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Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

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Re: Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

#11

Post by jjoonathan »

sseagull wrote: post #10
edrxty wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's safe only because nobody cares enough about ham radio to bother skimming anything. I've been pushing for encryption for years but just posting this well get a bunch of elmers posting upset replies. It's frustrating constantly being under the thumb of a generation that will not yield to progress

I am hoping they explained why. Most people who complain about the encryption regulation just completely disregard the reason for encryption in the first place (ie, all other regulations become unenforceable if encryption is allowed).

Do they? Maybe we need to figure out the essential subset of regulations that preserves the most essential aspects of the system while still permitting encryption.

I have no doubt it will be a huge mess and take a few tries to get right.

We should get started already -- if we don't, HAM will die, and it will deserve to die.

Re: Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

#12

Post by detaro »

edrxty wrote: post #4
mikece wrote: post #2

Texting via APRS has been a thing for about 20 years. It's also a fantastic way to publish both your phone number and the numbers of the people you are texting in an easy to skim format. Digital modes is one of the areas where the HN crowd could introduce significant advancements to Amateur radio (while pissing off all of the older HAMs who just want to talk about the weather on 40m).

It's safe only because nobody cares enough about ham radio to bother skimming anything. I've been pushing for encryption for years but just posting this well get a bunch of elmers posting upset replies. It's frustrating constantly being under the thumb of a generation that will not yield to progress

Don't conflate "it's extremely obviously not legal" with "people don't like it" (the latter camp you can always ignore, they fundamentally can't do that much in most cases except not support you. See e.g. the whining about pretty much any digital mode ever). But encryption on ham bands falls in the first bucket, which is a problem, and I doubt that's simply a "we need to advocate for changing it" matter.

Fun fact: in parts of the world, you can transmit pretty much whatever you want on CB, nobody is stopping you from running encrypted digimodes there. And for slow transmissions, one can probably squeeze something through ISM bands, despite the limitations there.

And you probably could develop a good mode on ham bands that has the foundations and does signatures but not encryption, and can switch to encrypted on other bands.

Re: Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

#13

Post by generalizations »

jjoonathan wrote: post #8
provobro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and anyone using this would need a ham radio license

IMO that's a great way to set up a sandbox: it has built in crowd control and a mechanism to keep out flagrant abuse. Yeah, it doesn't scale to the moon, but that's the whole point: it's a proving ground, not a moon rocket.

It's not that it doesn't scale - it's just there's a reason people use letters to communicate and not postcards.

People expect a modicum of privacy which ham radio, to its detriment, denies.

Re: Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

#14

Post by tjohns »

abfan1127 wrote: post #9
edrxty wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's safe only because nobody cares enough about ham radio to bother skimming anything. I've been pushing for encryption for years but just posting this well get a bunch of elmers posting upset replies. It's frustrating constantly being under the thumb of a generation that will not yield to progress

FCC rules won't allow encryption. I'm not sure why the rules were made originally.

Ham radio relies on self-policing within the community to ensure compliance with the rules - the biggest one being "no commercial use".

The "no commercial use" rule ensures companies aren't using the limited ham radio spectrum as a workaround to getting their own dedicated license and frequency allocation.

If encryption were allowed, there'd be no way for other users to verify whether traffic is commercial or not.

Re: Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

#15

Post by Enginerrrd »

abfan1127 wrote: post #9
edrxty wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's safe only because nobody cares enough about ham radio to bother skimming anything. I've been pushing for encryption for years but just posting this well get a bunch of elmers posting upset replies. It's frustrating constantly being under the thumb of a generation that will not yield to progress

FCC rules won't allow encryption. I'm not sure why the rules were made originally.

Because way back when long range radio was a plausible way for spies to communicate back to the homeland.

Re: Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

#16

Post by sseagull »

jjoonathan wrote: post #11
sseagull wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am hoping they explained why. Most people who complain about the encryption regulation just completely disregard the reason for encryption in the first place (ie, all other regulations become unenforceable if encryption is allowed).

Do they? Maybe we need to figure out the essential subset of regulations that preserves the most essential aspects of the system while still permitting encryption. I have no doubt it will be a huge mess and take a few tries to get right. We should get started already -- if we don't, HAM will die, and it will deserve to die.

Mostly. Ham is meant for play, not as a primary means of communication or for commercial purposes.

If everything is encrypted, how could you tell? How could you even tell that the users were licensed?

Re: Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

#17

Post by edrxty »

sseagull wrote: post #10
edrxty wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's safe only because nobody cares enough about ham radio to bother skimming anything. I've been pushing for encryption for years but just posting this well get a bunch of elmers posting upset replies. It's frustrating constantly being under the thumb of a generation that will not yield to progress

I am hoping they explained why. Most people who complain about the encryption regulation just completely disregard the reason for encryption in the first place (ie, all other regulations become unenforceable if encryption is allowed).

The unenforceable argument isn't really a thing. If we look at some common encryption standards, the call sign is in the clear as it has to be for routing.

In the case where someone is swearing with their friends over an encrypted channel, it's just not a problem, no child will hear the swears without a quantum supercomputer.

In the case where a business is illegally using ham bands to avoid paying license fees, they can already do this, nobody is actually checking. You can encrypt P25 on the bands all day long because nobody has radios that work with that digital mode and nobody will spend the time running signal analysis to figure out that A) it's P25, B) it's encrypted and C) where it's coming from. If it became rampant the FCC has the tools to very quickly figure out all of these things and if the broadcasts don't have a call sign and are coming from a business premises then it's obviously breaking the law anyway.

If it could be a problem, it already would be. All the Chinese digital business radios support encryption now. We're just not allowed to use it because people are scared of bogeymen

Re: Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

#18

Post by mikece »

MisterTea wrote: post #3
mikece wrote: post #2

Texting via APRS has been a thing for about 20 years. It's also a fantastic way to publish both your phone number and the numbers of the people you are texting in an easy to skim format. Digital modes is one of the areas where the HN crowd could introduce significant advancements to Amateur radio (while pissing off all of the older HAMs who just want to talk about the weather on 40m).

And before APRS we had packet radio[1]. Around 1992/3 I remember going to Boy scout camp at ten mile river and a scoutmaster from another troop had a packet radio setup connected to a luggable PC in one of the buildings. I dont remember what it was for but the idea of wireless digital communications was exciting. Now its everywhere. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_radio

APRS is built on packet radio (AX.25 protocol IIRC).

Re: Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

#19

Post by danbr »

jjoonathan wrote: post #8
provobro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and anyone using this would need a ham radio license

IMO that's a great way to set up a sandbox: it has built in crowd control and a mechanism to keep out flagrant abuse. Yeah, it doesn't scale to the moon, but that's the whole point: it's a proving ground, not a moon rocket.

> IMO that's a great way to set up a sandbox: it has built in crowd control and a mechanism to keep out flagrant abuse.

Sadly nothing is really stopping anyone from buying radios online and transmitting garbage. Sure the FCC will come knocking if someone flagrantly transmits without regard for others.

Re: Hacking Ham Radio for Texting

#20

Post by jjoonathan »

sseagull wrote: post #16
jjoonathan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they? Maybe we need to figure out the essential subset of regulations that preserves the most essential aspects of the system while still permitting encryption. I have no doubt it will be a huge mess and take a few tries to get right. We should get started already -- if we don't, HAM will die, and it will deserve to die.

Mostly. Ham is meant for play, not as a primary means of communication or for commercial purposes. If everything is encrypted, how could you tell? How could you even tell that the users were licensed?

By not encrypting the call signs because unencrypted call signs aren't the problematic restriction. It's the content restrictions that are stifling in the modern world.

Also: progress has changed the landscape. HFDF used to be difficult for the military but now it's easy for hobbyists, and not just in last-mile form, but in coordinated always-on infrastructure form. The regulations were not written with this in mind. With an active community this fact alone might obviate the need for many a regulation.

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