4 ms·
> if your application doesn’t support privacy, that’s probably a bug in your application. Amateur radio is explicitly not for traffic that needs to
by nknighthb 12y ago
> if your application doesn’t support privacy, that’s probably a bug in your application.
Amateur radio is explicitly not for traffic that needs to remain private. It exists for limited purposes not including routine communication that can be served by other means (e.g. a phone or ordinary internet connection). It is chiefly for education and research/experimentation in radio. It is not for general personal communications or commercial use.
The applicable rule in the US[1] says:
"(a) No amateur station shall transmit: [...] messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning"
This serves to ensure the amateur radio service is not used in violation of its rules and purpose.
The rule has exceptions elsewhere in the rules. For example, remote control of satellites and model aircraft. And FCC rules as a whole pretty much go out the window when transmissions are for the purpose of protecting the immediate safety of life or property.
The rules are also susceptible of a particular interpretation: You can use encryption, provided the algorithm is documented, and you keep a record of the keys used. This has been used to block non-amateur access to WiFi access points operating within the ordinary WiFi band, but under Part 97 rules (e.g. non-FCC-approved equipment, or higher power than allowed for unlicensed users).
The rule also does not in any way prevent use of authentication and message integrity mechanisms, e.g. HMAC, because they are not intended to obscure the meaning of the message, merely authenticate it.
If you need private communication, there are other avenues available than the amateur radio service. And if you want greater freedom for unlicensed use of the airwaves than now exists, you'll have my support in principle (there are real problems with a free-for-all, but there are myriad ways FCC rules and spectrum allocation practices could be greatly improved in this regard). But this rule is not a bug, it is a deliberate feature of the amateur radio service.
[1] http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2013-title47-vol5/xml/CFR-2013-title47-vol5-sec97-113.xml http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2013-title47-vol5/xml/CFR-2...
- guelo 12y agoI was confused by the ham radio line. How does ham radio have anything to do with internet protocols? Are they worried about TCP/IP over packet radio? Seems like a very fringe concern.
- nknighthb 12y agoInternet protocols have been used by ham radio operators for decades. 44/8 was allocated to amateur packet radio in the 1970s. And as I alluded to in my comment, the same WiFi you probably used to post your comment is also frequently used under Part 97 (amateur radio) rules.
- wmf 12y agoYes, some hams have been saying "please don't encrypt all Internet protocols because then I wouldn't be able to enjoy my hobby of running those protocols over ham radio", which seems incredibly selfish.
- JoshTriplett 12y agoIt'll be easy enough to run vintage protocols (like unencrypted HTTP or IP) over amateur radio, and bridge them to secure protocols on the other end. Amateur radio links just won't be able to route end-to-end-encrypted traffic, and that doesn't seem like a severe limitation. From what I've seen, amateur radio links typically form the last hop in the chain between a base station and a remote endpoint, so just terminate the end-to-end connection at the base station and transmit unencrypted to the endpoint.
- nknighthb 12y agoIf they've said "please don't encrypt", they're making a much broader request than is necessary to comply. The only thing we really need is for a protocol to have some way for us to transmit a callsign in cleartext (otherwise there would have to be a break in data exchange every ~10 minutes for transmission of a callsign unencrypted). On WiFi this gets accomplished by setting the SSID to our callsign. The actual data could be encrypted, but we would have to record (and arguably publish) any keys (including session keys) used in the process.
- hafichuk 12y agoIANAL. The ham radio community needs to raise this with the FCC. This section was originally constructed a long time ago (1993?). I'm guessing it's biased this way to stop 1940's era spys from operating.
- nknighthb 12y agohttp://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-dismisses-encryption-petition http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-dismisses-encryption-petition The amateur radio community is not universal in their dislike for this rule. I don't personally see any way in which the rule could be removed without altering the fundamental character of the amateur radio service. You simply should not be making transmissions in the amateur radio service that require privacy. Permitting unrestricted encryption makes that basically impossible to enforce.
- nullc 12y agoThe regulations prohibit various forms of commercial use, e.g. preventing a cab company from moving its dispatch onto the 2m ham band— a reasonable policy since there is limited spectrum and commercial parties could easily overrun it: but if the traffic is encrypted how is the community management supposed to function? Personally I'd like to see the regulations adopt special rules for highly directional or low-power limited-range signals in the SHF+ bands where there is plenty of spectrum which basically drops all the content rules beyond requiring cleartext contact information. Without competition for spectrum the balance of interests is different and it would be nice to be able to lawfully backhaul community internet access over some chunks of spectrum up at 3cm. Since no one would likely notice or care you could already use crypto in these places, so it might as well be made permitted.
- digitalabyss 12y agoI’m too lazy to look it up but I would be surprised if many of the founders of the internet where not ham operators. Again I’m being lazy about looking it up but if not specifically in writing at least in spirit I believe one of the purposes of the armature radio program has been to advance wireless communication and technology. Right now strong encryption and authentication are where most of the efforts in the field seem to be focused. It should be at the forefront of the experimentation being done by amateur radio operators. Not that I really have an answer to the problem of bandwidth abuse. I completely understand how this would be a problem and have no doubt that it would be abused.