficult if everything was encrypted.

apple4ever 3y ago

Agreed. I just got into the hobby, and the whole not allowing encryption or obfuscation is such a silly rule. It really limits what we can do. And your point about unused spectrum is spot on. Outsides of a couple repeaters on VHF and UHF, there is near zero radio transmissions in those bands 24/7.

mlyle 3y ago

> The reason this restriction exists has nothing to do with the retro-justifications used by the community. The original reasons not being such a big concern anymore don't mean that we've not spotted that these restrictions have a lot of useful features. There are some great use cases that encryption would allow... and also, if it became commonplace on ham bands, turn them into an opaque, uninviting mess, too.