5 ms·

We have a free solution already but not as well known - Ham Radio. You can even send email over WinLink.

by firesteelrain 2y ago

wtallis 2y ago
Has using encryption on amateur radio been legalized?
- asciimike 2y ago
  No, it's still illegal
- halyconWays 2y ago
  No, it's forbidden by FCC 97
- neveroddoreven 2y ago
  How is this even enforced? Don't you have plausible deniability by claiming you just wanted to send high entropy random noise?
  - willcipriano 2y ago
    Ham radio people are Lawful Good types. Your Chaotic Good idea isn't well recieved by them. No way there is any ability to enforce that law in a disaster zone, they have enough trouble with looting and the like.
    - sneak 2y ago
      There is also a surprising number of stereotypical american self-identified “constitutionalist” types on there, which results in funny conversations when I speak to them (without a license, natch) about the 10th amendment and the FCC/access to spectrum.
      - vel0city 2y ago
        Electromagnetic waves transit state lines pretty much constantly. Hardware which creates/receives radio waves pretty much constantly transits state lines as well, I don't know too many radio manufacturers which restrict sale to only the state they operate in. You should probably read the constitution first about things which are interstate and who has permissions to regulate it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
        sneak 2y ago
        It’s still against the law in the US to transmit on many bands without a license even if you build your own radio from scratch at home. Talking at a distance has nothing inherently to do with commerce. We basically punted on the 10th amendment with things like the FCC and DOE (education, not energy).
        vel0city 2y ago
        > It’s still against the law in the US to transmit on many bands without a license even if you build your own radio from scratch at home Electromagnetic waves transit state lines pretty much constantly. Even though I'm in Texas I'll get radio waves from Oklahoma, Louisiana, and even Illinois from time to time. > Talking at a distance has nothing inherently to do with commerce. Talking at a distance does affect commerce when that talking at a distance interferes with other people trying to talk and conduct interstate commerce. Guess I'll have to state it again, electromagnetic waves transit state lines pretty much constantly. And it would absolutely affect interstate commerce if every state decided on different frequencies for commercial FM radio, different frequencies for cell phones, different frequencies for TV signals, different encodings for those things, etc. imagine needing to buy a different radio for NY as TX or IL or CA. Or if you needed different cell phones as you traveled state lines. > We basically punted on the 10th amendment with things like the FCC and DOE People being illiterate definitely affects interstate commerce. People not being able to count definitely affects interstate commerce.
        2y ago
    - mindcrime 2y ago
      I think what you say is largely true, but here is an existence proof that at least one person is both a Ham Radio Operator AND Chaotic Good.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      People abusing the airwaves with noise aren't chaotic good.
    - AdamJacobMuller 2y ago
      You're correct that most people who get ham licenses are good people, but, the venn diagram of licensed ham operators and people who bought a baofeng off amazon does not have a lot of intersection.
      - mschuster91 2y ago
        > the venn diagram of licensed ham operators and people who bought a baofeng off amazon does not have a lot of intersection. There's quite the few young hams going for cheap-ass equipment from Amazon. Not everyone can afford an ICOM station from the get-go, you start with small cheap stuff and work your way up.
  - alibarber 2y ago
    No because that’s also not really something that’s permitted. It’s true that there’s no [practical] enforcement of it, in much the same way there’s no enforcement of the OTH Radars from various militaries that take out large chunks of the HF amateur bands every now and then.
  - tjohns 2y ago
    The meaning of any messages sent over amateur radio needs to be clear to an outside observer. The specific rule is 47 CFR 97.113(a)(4): "No amateur station shall transmit: [...] messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein." So no, high-entropy random noise of substantial length wouldn't be allowed because the meaning of the message would be unclear and unknowable. You also can't broadcast one-way messages per 97.113(b), and you're probably not having a two-way conversation with somebody via high-entrypy random noise. So there's also that.
    - therein 2y ago
      What if you say it is to transmit high entropy random data generated at geographically remote locations, for peer to peer verification, for a well-announced long-running experiment to see if geolocation leads to biases in random number generation. Let's have Princeton PEAR sponsor it. Call it NCC20 for NotChaCha20.
      - kube-system 2y ago
        You could say that. If you're in a position to use it as a defense to being investigated, then you're already being investigated. Hope it's true, because making false statements to federal investigators can be a crime.
  - ryanianian 2y ago
    It is largely unenforced by the FCC directly, but ham operators can (and do) use directional antennas to find you in many cases. Once reported the FCC does take violations seriously.
- tjohns 2y ago
  Nope. And it probably won't ever be. The bandwidth allocated to amateur radio is incredibly valuable. (All of the spectrum allocated to ham radio would probably be worth literally billions if the FCC were allowed to auction it off to the private sector.) The only thing preventing folks from attempting to use up all that spectrum for commercial purposes is the lack of encryption, which allows the ham radio community to self-police. If the traffic is encrypted, you no longer have any way to distinguish legitimate amateur traffic from commercial interests. The flip side of this is that the government really doesn't want amateur radio being used to set up otherwise legal transmitters that could potentially be numbers stations for foreign spies. So they consider this one a national security issue and kinda do pay attention to it. If you want to encrypt, use WiFi mesh networks if you're okay with the range limitations. If you really need ultra-long-range communication, your options are either (a) no encryption so the government+community knows what you're doing, or (b) you pay for a private service, who then inherits the legal obligation to monitor what you're doing with it.
delichon 2y ago
I'm grateful that I don't need a license to operate a Starlink dish here in Starlink's home country, yet.
- sneak 2y ago
  A license is definitely required to operate Starlink, just not by you. They tried not servicing Crimea due to an unwillingness to get involved in the war, and the DoD quickly made them toe the geopolitical line. (They are also a huge customer of a military-only service called Starshield, also run by SpaceX/Starlink, which either runs separately on the same Starlink satellites, or is dedicated Starshield satellites with very similar technology.) This is the same USG that issues the launch licenses for the entire rest of the business via the FAA, so, like Apple/China, they have little option if they don’t want to be dead in the water. If the USG wants your dish off, it will be off. No license revocation is required, just a phone call.
  - ivewonyoung 2y ago
    > They tried not servicing Crimea due to an unwillingness to get involved in the war, and the DoD quickly made them toe the geopolitical line I am confused, it's illegal for Starlink to prove access to Russia and Russian occupied areas like Crimea because of US sanctions. So essentially the opposite of what you're claiming.
    - sneak 2y ago
      In short, the Ukrainians (with whom it is indeed legal to do business) wanted to use Starlink as c&c for drone strikes in occupied Crimea. It was off, per sanctions (and other reasons) as you note. SpaceX was opposed to turning it back on, presumably wishing to stay out of the geopolitical calculus of the war. They do have a rather lot to lose if war extends to space. The DoD overruled them, either via requirements for Starshield, or by just laying down the law. Starlink (or perhaps Starshield, same difference) works (for Ukrainian operations) in Crimea now, last I heard.
      - 2y ago
diggan 2y ago
Or just WiFi via long-range & directed antennas. Would require line-of-sight though. As far as I know that would be possibly without license and you can even use encryption! I've gotten it to work over a ~2.5km distance and that was some years ago, probably things are even better now.
patwolf 2y ago
Someone in my family did some work helping set up a ham radio for a hospital. I don't know the details, but it sounded like it was part of a grant to help with emergency preparedness. The problem is finding people that can operate them. This was 10 years ago, and even then he was one of very few people in the area younger than 70 with a license.
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]

We have a free solution already but not as well known - Ham Radio. You can even send email over WinLink.

wtallis 2y ago

Has using encryption on amateur radio been legalized?

asciimike 2y ago
No, it's still illegal
halyconWays 2y ago
No, it's forbidden by FCC 97
neveroddoreven 2y ago
How is this even enforced? Don't you have plausible deniability by claiming you just wanted to send high entropy random noise?
- willcipriano 2y ago
  Ham radio people are Lawful Good types. Your Chaotic Good idea isn't well recieved by them. No way there is any ability to enforce that law in a disaster zone, they have enough trouble with looting and the like.
  - sneak 2y ago
    There is also a surprising number of stereotypical american self-identified “constitutionalist” types on there, which results in funny conversations when I speak to them (without a license, natch) about the 10th amendment and the FCC/access to spectrum.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      Electromagnetic waves transit state lines pretty much constantly. Hardware which creates/receives radio waves pretty much constantly transits state lines as well, I don't know too many radio manufacturers which restrict sale to only the state they operate in. You should probably read the constitution first about things which are interstate and who has permissions to regulate it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
      - sneak 2y ago
        It’s still against the law in the US to transmit on many bands without a license even if you build your own radio from scratch at home. Talking at a distance has nothing inherently to do with commerce. We basically punted on the 10th amendment with things like the FCC and DOE (education, not energy).
        vel0city 2y ago
        > It’s still against the law in the US to transmit on many bands without a license even if you build your own radio from scratch at home Electromagnetic waves transit state lines pretty much constantly. Even though I'm in Texas I'll get radio waves from Oklahoma, Louisiana, and even Illinois from time to time. > Talking at a distance has nothing inherently to do with commerce. Talking at a distance does affect commerce when that talking at a distance interferes with other people trying to talk and conduct interstate commerce. Guess I'll have to state it again, electromagnetic waves transit state lines pretty much constantly. And it would absolutely affect interstate commerce if every state decided on different frequencies for commercial FM radio, different frequencies for cell phones, different frequencies for TV signals, different encodings for those things, etc. imagine needing to buy a different radio for NY as TX or IL or CA. Or if you needed different cell phones as you traveled state lines. > We basically punted on the 10th amendment with things like the FCC and DOE People being illiterate definitely affects interstate commerce. People not being able to count definitely affects interstate commerce.
        2y ago
  - mindcrime 2y ago
    I think what you say is largely true, but here is an existence proof that at least one person is both a Ham Radio Operator AND Chaotic Good.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    People abusing the airwaves with noise aren't chaotic good.
  - AdamJacobMuller 2y ago
    You're correct that most people who get ham licenses are good people, but, the venn diagram of licensed ham operators and people who bought a baofeng off amazon does not have a lot of intersection.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      > the venn diagram of licensed ham operators and people who bought a baofeng off amazon does not have a lot of intersection. There's quite the few young hams going for cheap-ass equipment from Amazon. Not everyone can afford an ICOM station from the get-go, you start with small cheap stuff and work your way up.
- alibarber 2y ago
  No because that’s also not really something that’s permitted. It’s true that there’s no [practical] enforcement of it, in much the same way there’s no enforcement of the OTH Radars from various militaries that take out large chunks of the HF amateur bands every now and then.
- tjohns 2y ago
  The meaning of any messages sent over amateur radio needs to be clear to an outside observer. The specific rule is 47 CFR 97.113(a)(4): "No amateur station shall transmit: [...] messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein." So no, high-entropy random noise of substantial length wouldn't be allowed because the meaning of the message would be unclear and unknowable. You also can't broadcast one-way messages per 97.113(b), and you're probably not having a two-way conversation with somebody via high-entrypy random noise. So there's also that.
  - therein 2y ago
    What if you say it is to transmit high entropy random data generated at geographically remote locations, for peer to peer verification, for a well-announced long-running experiment to see if geolocation leads to biases in random number generation. Let's have Princeton PEAR sponsor it. Call it NCC20 for NotChaCha20.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      You could say that. If you're in a position to use it as a defense to being investigated, then you're already being investigated. Hope it's true, because making false statements to federal investigators can be a crime.
- ryanianian 2y ago
  It is largely unenforced by the FCC directly, but ham operators can (and do) use directional antennas to find you in many cases. Once reported the FCC does take violations seriously.
tjohns 2y ago
Nope. And it probably won't ever be. The bandwidth allocated to amateur radio is incredibly valuable. (All of the spectrum allocated to ham radio would probably be worth literally billions if the FCC were allowed to auction it off to the private sector.) The only thing preventing folks from attempting to use up all that spectrum for commercial purposes is the lack of encryption, which allows the ham radio community to self-police. If the traffic is encrypted, you no longer have any way to distinguish legitimate amateur traffic from commercial interests. The flip side of this is that the government really doesn't want amateur radio being used to set up otherwise legal transmitters that could potentially be numbers stations for foreign spies. So they consider this one a national security issue and kinda do pay attention to it. If you want to encrypt, use WiFi mesh networks if you're okay with the range limitations. If you really need ultra-long-range communication, your options are either (a) no encryption so the government+community knows what you're doing, or (b) you pay for a private service, who then inherits the legal obligation to monitor what you're doing with it.

delichon 2y ago

I'm grateful that I don't need a license to operate a Starlink dish here in Starlink's home country, yet.

sneak 2y ago
A license is definitely required to operate Starlink, just not by you. They tried not servicing Crimea due to an unwillingness to get involved in the war, and the DoD quickly made them toe the geopolitical line. (They are also a huge customer of a military-only service called Starshield, also run by SpaceX/Starlink, which either runs separately on the same Starlink satellites, or is dedicated Starshield satellites with very similar technology.) This is the same USG that issues the launch licenses for the entire rest of the business via the FAA, so, like Apple/China, they have little option if they don’t want to be dead in the water. If the USG wants your dish off, it will be off. No license revocation is required, just a phone call.
- ivewonyoung 2y ago
  > They tried not servicing Crimea due to an unwillingness to get involved in the war, and the DoD quickly made them toe the geopolitical line I am confused, it's illegal for Starlink to prove access to Russia and Russian occupied areas like Crimea because of US sanctions. So essentially the opposite of what you're claiming.
  - sneak 2y ago
    In short, the Ukrainians (with whom it is indeed legal to do business) wanted to use Starlink as c&c for drone strikes in occupied Crimea. It was off, per sanctions (and other reasons) as you note. SpaceX was opposed to turning it back on, presumably wishing to stay out of the geopolitical calculus of the war. They do have a rather lot to lose if war extends to space. The DoD overruled them, either via requirements for Starshield, or by just laying down the law. Starlink (or perhaps Starshield, same difference) works (for Ukrainian operations) in Crimea now, last I heard.
    - 2y ago

diggan 2y ago

Or just WiFi via long-range & directed antennas. Would require line-of-sight though. As far as I know that would be possibly without license and you can even use encryption! I've gotten it to work over a ~2.5km distance and that was some years ago, probably things are even better now.

patwolf 2y ago

Someone in my family did some work helping set up a ham radio for a hospital. I don't know the details, but it sounded like it was part of a grant to help with emergency preparedness. The problem is finding people that can operate them. This was 10 years ago, and even then he was one of very few people in the area younger than 70 with a license.

aaron695 2y ago

[dead]