A perfect HN automobile analogy for the situation is as follows:
Imagine the govt provides two transport services, a car road service, and a paved bike path service. They're deconflicted and regulated and licensed and taxed separately for various social engineering reasons, etc.
The car roads are congested and I want to drive my semi trailer to the next town, or I just don't feel like paying the tollbooths or whatever. I propose a "brilliant" solution of modifying the regulations for the bike path to allow semi trailers on the mostly empty paved bike path because bicycles are an ancient technology over 100 years old and they should get with the internal combustion times, I don't have a bike personally, I feel my semi trailer is more important than some spandex wearing bicycle hobbyist's amusement, and I don't care about bicycling as a hobby in general, so if I mow down bicyclists while driving my semi down the bike path thus completely destroying the utility of a bike path for bicyclists, I really don't mind. Hey I got mine, I got to drive my semi trailer on the bike path, so at least for me all is well, right?
Now just to make it clear I don't hate bicyclists any more than I think its a good idea to amend part 97 to perform stealthy part 90 operations on part 97 frequencies. I'm merely making a very accurate analogy.
Given the recent California wildfires and the critical role that ham radio operators had in the rescue efforts, I would say that allowing ham radio operators to continue doing their thing is more of a utility and public service then say what Verizon does(which is to say that firefighters reached their "data limit" and had their cell phones data throttled during a critical emergency moment)
But the car roads aren't congested—or, if they are, the bike path is so narrow that using it doesn't actually solve the problem in a long-term way. It's just that you don't need a license to ride a bike the way you do to drive a truck. That's the only (alleged) appeal of the bike lane.
And meanwhile, the people who fear semis using the bike lane (though the semis wouldn't fit anyway) are actually preventing pedal-assist e-bikes, which the younger spandex-wearing bicycle hobbyists would love to use.
Starting to see these arguments that ebikes should somehow be banned from cyclepaths or bike lanes a lot and not sure I agree at all. Virtually all ebikes sold in North America are limited to speeds achievable on a conventional bike, with most limited to 20mph. An average cyclist on even a cheap road bike can comfortably hit 20mph too if gradient is not too severe.
The faster “class 3” ebikes with 28mph top speeds are already banned from cycle paths pretty much everywhere.
I think we should just be happy more people are getting on bikes regardless. Pedal assist by definition is not a throttle - it’s not like the rider has a gas pedal they can leap on and accelerate like a sports car.
As others have said, I’d much rather share a lane with an ebike than a car or motorcycle! Huge speed differentials in the bike lane at times is already a fact of life given varying levels of rider fitness. Just do what most cyclists/ebikers do already - be a considerate rider.
Your argument that they have worse brakes is especially silly - almost all ebike systems only add 7-10kgs to total bike weight vs equivalent non ebike. There are far bigger variances just in rider weight alone. I’d argue ebikes typically have better brakes given most of them are sold with mid to high end hydraulic discs. Typical road bikes are often sold with significantly inferior rim brakes. Modern bicycle disc brakes are extremely good.
The question is not whether they have a higher top speed, but whether they are usually traveling the speed of traffic. Pedal assist bikes are usually going significantly faster than bikes in the same area. That's the point of them.
Additionally, that 20 pounds of extra weight is in an uncontrolled projectile. Person to person collisions are not as injurious as bike to person collisions even though bikes are just a fraction of the weight of the person, and that extra 20 pounds triples the weight of most bikes. Talking about rider weight misses the point.
Now you are really making things up as you go. 20lbs triples the weight of most bikes? That implies most bikes only weigh ~7lbs. You realise that is completely absurd, and would likely be close to a world record holder for lightest production bike?
Going faster than other riders is absolutely not the point of pedal assist. Most of them basically can’t thanks to the 20mph cut out. Of course many will find they can sustain a higher average speed below 20, but the point is travelling much the same kinds of speeds with much less effort.
Of course rider weight matters. One is rarely hit by a riderless bicycle. Rider weight is especially relevant in your claim that the brakes are worse too - whether the mass is in the rider or the bike frame is going to be largely inconsequential to stopping distances - the brakes still have to stop the combined weight of rider plus bike. Hence relevance of the small additional mass of small motor plus battery being dwarfed by variances in rider weight on normal bikes.
The fact that there are danger obstacles to the given mode of transportation shouldn't be considered as good enough reason to ban them outright - bicyclists regularly run red lights and stop signs, sometimes even striking and killing pedestrians. Yet, we still create bike lanes and don't ban them outright, because they are good.
Same for trucks, which run over pedestrians and bicyclists with startling regularity.
Same for motorcycles, which kill their drivers with startling regularity.
I don't think "quite dangerous" is valid for banning outright. Maybe "dangerous all of the time no matter what," such as drunk driving, or driving the wrong way on a road, or cycling on the freeway.
Anyway, you can always add regulation. Requiring passengers in cars to wear seatbelts made cars less dangerous. Requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets made motorcycles less dangerous. Giving bicycles bicycle lanes and their own signals made bicycling safer. Etc. Put a speed limit on the bicycle lanes - no faster than 25mph, say. Maybe force e-bike companies to put limiters on the bikes, but that sucks for when they want to ride on the road at whatever speed they can pull off. Then, actually enforce the rules, which I don't know how to go about doing, because the cops in my jurisdiction for example don't give a fuck about neither cars parked in bike lanes (even in "no parking at any time" zones!) or bicyclists sprinting through reds/stop signs.
I say this as someone that owns only 2 wheeled vehicles, motorized or otherwise.
Yeah, I somewhat intentionally picked it because it's ambiguous whether it's a good thing. I personally as a young(ish) person with a bicycle and a ham license would like both legal e-bikes and legal encryption :)
I share a bike lane with e-bikes fairly frequently and I feel way, way, way safer than I feel when sharing a lane with a truck.
The ebikes sold where I live go no faster than a very low speed (think ~20km/h) and have very robust brakes (double, not sensitive to weather conditions). They are in every way safer than the racing bike people who frequently go 40-50km/h and have brakes that are sensitive to weather conditions. And they are actually fine also.
In VLM's analogy, the bike lane is entirely separate from the regular road (he said "deconflicted"). What he's talking about there is an entirely separate bike path, not a "bike lane" that's a part of a regular road with different paint. They're also frequently called trails.
It is possible for a semi-truck to drive on such a path, barely (they're usually 8 feet wide; these paths are driven on occasionally by service vehicles after all, to construct and repair the path), but they'd have to run over all the bollards, and any bridges wouldn't handle their weight. Otherwise, it's a fairly accurate analogy IMO. No, it's not a very good solution to the problem of traffic on the roads, but for a few jerks it might seem like a good shortcut. (This is similar to how amateur radio bands don't have very much spectral bandwidth.)
Not sure I agree with the analogy. I haven't seen Pactors mowing down other users by broadcasting over them. Is this really a problem? Also it's worth pointing out that there are separate frequency allocations for voice vs data e.g. 14.0 Mhz to 14.1 is data only and from there up it's voice only. Sure, other data protocols might get stomped on but that applies to any data transmission, not just Pactor.
Also the semi vs bicycle thing isn't really valid. Pactor is around 2.4khz bandwidth while voice is 3khz. So it's more like a bicyle vs another bicycle.
I've posted a longer explanation of the core of the issue in another thread here. This has been going on since the 90s.
A bigger issue is RM-11831 would also ban DMR, P25, and pretty much every digital mode used on VHF as well, because of its open source requirement, every ham digital mode uses codecs from DVSI.
Yes that's pretty much how DSTAR got banned in France.
My guess, or hope, for how it'll roll out is something like grandfathering in the closed source copyrighted codecs while banning all future closed codecs. Or sunset the closed source codecs in 2039 or similar.
Also note the non-voice digital modes will be AFAIK mostly unaffected. All the classic modes, the K1JT open source modes for meteor scatter, EME and general contesting, all OK.
Are there any open, or at least out of patent protocols for use? As for encryption, what would be wrong with at least enough of the message being an open header...
id: UUID
from: user@CALLSIGN
to: user@CALLSIGN
content: XXX
Content encrypted if both from and to have an associated keybase.io entry, for example.
At least then you can identify the callsign via open protocol? content would include additional headers and encoded body content.
The idea is there shouldn’t be encryption. The ham spectrum is intended to be for educational and hobby use, and for emergency communications. If the message is for commercial use or for something that needs to be encrypted then it should be on a portion of the spectrum reserved for commercial or government use. The only exception to this is controlling satellites. That’s how the rules are written, and the reasoning behind that is to make sure there’s always good chunks of spectrum available for that kind of hobby, research, and free personal use.
Ham radio was explicitly never meant to be private - if you're trying to communicate and don't want someone snooping on your conversation, you can pick up a phone or find some other channel instead. It should be possible for all stations to receive messages on the ham bands, and encryption is entirely orthogonal to that goal.
Also, it's worth noting that some cryptography is allowed, just nothing that obscures the message - say you have a device which can be remotely controlled via radio and want to send it a control message ("turn on relay 1" for example), you're allowed to cryptographically sign your message to authenticate that it came from you - just not encrypt the message body.
Reading in other threads, it seems there are amateur bands that do allow for encrypted transmissions, correct?
In any case, it seems like a lot of the suggested use cases could easily be unencrypted digital messages with a crypto signature part for confirming the sender to control systems.
There are “unlicensed” (technically licensed-by-rule) bands that do. Typically the ISM bands, which is what WiFi uses. But they aren't as open for experimental use as the amateur bands.
(But yes, even on amateur bands a digital signature would be fine. You just can't obscure the meaning of the message.)
So the bicyclists claim “when the bridge collapses and the semis can’t carry mail and freight, we’ll do that important job. We provide a necessary utility.”
So the bridge fails one day in a storm and the bicycle owners are all handed 200-lb loads and told “go.”
Are they compelled to go? What if they all refuse? Where is the utility now?
They are compelled by their own morals. As it's been proven time and again, whenever a bridge collapses, those bikers carrying 200lb loads are among the very first responders.
Utilities don't operate on moral compulsion. They operate on schedules and strive for reliability.
Let's extend the analogy. Say the bridge is going to be out for 2 years and the bicyclists need to carry loads 24/7. They'll need to quit their regular day jobs to do it.
HAMs are not FEMA. They're a purely volunteer op. They do what they can, the best way they can, which turns out to be very good and very reliable in practice. Read up on HAM emergency communications; people participating in it treat it very seriously.
I wouldn't think this would be so hard to understand here, on this site. HAM emergency response works the same way the best of Open Source projects work - through people who do things out of passion and kindness for others, and not because of economic incentives.
Actually, it seems like a pretty good analogy for many reasons, including that one. The same will happen with amateur radio bands: it'll be easy to convince "many people" that hams are a bunch of freeloaders hogging valuable spectrum, and that we should let corporate interests use this spectrum instead.
Amateur Radio is a lot like STEM. One of it's goals is to encourage people to get "into" thinking and planning for the situations where amateur radio is a useful public service. The hobby portion exists to give people the freedom to experiment and test their skills.
Part 97 of the CFR[0] actually gives the reason/spirit:
> (a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.
> (b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
> (c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art.
> (d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
> (e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to enhance international goodwill.
> Amateur Radio is a lot like STEM. One of it's goals is to encourage people to get "into" thinking and planning for the situations where amateur radio is a useful public service.
A few years ago I tried to convince my kids that it would be fun for all of us to get our license for amateur radio. They asked what we could do with it and I told them we could talk to people anywhere in the world! They looked at me like I was nuts because they do that all day everyday online.
I'd say "We can receive images from and talk with astronauts on the International Space Station... No big deal, right?" They do this regularly and actually give out certificates for successfully receiving the SSTV images they broadcast, which is super cool IMO. [0]
Regarding cell phones, just yesterday there was a countrywide cellular service outage[1] in Canada, where amateur radio would have continued working flawlessly. Further, if you are doing some backcountry camping or offroading, good luck getting on the cellular network.
>They asked what we could do with it and I told them we could talk to people anywhere in the world! They looked at me like I was nuts because they do that all day everyday online
It’s more like why you would want to learn to do any of a bunch of other things that technology or other people can do for you.
Why would you want to learn to cook, go camping, learn to fly a plane, or drive a car?
Its a lot like camping: understanding the basics of life and survival, and how our ancestors did it.
The pitch that sold me (well, would have sold me if I had the sway to buy a radio when I was a kid..) was the fact that astronauts on the ISS answered on their frequency circa 2007 more often than they do on the internet.
maybe you should tell them to try and find an internet connection in the wild, on top of a mountain, etc. Whereas ham is infrastructure-less provided you can generate electricity (or have batteries).
What about learning about radio for the purposes other than talking to people? Are they interested in tinkering with electronics? maybe get an SDR like a hackrf and show they how you can use it to capture radio signals (try unlocking your car with a replay attack).
Lots of reasons besides talking to people to get your license. I am Extra Class and I never attempt to talk to people, i don't want to chat with random people unless its an emergency.
Yeah. My son isn't quite old enough yet, but I'm hoping to convince him that an HT will be a better investment than a mobile phone (since he could get one way earlier, anyway.)
And it would be unthinkable to say that hobbyists learning Linux cannot use SSH or HTTPS. Why is ham radio different?
("Limited spectrum" is definitely a potential distinction. "National security," I think, makes no sense in either case—it was tried for Internet hobbyists and failed.)
My answer is about network effects and something like Metcalfe’s Law. If I spin the dial and find something, I should find it interesting and comprehensible. If half of transmissions are encrypted, I can’t even get the thrill of reading half a conversation and thinking about DX.
To stay amateur radio, it has to be a “party line” chat room.
Because without that no-encryption rule, the ham bands would quickly turn into a commercialized free-for-all. The required openness prevents that particular class of abuse without ambiguity.
I'm a little puzzled by this argument, honestly. It's clearly an illegal commercialized free-for-all, so
- how would a viable white market develop? It would be patently obvious that the handy communications devices you're buying are using ham frequencies.
- on the grey/black market, why do we think that banning encryption is sufficient to dissuade illegal use but allowing it and banning commercial use would not be? It's already the case that FCC enforcement is very weak and there are a ton of newfangled digital modes. You could get by for a very long time sending encrypted transmissions on ham bands without anyone being able to stop you.
The amateur radio community already has a significant problem with unlicensed users on UHF and VHF, because cheap Chinese handhelds are widely marketed on Amazon and eBay with no mention of the fact that they're amateur-band equipment and require a license to use. If you search for "two-way radio" or "walkie talkie", most of the product listings make no distinction between FRS, MURS, GMRS and amateur band equipment. With wideband SDR devices falling rapidly in price, there is an impending threat to all licensed frequencies - it isn't illegal to buy or sell a HackRF One, but you can do a lot of illegal things with it if you're ignorant of or indifferent to the regulations.
FCC enforcement is light-touch and they don't have infinite investigative capacity, but they are more than willing to throw down a hefty fine if you're a flagrant violator. The encryption ban is essential in allowing amateur radio operators to monitor their own service; a large proportion of FCC enforcement actions are initiated in response to a complaint from another service user.
I get that some bands are legally restricted but it seems like the HackRF or other SDRs are not going to be a significant problem for widespread spectrum congestion any time soon. Why mention them?
There are protocols and sequences that mush be respected if you don't want to say "DDoS" a repeater frequency or diverge from band plans.
It's really common to have split frequency inputs on repeaters(+/- 600Hz or so on VHF) so even if a channel sounds clear you could be stomping on everything in a 40 mile radius. PL tones mitigate this somewhat but given the sparse, shared aspect of frequency allocations you want people who are properly educated.
I don't believe random numbers (certainly long strings of random numbers) would be an authorized transmission. They would serve no purpose allowed by Part 97.
The governments have not and would not in the future allow the goal of improving international goodwill if the data being passed were encrypted because that's essentially legalized spy radios. In the past governments have made ham radio illegal from time to time just because of one time pads for example. If the whole point of the service is to have a service that uses self policing such that it doesn't require extensive monitoring by spy agencies and as such should not be banned for budgetary reasons...
Some non-USA governments have or had draconian postal and radio regulation such that it would be very tempting to bypass them via encrypted radio, such that they have an entire postal budget's worth of justification to enforce the general ham radio theme of "brief messages of a personal, non-commercial nature"
The issue of "brief messages of a personal, non-commercial nature" is significant; take for example the message:
"Have a nice day, geofft"
1) I mean it (like, why not?)
2) There's no logical argument how or why that message transfer would be improved by encryption. There's no possible way that info transfer could be improved by being sent as FGSHR HKSVN OSJVS SDFWE SAFDS AFDJS using an Enigma machine or similar tech. I mean, it would be kinda cool one time, but a pointless drag in the long run.
3) There are plenty of existing FCC regulated services to handle safely sending your credit card number over radio, so you have the burden of explaining why you won't use those existing services if you insist on giving me your credit card number instead of something more appropriate like "you too have a nice day". Like... if you want to transfer credit card numbers instead of having a polite conversation, why are you here anyway?
A better analogy than SSH or HTTPS would be banning IRC vertical spam of encrypted text. If you want to pay your bills online, technically you could spam the heck out of a popular IRC channel by flooding with some kind of BASE64 encoded TLS stream connected to your bank and your web browser via two gateways, but if you try that you're going to get kicked from the IRC network and told to use HTTPS which ironically already exists and works perfectly and was designed for that specific task. Or even worse analogy, picture me flooding a HN article with posts containing TCPIP packets from me logging into my local electric company trying to pay my electric bill, while the rest of you are trying to have a perfectly normal English language conversation about radio regulation surrounded by my vertical spam.
In summary the main difference is radio bandwidth is finite and we often operate at the limits, while internet bandwidth (from a human perspective) is essentially infinite. Also public utility land lines obey map and country boundaries, but radio waves can not.
As far as I know, all of the other FCC regulated services that permit encryption are licensed in such a way that you need to get the equipment approved, which means they're out of reach of amateurs. I think that, especially in this day and age, there should be a way for hobbyists to be involved in the development of encrypted transmissions - it's been massively helpful for the internet for hobbyists to be involved. But maybe I just missed the existence of one when I went looking?
(Arguably, what I want is another amateur radio service that permits things that aren't brief, personal messages, which could be entirely different from the existing ham radio service.)
There's a specific exemption in the part 15 rules for home-built devices. You need neither a license nor equipment approval to design, build and operate ISM-band equipment.
Don't forget experimental licenses. You can literally do anything you can talk the FCC into permitting, and they're generally nice people if you apply in good faith (like, apply for a supposed R+D license to transmit wideband voice FM on 101.1 MHz 24 hrs a day and they'll laugh and tell you to go away, but for genuine serious R+D requests they'll bend over backward to help)
I was not directly involved in legal paperwork stuff but my understanding is a short term STA costs a varying amount depending on service code and all long term form 442 cost sixty bucks. I also recall the 442 is about a tenth the paperwork required, so I don't really see a point in requesting a STA for truly experimental work. Of course you can get a STA for literally any service the FCC regulates, whereas form 442 are only for legitimate blue sky experimental research.
> Amateur Radio is a lot like STEM. One of it's goals is to encourage people to get "into" thinking and planning for the situations where amateur radio is a useful public service. The hobby portion exists to give people the freedom to experiment and test their skills.
And these days, an important skill is security, and security thinking, which requires modern encryption. The government currently demands to eavesdrop on all ham communications. Well, of course it does. It's a government. Standing up to such nonsense is a skill in itself, and one which should be cultivated.
I disagree. Lack of encryption, imo, is going to kill HAM.
People now aren't enticed by being able to talk to anyone anywhere. There are substantially easier and cheaper methods to do this with the internet and will connect you to more groups with more relevant interests.
As a guy in his late 20's I don't really care much to talk to people on ham. But what got me in was a satellite project during my undergrad (everyone my age or under that I know with a licence has it for similar reasons). Being able to control systems is enticing though. I can't do that with the internet. But playing with iot devices, controlling robots, etc, THAT IS COOL! You aren't going to be about to do this with the internet and you can't get the range (I've never done this, but it is interesting, I just don't have time since I'm in grad school). There's also plenty of ideas I'd like to try that would require encryption (like making a server accessible over HAM frequencies).
I talk to older HAMs and they are confused why the younger generation isn't interested. Well frankly times have changed. Hackers/Makers still exist (this site is proof!), we just aren't enticed just by being able to speak to others around the world. We've been doing that trivially since a young age.
So I think it's silly to say that we don't need encryption. Without users HAM bands will go away. So let's start asking why the younger generation don't want to get in instead of saying "business as usual" when it is clear the business is dying (and dying fast).
Edit: I also disagree with the premise that encrypted == closed. We access tons of https websites and we don't consider those closed.
> Without users HAM bands will go away. So let's start asking why the younger generation don't want to get in instead of saying "business as usual" when it is clear the business is dying (and dying fast).
This is simply not true. There are more hams now than there ever has been, and it's growing every year. [1]
You don't need encryption to make a secure amateur device control system, you need MACs. Those are fine, so it seems to me like you don't actually have a problem.
With encryption you cannot validate that a transmission is truly an amateur transmission, or one from a commercial, government, or military entity. If anything, proliferation of encryption would kill it.
Leave encryption to the ISM bands, where it belongs.
You are ignoring the bandwidth differential of RF v Fiber-based transmission systems. We don't care if some random unknown crypto session happens on the internet - there is near infinite bandwidth - and someone is paying a bill (on both ends).
With amateur RF it is different - it is a shared, finite resource (in a given area/radius).
Not allowing enciphered communications is a fairly easy way to be able to audit what is taking up the spectrum. If it all goes enciphered, you have no idea what is occurring, for what purposes.
There's definitely not infinite bandwidth. If there was then we wouldn't have dos attacks. Can we not treat radio in the same way? I mean if we can knock on someone's door that left their mic on why can't we knock on someone's door that is abusing bandwidth? I'm not sure what message content has to do with this abuse. It seems original to me.
It's many, many, many orders of magnitude difference.
I haven't done the math but my hunch is you could fit the entire ham allocation from VHF down in a single 10mbit pipe. VHF is usually 1200bps per channel and gets slower as you get lower in bandwidth.
Security is an essential social norm, because it reinforces the notion that, no, eavesdropping is not good, it is not acceptable, and we will not stand for it, regardless of the medium.
The internet bucket is too big, you got free for all http or secure (ish) https providing authentication, authorization, accounting, and encrypted data transfer.
I'd argue that HN doesn't require encrypted data transfer at all, and encrypted data transfer is illegal on ham radio freqs anyway. The other three AAA words are what HN requires as a multi user BBS like service, and are legal under ham radio rules, or at most only need to be bent slightly into being legal.
I was motivated enough to look up the Apache webserver docs to force a https ciper; apparently "SSLCipherSuite" lets you force a specific openSSL cipher name; then I checked openSSL docs and for better or worse "cleartext" is not an allowable cipher for openSSL. Via some code changes in browser and server you could technically implement something like HTTPS that would work legally over ham radio.
Although this is a slight simplification, conceptually there's nothing wrong with the idea of accessing HN while using a cipher of cleartext. I really want to know that I'm not getting MITM'd when I read and post, and I want that CA proof that I'm talking to the genuine CA approved HN server. I really don't care if the general public can read the contents of this post so cleartext would be fine. Logging in by typing my password would be an obvious corner case to handle.
Yeah, recent versions of TLS don't specify a "null" cipher any more.
One of the reasons I think we should allow encryption over ham links is that you can't run normal internet protocols - you have to do significant code changes/hacking to make things work. The internet community has decided (for reasons of national security, even!) that it's just not worth having the option.
Unencrypted communication to a website with identity would require some radical restructuring and very smart clients to generate and check the MAC codes. Pretty sure everyone everywhere would hate that.
With that one obvious little caveat. But that's an authentication issue, and does not require all other HN communication (posts, comments) to be encrypted.
But you're widely ignoring all the privacy issues that come with cleartext traffic. Why would you give up this clear win for consumers and users and relegate them to easily trackable, non privacy-preserving techniques?
Do you not see that you're literally arguing against privacy here? Why should amateur radio not get the same benefits? All I hear are arguments in defense of regulation and Kafkaesque government bureaucracy.
There are privacy implications _outside_ of User communications to this website. Arguing that there is no expectation of privacy on HN is a complete non sequitur.
Do you broadcast your HAM radio password unencrypted before you login to HAM? Do you broadcast your bank account information and SSN over HAM? No you don’t on HAM, but if you use HTTP you do.
No, because you don't do any commercial transmissions on ham radio. If you want to do that grab some Ubitqui gear or other Part 15 device and go crazy.
Also you do transmit callsigns which anyone can look up and find out who you are + where you live. There's no expectation of privacy and never has been on the bands.
The article already says what my thoughts on this are (And the thoughts of the people running HAM Radio licensing exams), Ham Radio is a privilege that is granted by the FCC. The specific issue here seems to be that a service that allows HAM communication digitally may be skirting FCC law regulating the use of Amateur wavelengths, which is an issue separate from "the spirit of open communication"., I don't think the "spirit" of amateur radio as everything default open jives with the world we live in today.
Interference is one thing and should be dealth with, but anyone is still able to broadcast QRLs if they want to even in a world of encrypted messages
If encryption is permitted on amateur bands, huge chunks of the rulebook become completely unenforceable. Use-cases that would require encryption are largely incompatible with the purposes of amateur radio stated in Title 47 Part 97. If the amateur bands become filled with encrypted traffic, I cannot imagine any scenario in which they would not become a free-for-all.
If the FCC permits part 97 to turn into a complete free for all, it would be functionally identical to services in part 90 and most of part 95, and if the FCC wanted 47CFR95D to have 1500 watts ... they'd amend 47CFR95D to allow 1500 watts, not screw around endlessly with part 97 to make it a weird pale imitation of CB or business band radio or whatever.
Its just weird to see calls to turn part 97 operations into pale imitations of 47CFR95J or part 90 or similar. Historically the FCC kinda laughs at that stuff.
An excellent local government analogy would be walking into city hall and demanding the building permit department operations be amended such that they used to issue building permits, but you hate the local marina operator, so why not amend the building permit office into stealthily becoming the new local marina operator office as a way to get around existing structure; they'll laugh you right out of city hall.
Likewise the FCC is modern and hip and if you want to do 47CFR95J or part 90 operations, they're super cooperative and into helping you get licensed into those services as cheaply and quickly as possible. I'm not being sarcastic; seriously they're generally nice people to work with, mostly. They are not amused at categorical errors where someone demands they won't fill out a part 90 application because they don't feel like it so everyone else should have to modify part 97 so they can perform part 90 operations using existing part 97 structure.
Really the paragraph above is the fundamental problem expressed in the article; people unwilling or too cheap or too confused to license and operate under 47CFR95B or 47CFR95D or 47CFR95G or whatever existing services mysteriously think it would be easier for the entire rest of the world to Frankenstein part 97 into a pale and inferior imitation of the existing services they somehow, for no obvious reason, refuse to use.
Some of the rants are bizzare; "The FCC hates STEM and technology because they won't let me operate 47CFR95J in a part 97 band because I'm too lazy to read and apply for 47CFR95J service and part 97 is cheap and easy to apply for" Well, uh, no, that hate really does not exist at all, I assure you.
Why do you need the contents of messages to prevent a free-for-all? Just place a limit on how much bandwidth/time can be used by encrypted messages, and require (as always) the callsign in cleartext. Excessive encrypted messages can be tracked down as effectively as excessive rag-chewing.
What you're proposing amounts to the total abandonment of all the principles that have governed amateur radio for over a century.
There's nothing in the rules against excessively long transmissions. There are lots of wholly legitimate reasons for very long contacts, with the most obvious example being experimental exchanges using very low SNR modes. There is a rule against "communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services" - something which could only be ascertained based on the content of the communications. There are rules against broadcasting, commercial use of the service and a number of other factors relating to the content and purpose of the transmission.
What activity would people like to undertake that a) requires encryption and b) is compatible with the basis and purpose of amateur radio as stated in part 97? How could a simple rule on the duration of transmissions or the length of QSOs meaningfully distinguish between technical experimentation, communications that could not occur by any other medium and the commercial exploitation of the amateur service?
> What you're proposing amounts to the total abandonment of all the principles that have governed amateur radio for over a century.
This is a ridiculous premise. Things have changed a lot in the last century. We have the freaking internet now for one. It's my personal opinion that HAM is dying because it hasn't kept up with the times. How do you draw new people in? Being able to communicate with others isn't interesting. There are far easier and cheaper methods to do this that younger generation have had since they were children. So let's look at other things. What about making internet relays? Servers? Controlling things (HAM-OT?)
>It's my personal opinion that HAM is dying because it hasn't kept up with the times. How do you draw new people in?
Ham radio is not dying. There are more licensed amateurs now than there ever has been, and it's growing every year [1]. The whole notion that ham radio is this old relic nobody uses anymore has no bearing in reality.
Those are way higher frequencies than the popular ham bands. I can barely get wifi to cover my apartment, but I can reliably pick up folks from across the city on my handheld radio.
(Which is why spectrum is much more valuable and there aren't unlicensed bands.)
33cm ham band, up to 500kbps, tons of range, especially with yagi/directional antennas, even in a metro area the size of LA. The sad part of this project is that it never took off.
> What you're proposing amounts to the total abandonment of all the principles that have governed amateur radio for over a century.
If you're going to be dramatic about it: yes, that's exactly what I'm proposing. We've learned in the last couple of decades on the Internet that communication needs to be encrypted and authenticated as a matter of course. We did not know that a century ago. (We didn't have modern cryptography a century ago.) I think it's perfectly fair to re-evaluate in light of that.
Specifically, you basically can't use any modern network protocol over packet radio any more, because no modern network protocol worth using has a non-encrypted mode.
> What activity would people like to undertake that a) requires encryption and b) is compatible with the basis and purpose of amateur radio as stated in part 97?
Personally, I'd like to tunnel E2E-encrypted text messages, a mosh session to my IRC box, etc., which ordinarily would go over cellular internet links, over ham radio to reach parts of my city with poor cellular coverage, for the purpose of casual conversations with friends and also getting experience with building/operating portable wireless communication systems. Casual conversations that inspire you to get better at building wireless communication systems is a completely normal, intentional, well-accepted use of the amateur service, perhaps the most normal and well-accepted use.
(I also suspect that being able to tunnel normal internet communication protocols over ham radio would be more reliable and valuable in an emergency than voice and ham-specific protocols, and I'd argue that building and gaining practical experience with such systems is also a reasonable use of the amateur service.)
> How could a simple rule on the duration of transmissions or the length of QSOs meaningfully distinguish between technical experimentation, communications that could not occur by any other medium and the commercial exploitation of the amateur service?
If your transmissions are long or regular, then they cannot be encrypted. This does not ban long transmissions, this rule bans long and regular encrypted transmissions - i.e., it is effectively a subset of the existing rule banning encrypted transmissions of any length. So, all existing uses are permitted.
(Are you envisioning a legitimate purpose for encrypted data over low-SNR links? Then you're probably being more ambitious than I am in your hopes for encrypted ham radio!)
The standard FCC response to your request would be the MOSH session would run great on existing 802.11 regulated under 47CFR15.247 (probably?) so trying to implement it under 47CRF97 is a paperwork mistake.
A step up from consumer wifi gear, the specific term to google for would be U-NII as in the thingie that WISP wireless ISPs operate under. My understanding of U-NII gear (which might be wrong) is by definition its unlicensed. Its long distance performance crushes anything wifi can do (legally, anyway LOL). My understanding of U-NII is 47CFR15.407 which is a different subsection than consumer wifi.
If you feel really ambitious, FCC Part 101 service is the way to go if you want real distance. A license is a couple hundred bucks new or renewed. Your electric bill for the equipment for part 101 service will cost more than that, I think. Just because a Part 73 renewal costs about a new car per year, doesn't mean ALL the fees are draconian. You can certainly spend more on unlicensed 802.11 gear than on used Part 101 gear as a complete system; its not even remotely unrealistic for a private citizen to do part 101 stuff for fun.
If you're feeling really really really ambitious the cost of a form 442 experimental request was ridiculous like sixty bucks. But thats for really exotic experimentation like we're inventing new hardware and new protocols. And a 442 request is by definition not an existing service so they may well respond with an allocation and temporary license that doesn't work for you.
The point of all this is the FCC already has four services you can operate under, ranging from literally free up to a serious but realistic hobby expense, so changing the rules of an existing fifth service is going to be a very hard sell. Like, seriously, none of the four services they offer fit your needs, not even the $60 experimental request form?
Extensive historical part 97 operation indicates encryption has never been useful or required for the other goals mentioned such as casual conversation or operating portable communications systems, so the FCC is not going to take that subgoal very seriously at all.
I made a comment on here not too long ago that said HAM operators are the equivalent of tech tattle-tales.
This comment is exactly why I say that.
> What you're proposing amounts to the total abandonment of all the principles that have governed amateur radio for over a century.
And this is a bad thing, somehow? In the past century, things have changed so much. For some reason, every HAM implies that encrypted communications means encrypted chatting. No one who wants encrypted comms (who I know) wants to use it for chatting, we want to use it for control mechanisms.
> No one who wants encrypted comms (who I know) wants to use it for chatting, we want to use it for control mechanisms.
As VLM keeps saying time and again in this thread, there are other bands for that.
And even if you really, really wanted to run control mechanisms over HAM bands and didn't want anyone to inject telemetry and control signals, you don't need encryption of all traffic for that. Only authentication. Exchange keys and then just send signed but cleartext messages.
Why would you want to encrypt the control traffic so that no other HAM could listen to it and learn from it? Quit being anti-hacker.
Would cryptographic signing be allowed... the CnC message is unencrypted, and you add a signed signature against the message that is against a public/private key pair. The data isn't encrypted, but the signature still proves that you're authorized.
Are there any rules about what spoken languages can be used in what circumstances? I can imagine a lot of local hobbyists in the US getting upset if a few people started speaking Spanish on the radio. What if people speak a language that very few people know? Unless there's some rule encouraging the use of language that is widely understood in the region, then it seems like encryption would only "cause" a problem because, well, crap, we're just accustomed to people using a language we can understand.
Any language is fine. The callsign has to be understandable and that’s it. If people want to talk in Esperanto they totally can. People talk in Spanish on the ham bands all the time!
I've always wondered why the FCC is regulating the content of amateur radio transmissions as opposed to merely the spectrum used. With the way regulations are set up, there's little to do on amateur radio than....talk about amateur radio. A bit stifling as far as potential innovations go. I've had several great ideas for amateur radio applications that are effectively useless without some method of privacy.
There's not a compelling reason I can think of for the FCC doing anything more than regulating bandwidth, power, and duration of radio spectrum signals. On that premise, what couldn't they do with encrypted signals? It's not like abusers honestly identify themselves at the required intervals anyway. They could still triangulate abusers and issue fines. The only thing they wouldn't be able to do is tell users to watch their mouth.
As far as one of the stated purposes being emergency management, I can't help but wonder if reserved frequencies (ala CB channel 9) are sufficient.
>I've always wondered why the FCC is regulating the content of amateur radio transmissions as opposed to merely the spectrum used.
Spectrum is allocated for specific purposes. We have spectrum allocations for aviation, for public safety, for business use, for broadcast and so on. Each of those services has specific regulations to ensure that it functions effectively and is not detrimental to users of other radio services. Amateur radio has a broad but specific range of purposes with some kind of social benefit - education, experimentation, public safety, international goodwill etc. The amateur radio service is regulated to ensure that it remains useful for those purposes.
Encryption removes the ability of the FCC and the amateur radio community as a whole to see whether you're using the service legitimately, or illegally encroaching on amateur frequencies.
Could you give an example of how the regs stifle? If you can avoid obscenities you can talk about whatever you like. Your political views, the asking price for your unused HT, whatever.
The encrypted communication the parent is likely referring to isn't about speech. An example of something that would need encryption is something like accessing a server through radio. Or "iot" like devices, except we'll say HAMOT. I'm definitely not opening a server without encryption. Lots of applications for controlling devices you'd also want to encrypt so that they can't be hijacked.
Are you maybe thinking about it being a bad idea to decrypt without validating message integrity (i.e. decrypt without having or checking the message authentication code)? You absolutely can authenticate without encryption, it's one of the few ways you'll be able to get away with restricting access to functions and features legally on the ham bands. One time passwords and challenge/response authentication procedures are some alternatives.
Well if I can use a key and otp that makes it safer. But I'm more thinking how do you send a password safely. On the internet we don't want to do that with http. As I understand it, if you send your password without encryption you are sending your password with plain text. I don't see why this is different with electrical signals traveling through the air vs electrical signals traveling through cables. I figure we'd want to use the same security practices regardless of what medium that signal is being sent through.
Diffie Hellman. There are all kinds of schemes for Alice and Bob to share keys over a hostile channel. A brief secrets exchange isn't the same as an encrypted pipe.
Once you have authentication, you can send whatever control signals you want in the clear, as long as they are signed.
Message: set foo to baz
Author: kortex
Checksum: 0x1337ace5
Sig: 0xdeadbeef
The endpoint checks for message integrity and authentication, and executes or rejects.
The difference is cables are waveguides from A to B. Radio is a common bus.
> (wiki) encryption is the process of encoding a message or information in such a way that only authorized parties can access it and those who are not authorized cannot.
>> 97.113 (4) “…messages in codes or ciphers intended to obscure the meaning thereof..."
You are obscuring the message that is the password.
Cipher
>>> 2 a: a method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning
>>> 4 : a combination of symbolic letters
>>>> (wiki) Diffie–Hellman key exchange (DH)[nb 1] is a method of securely exchanging cryptographic keys over a public channel
You definitely want to obscure and hide your password for authentication. I guess it depends how you interpret the rules though. Is a cryptographic signature a message in codes or ciphers the more important part or is it about the content of the message? At a minimum I think this should be clarified more.
That being said, if I am using radio to control certain devices I may not want that content to be public (and where I can still abide by the part of not using radio for illegal activities).
I don't think we ever reach the question about which element is more important. Elsewhere in the rules situations permitting encryption are spelled out (telemetry, RC). None of those exceptions apply to server passwords. Under common rules of construction it's safe to conclude that DH key exchange - of a shared secret, if we're being fair - is prohibited. One that can be worked around but not cleanly. There may not be a clean fix that doesn't involve something distasteful like a key escrow or unachievable like a rules change.
Thank you for a challenging exchange. Those interested can inspect the full reg at https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/97.113 . The permitted exceptions aren't hard to search for from there.
I don't think a rules change is unachievable. There's literally talk about it. I would be perfectly okay with a compromise of encrypted signatures or passwords. But I think that is difficult to verify that other things aren't being passed there. So it's probably just easier to allow encryption. I mean Soviet spies probably aren't using HAM bands for secret communications anymore.
I also don't understand the argument that encryption makes HAM closed. The internet is pretty open with encryption.
> Could you give an example of how the regs stifle?
As I pointed out just a few days ago, probably most hams worldwide interpret the regs as discouraging any polemic discussion like politics or religion. Since so many hams are elderly, there is also some distrust of foreigners lingering from the Cold War era. So communications, especially international communications, are so often limited to merely exchanging signal reports, maybe some gear talk or weather info, and then it’s 73.
Besides that, amateur radio is a hobby that attracts a lot of socially-awkward anoraks, who are very self-conscious about entering into any conversation deeper than just talking about their gear.
Sure, there is a community of eager ragchewers, but it is not so big comparatively, and even most of those ragchewers probably limit their deep conversations to people from the same country (or even to people from their own local club scene).
Speaking of the cold war, the supposed limited conversations of signal report, wx, DSV and 73 reminds me of all of my Soviet-era QSOs with stations on the other side of the iron curtain. Not today - although I did have one of your wham bam thank you mam QSOs with a Cuban station last year - in the 21st century you'll talk as long as the band stays open about anything with all but the Cubans and Chinese. You're wrong about how most hams interpret the regs, for whatever purposes, offensive in your ageism and stereotypes of hams who are no more or less awkward than your average high performing HNer. I don't know where you developed these beliefs but they don't reflect reality. How do you know the ragchew community is not so big? I am indeed a random guy on the internet but one who's been hamming for more than 40 years. Copyedits.
Multiple engineer-months of field strength estimates and measurements and extensive deconfliction to provide reliable broadcast service mean the part 73 licensing process is very expensive, yet it results in broadcast services that generally work pretty well. Of course its extremely expensive to regulate that level of QoS.
On the other hand, the Ham Radio licensing process is like: try not to hurt yourself or others, take responsibility for your actions by attaching your callsign (aka legal contact, if it comes to that) to every transmission, and we guarantee absolutely nothing although you folks are historically pretty resourceful LOL. Naturally that costs about $5 to regulate that level of QoS.
Every other service is somewhere in between. Part 87 for aircraft comms is a bit on the expensive side and extensively monitored and interference complaints are very aggressively enforced at a financial loss to the FCC (but, hey, public safety, so its worth it), Part 95-D for CB is for all practical purposes unregulated and as you'd guess its both basically unusable for any purpose and is also free.
Over a very short period of time its tempting to be the first guy to pay Part 97 prices for a license then cheat the system and operate Part 90 services or even Part 73 services on that $5 Part 97 license. Over the long period of time, regulation existed for a reason, the reason has not gone away, and the price and paperwork burden of a Part 97 license would naturally rise up to the existing Part 73 system plus an extra $5 to fund the legacy ham radio service such that its now a net loss to merge parts 73 and 97 services.
The overall process is essentially a wealth transfer from those who are the last to give in and ruin the commons to those who are the first to ruin the commons, which is usually not seen as a regulatory win in a theoretical sense.
As a thought experiment, imagine a world of highly limited internet bandwidth and no net neutrality resulting in massive tiers of bandwidth and billing, and the government proposed regulation that if you set a "I'm a 911 call" bit in your packet, that would be not billed "free" service. You know if they allowed encryption of "911 voice call traffic", that the usual suspects would be trading blueray ISO files by the dozen per month using torrent clients with the "I'm a 911 call" bit set such that the BW was free. I'm not sure that works in the sense of everyone playing along in a system.
In the very old days of radio there was no regulation, as being proposed; it didn't work very well. The FCC wasn't invented just for fun. The FCC is kinda like the EPA, didn't need the EPA in 10000 BC, and the only rational way to get into a future scenario where the EPA is no longer needed seems to be to go back to the population and living conditions of 10000 BC... So I wouldn't bet on "lets just rm -Rf the entire FCC" being implemented any time soon.
Police work is only easy in a police state. Ham operators have to decide whether they want to enforce the rules more easily, or whether they want their protected slices of bandwidth to remain relevant in the 21st century.
Constellations of LEO communications satellites already exist, and they are becoming cheaper and more accessible. When a message can be sent from anywhere on Earth to anywhere else on Earth using antennas smaller than a thumbnail, with verification of receipt, independently of local weather, while a billion other people are doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, I will strongly wonder why people are still using a channel that could otherwise carry trillions of those messages to try to unreliably bounce Morse code along the terminator from Kansas to Kamchatka.
Opening up a free-for-all in the amateur bands might just produce outsider ideas for interference resolution and deconfliction that are not encumbered by telecoms patents.
I want the amateur bands to be a free-for-all. And also free, for all.
>I want the amateur bands to be a free-for-all. And also free, for all.
Then they aren't the amateur bands any more - they're ISM bands with really high power limits. Interference is a thing. Modern technology doesn't magic away the problem of interference, it just gives us some tools for mitigating it in some circumstances. The amateur bands give you the right to use high power levels on big blocks of spectrum, but those rights come with responsibilities. You might prefer anarchy, but the FCC doesn't and neither do the majority of spectrum users.
Considering only the preferences of the spectrum users is begging the question.
The people who are allowed to use the spectrum for the purposes they prefer, prefer that the bands be restricted to their preferred purposes.
ARRL and FCC make the rules because they have both existed since before I was born, and have always picked the next generation of rules-makers from within their own ranks. I never actually agreed that they should be the ones with power over the airwaves, and neither have given me many reasons to do so.
The FCC has done nothing to reverse, halt, or even slow broadcast media consolidation in the US. Why should I expect it to be penny wise when it is so pound foolish? They have lost their mandate, but kept their guns. It may be the right time for a little anarchy again now, and may the next RF allocation organization that arises out of the chaos remember that interference-free radio communication is a privilege, not a right.
FCC is what keeps all wireless communications in the US working. TV, satellite, HAM, ISM, nautical, aeronautical, you name it. What do you think would happen if FCC took to heart you not recognizing their legitimacy and disbanded? Do you think your Wi-Fi or cellphone would keep working reliably?
Those who paid for licenses would be rather put out, and there would be large and painful disruptions in service. But probably not as bad as can be imagined. A lot of stuff would probably still work just fine, and only suffer occasional outages.
My cellphone already doesn't work reliably now, but my wi-fi would still work, as I blast my neighbors' routers out of my living room by increasing my transmitter power, and we might even have a grand war of RF attrition, which could spill over into previously reserved bands, including air, military, and emergency services. Or maybe the next version of router firmware handles it.
Wi-fi is in unlicensed spectrum. It already has to contend with cordless landline phones, microwave ovens, baby monitors, garage door openers, and home security cameras. And that has prompted the creation of new technology to make it work. So now I can enjoy an encrypted Mbps link from the wall to my workstation without running a wire, even as neighbors on all sides do the same thing.
I'd guess that the market for SDRs, highly-directional custom-geometry antennas, laser-optical data links, and wired network building retrofits would explode. Mobile phone service would backslide in quality. GPS would be frequently jammed or spoofed. Eventually, someone would mess with air or ship traffic and get arrested for terrorism. TV would have to come up with some way to sign its signal, so that no one can interrupt kids' programming with shock imagery, or inject pirate ads over the normal ads. Or maybe they just give up, and stream their feed over the Internet, in competition with everyone who wasn't protected by an FCC license.
The FCC keeps everything working by the FCC's system. Without the FCC, it would have to work by a different system, or it might not work for everyone, for all existing use cases. It is not guaranteed that any such future theoretical system would protect any given usage of RF broadcast. Nor is it guaranteed that any usage would be threatened. If you don't run a service that is an uncontroversially unmitigated good--or at the least unremarkably banal--someone will probably try to interfere with you or usurp your station squat, and that will be your problem to solve. In order to get back what was lost with the disappearance of the FCC, some work would be required. In my view, developing the frequency to be more usable, more beneficial, or more accessible to the public is what gives you the right to use it. Other people may have different criteria.
Lets not delve into the RF Purge, and instead let the research into Cognitive Radio lead us to this kind of free-for-all future, in a managed, automated, non-chaotic kind of way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_radio
The spirit of "everything open" does not jive with the modern world and may be an issue with some emergency communications, yet it has a role with amateur radio.
The important things to realize are that amateur radio has a multitude of roles and those roles are not unique to the service. For example: amateur radio is not intended for emergency communications, you have things like aviation and nautical bands for that, yet emergency communications are central to amateur radio since the bands are available when all else fails. Likewise for experimentation, you can frequently work below a certain power levels or obtain a license to develop new technologies. An amateur license offers more leeway and less bureaucracy to hobbiests, arguably cutting down on interference to critical services. The list goes on.
The problem is creating a self-regulating environment. This is difficult to do when communications are "effectively encrypted", which I take to mean that the mode is not publicly documented, it is encrypted, or it is otherwise obfuscated. At best, this encourages use that violates radio regulations. A more cynical interpretation is that it's a prelude to taking over amateur bands.
Amateur radio is defined as a "civil emergency service" under FCC 47 CFR 97.407. Around here at least, Amateur radio groups provide a vital role in the coordination of Search and Rescue operations by setting up communication networks in backcountry areas under the direct supervision of the local sherifs office. So yes, amateur radio is (among other things) intended for emergency communications.
I'd support encrypted traffic if it was specifically restricted to certain bands in the bandplan. I don't think it should be allowed generally because part of the joy of amateur radio is the fact that other people's messages can be listened to and learnt from.
I think the same people who are protesting in the article would object to that. Because bar the FCC releasing more spectrum to Amateur radio (which probably won't happen) it would mean removing spectrum from "open" amateur bands.
I might be oversimplifying, but isn't this the perfect argument for certain digital voice modes? DMR for example uses TDM to put two voice channels in a 12.5 KHz band.
This is about Pactor modems not being readable by other hams because the protocol is proprietary from version 2 upwards, and therefore unreadable. Also, the amateur bands can't be used for commercial traffic, and yet they are. The article may not explain this well, but that's the core of the issue. Both sides muddy it up a bit. This battle has been raging since the 90s. I posted a longer description in another thread here.
ISTM really important to crack down on the commercial uses otherwise the commercial users will justifiably lay claim to our bands. When that happens we won't have a place to be QRL broadcasting QRLs
My knowledge is a decade or so out of date, but encrypted transmissions have been allowed in the past, so long as the key for decrypting the payloads was available on request (much like how GNU says source code must be available).
For example, you can transmit video over amateur bands, even though the signal could be considered to be encrypted if you don't have the standard for decoding the signal.
But encoding is relevant here too. If people cannot make sense of the messages, whether or not they're cryptographically secure, the messages aren't fulfilling the pedagogical purpose of the amateur service.
The average English speaking American probably won't be able to make sense of someone speaking Haitian, nobody says everyone must be able to understand you.
But you can record the Hiatian speakers message and get it translated.
With sufficient encryption, recorded messages cannot ever
be decoded unless the key was broadcast, which it never would be.
You can record an encrypted message and get it decrypted by anyone who demonstrates knowledge of the key. The process is identical to finding someone who demonstrates knowledge of Haitian. Encryption is nothing more than an uncommon encoding.
These guys were the original hackers !!!
I knew a lot of these guys, they were taping 2meter repeaters with these funky handheld radios that looked like a phone way back in the late 70's, I thought they were kookokoobooros.. but turns out...
Before you totally dismiss some geeky dude with some weird thing, think about this. Back in 1978 [I get it I am old but just hear me out here] Way back then these guys were talking with each other with these 2M "walkie talkies" over these "community repeaters". Back then it seemed pretty kooky to me. Now, looking back, they were very geniuses (I think) You just never know when a bunch of hackers building their own PC's or their own cell network, will take things. We need to keep a space for hacker, experimenters. I think it is critically important to always find a way to make sure there is some space carved out for experimenters. That is why I believe we need to keep some amount of spectrum reserved for "experimenter". You just don't know what will come of it. Again, IMHO.
It's not about all digital modes. It's about proprietary digital modes. As the petition says:
> Almost all digital modes in common amateur radio use are capable of being monitored by third parties, either through an integrated developer provided software package, or with a stand alone software decoder. Problems arise when protocols and devices used in commercial, government, and marine services are used in the amateur service with no adequate means to fully decode transmissions. Further complicating the situation are security and privacy features of the specific modulation and networking protocols which are not subject to rules governing amateur radio. Said features preclude the amateur radio community from attempting to monitor the Part 97 spectrum by denying them ability to eavesdrop
and the proposed solution is
> To rectify the current situation in the amateur radio service,digital mode developers must be required, by Part 97 rule, to provide the means to fully decode their product in amateur use to enable monitoring and self-policing. The amateur radio community, the FCC, and intruder monitoring groups should not be put in a position of having to develop decoders for any digital protocol destined for use in the amateur radio service. The protocol developers should be solely responsible for providing a decoding solution to ensure Part 97 rules compliance. Any necessary software provided by developers must be open source, unencumbered by patent, licensing fees,royalties or copyright, in keeping with the intent and spirit of the amateur radio service as exemplified in Part 97.1(b)(c).
AM (CW) -> AM voice -> SSB -> FM wide -> FM narrow -> Digital
Modes have to evolve and the amateur radio community needs to do more to educate. The harrumphs of the old-timers can be discouraging, but amateur radio needs to push through that in order to stay current.
There's nothing wrong with digital modes. It really is the next evolution for ham. But there is something wrong with proprietary, blackbox encoders that only allow people with specific radios or licensed software to use it.
The world got onboard with 802.11g (and even 802.11b but that sucked). That was a massive movement towards the proliferation of wireless devices. While the standard costs $178 from IEEE, you can find copies of it scattered all over the internet. I don't know why hams have adopted these closed standards, I'm guessing it's because at one point the hobby was dominated by elmers too old to figure out anything but the newest expensive shiny thing from Icom or Yaesu (too much money, not enough sense...) Nowadays you can pull up GNU Radio and start using any sort of open standard mode you want because of how accessible everything is.
Actually they strictly don’t have to evolve. They all coexist quite happily thus increasing choice. You can choose anything from minimalism to advanced digital modes. This is pretty much a whim based hobby for most of us if we admit to that or not so use whatever works for you and enjoy it.
You can catch me on FT8 or bashing out CW with a straight key or on 2m FM. Depends on what mood I’m in.
If there’s an emergency I’ll use my phone though. I can’t see any utility in it. I just enjoy it.
The concrete example provided by the article is the potential for opaque transmissions via Winlink, which could reduce transparency and thus raise the potential for abuse of the limited spectrum. I knew nothing of Winlink (or this petition) before today, but I was wondering why it necessarily has to be encrypted. A transparent Winlink service could surely be compatible with the spirit of Amateur Radio in the same way that packet radio is, right?
From a brief Googling leading to Winlink's web site, it sounds like Winlink isn't even encrypted at all [1]:
> Q260 While monitoring transmissions from WL2K stations, I notice that the content appears as “gibberish”. Isn’t this illegal?
> A260 The content looks that way because it is a compressed binary format called "B2F." This format is available to anyone, so the compressed data is not considered encryption or illegal for radio amateurs.
Is the concern that people are encrypting Winlink payloads anyway? And wouldn't this already be illegal under current rules?
1) Limit "Automatically Controlled Data Stations" like Winlink to a specific range of frequencies
2) Limit the protocols they use to ones that "can be be monitored, in it’s entirety, by 3rd parties, with freely available open source software"
While Winlink can use the Pactor protocol, it is not required to use the system. Winlink is capable of using multiple protocols each of which fit to frequency, hardware and band conditions.
Expanding on what sciurus said, theres four major issues with Winlink:
1) It uses proprietary PACTOR III and IV modems that only one company makes. This means to monitor Winlink you need to shell out thousands of dollars for a modem.
2) PACTOR transmissions don't send any ident in the clear, the ident is part of the PACTOR code.
3) There at least used to be an issue with PACTOR III modems both not detecting transmissions on the same frequency and falsely detecting transmissions on the same frequency, so Winlink stations were told to turn frequency-in-use detection off.
4) Theres a decent number of people who use Winlink as a substitute for Sailmail and thusly are in violation of 97.113(a)5.
Imagine a hypothetical private company with a radio system that is used 5% of the time for important messages in major emergencies, and 95% of the time for billionaires' yachts.
In a genuine emergency where many lives were at stake, one might give them great leeway to break the law, just like fire trucks can speed and run red lights.
But when there's no emergency, should such rulebreaking be allowed for the billionaires' yachts?
Obviously, the e-mail-by-radio system at the heart of this argument isn't all about billionaires' yachts - but still, there's no reason loosened rules for emergencies should be extended to non-emergency use.
Seems hyperbolic. Considering the transfer speeds and relatively low cost of sat internet I sincerely doubt that "billionaires" are using winlink to a point that is interrupting the global ham radio band.
These days, an important skill is security, and security thinking, which requires modern encryption. The government currently demands to eavesdrop on all ham communications. Well, of course it does. It's a government. Standing up to such nonsense is a skill in itself, and one which should be cultivated.
The Administrative Procedures Act provides great processes to express yourself. I highly doubt this Petition for Rulemaking would proceed to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The Commission rarely conducts proceedings to adopt or change rules in Part 97 since 2001. I expect a dismissal letter to eventually issue forth more than anything else.
This fight has been brewing for a long time and I've been a user on both sides. I sailed across the Atlantic in 1993 and 1996 and we used a Pactor modem and a service called Sailmail to send and receive email via marine HF radio (1 to 30Mhz). The service is still active and is an alternative to Winlink unless things have changed.
I'm a licensed ham these days (WT1J) and use HF for my hobby. I use voice and open source digital protocols. All for fun and learning.
I think the reality here is that Sailmail and Winlink are used by folks to check their email and they treat it like regular email, which means they conduct business over it. The system has become popular with yachties around the world - many of whom are wealthy retirees or remote workers.
In the 90s, using a Pactor modem and SSB was pretty much your only cost effective option to have any kind of email access.
These days you can buy an Iridium Go for less than a Pactor4 modem and the rates are reasonable for text and email. In fact Sailmail integrates with Iridium Go now.
I think the arguments made for banning Pactor modems on the HF bands are legitimate. Other than Pactor 1 which is open source, Pactor 2, 3 and 4 are proprietary and you can't decode them if you're listening in.
You are also not supposed to use the amateur bands to conduct business, and yet that is exactly what is happening much of the time someone is downloading/uploading email via a Pactor modem on the amateur bands.
From the FCC: "The amateur and amateur-satellite services are for qualified persons of any age who are interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and without pecuniary interest. These services present an opportunity for self-training, intercommunication, and technical investigations." Source: https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-divis...
So checking your stock portfolio from the Bahamas or communicating with your lawyer is not allowed. However this is near impossible to monitor because Pactor 2+ is proprietary and so no proof of this can be submitted.
What the hams are arguing for is in the spirit of the amateur bands: Make the protocols open source and unencrypted so that all communication on the amateur bands are essentially open source and we can all participate and help regulate each other - while learning from each other.
This feels reasonable to me. Kick the Pactors off and let them use Iridium or Inmarsat.
PS: I don't buy the 'interference' argument mentioned in the article. Pactor is low bandwidth and doesn't cause interference that I'm aware of. It's just occupying some bandwidth and can't be understood by others.
A bigger issue is RM-11831 would also ban DMR, P25, and pretty much every digital mode used on VHF as well, because of its open source requirement - currently every ham digital audio mode uses codecs from DVSI.
Proprietary patent encumbered digital modes have done a lot to ham string ham radio: They have resulted in a proliferation of mutually incompatible radios and repeater systems which otherwise could be totally compatible just with a different setting or firmware load.
In addition to that most obvious annoyance, encumbered modes have restricted experimentation and exploration. Compare the vibrancy and progress in the open source HF low bandwidth modes implemented by WSJT to the level of technical development at the modem or codec level for dstar.
FWIW, my recollection is that the AMBE patents are soon due to expire, if they haven't already.
Both P25 and DMR are open standards, the only closed part is IMBE (which I believe is patent free now) and AMBE+2 (which will be patent free in the next 5 years). DSTAR is also a open standard too, but I think only has a single implementer, same for C4FM.
It could be argued that when all you had were AM/CW receivers, plain old SSB would have been an encryption scheme, if the definition of encryption is "there's someone who cannot demodulate it with the equipment they have".
> §97.113(4) Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section; communications intended to facilitate a criminal act; messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein; obscene or indecent words or language; or false or deceptive messages, signals or identification.
The "messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein" being the key part and the "except as otherwise provided herein" basically boiling down to remote control (incl for satellites!)
It's also tricky because the FCC allows proprietary voice codecs on the mature bands. They are not considered as "obscuring" the meaning because even though they're not an "open" standard, anyone with the appropriate decoded, can decode the voice stream. I guess because it's a globally shared secret and not a shared secret only between the sender and receiver, they allow it under the rules.
Even experimental digital modes on the amateur bands don't fall afoul of this rule. You can experiment with a new digital mode that no one but you has the ability to decode. However, if push came to shove you'd need to release at least a functional description of your mode or forfeit your license.
It's not an encryption or cryptography ban -- signed messages are perfectly fine -- it's really an extension of the whole idea that these bands and your license exist for the purpose of shared, non-commercial communication of a personal nature in a public space.
Imagine the govt provides two transport services, a car road service, and a paved bike path service. They're deconflicted and regulated and licensed and taxed separately for various social engineering reasons, etc.
The car roads are congested and I want to drive my semi trailer to the next town, or I just don't feel like paying the tollbooths or whatever. I propose a "brilliant" solution of modifying the regulations for the bike path to allow semi trailers on the mostly empty paved bike path because bicycles are an ancient technology over 100 years old and they should get with the internal combustion times, I don't have a bike personally, I feel my semi trailer is more important than some spandex wearing bicycle hobbyist's amusement, and I don't care about bicycling as a hobby in general, so if I mow down bicyclists while driving my semi down the bike path thus completely destroying the utility of a bike path for bicyclists, I really don't mind. Hey I got mine, I got to drive my semi trailer on the bike path, so at least for me all is well, right?
Now just to make it clear I don't hate bicyclists any more than I think its a good idea to amend part 97 to perform stealthy part 90 operations on part 97 frequencies. I'm merely making a very accurate analogy.