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Comment by edrxty | Hacker News Reader

The most common case people run into: I want to be able to interface with literally any other communication technology in common use without having to strip TLS.

The basic case: Alice wants to talk to Bob and would rather not have their crazy neighbor listen in and threaten violence because psychosis (Don't believe me? Hang out on the fun parts of the HF spectrum).

The public service use case: a disaster occurred, I need to send medical information to a known recipient. Other countries have allowances for this but the US does not.

The because it's literally unenforceable anyway case: yeah, go after noise sources that don't have an ID but prove to me my shitty CW transmitter with a trillion ppm of phase noise isn't actually broadcasting encrypted PSK within pulses.

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Eh yeah I've heard these. The important bit to remember is Part 97.113 on prohibited transmissions: "Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services." That's the bit that trips these up rather than the encryption prohibition.

The common case: this is vague and probably falls under the above. What's an example?

The basic case: use phones. All of us that have spent time on HF are well aware of the antisocial behavior sometimes found there. I don't think you'll run into any ham that's against stricter enforcement in this area.

Public service: SHARES is probably the move here. I think I would support waivers similar to how they were previously allowing PACTOR 4 though. Despite what the ARRL says I'm a little dubious of our utility in disasters these days in any case.

I mean sure you can come up with any number of ways to get away with it but that doesn't mean we should endorse that behavior.

Re common case, it's typically an accidental thing. Lots of people are standing up things like ham mesh networks and similar but anything internet proximal has a very high likelihood of leaking cypher text over the air.

Re basic case, I should refine my statement a bit, HF is currently populated enough that having more traffic there is probably not advisable yet. If I was given a magic pen, I'd probably allow encryption on the lesser used HF bands and 6m on up.

As far as public service/phones/other services, I don't really buy into the disaster prepper stuff that's been popular as of late, but there's an opportunity for amateur radio to remain relevant. Rather than trying to prevent encryption and keep all that stuff on other ISM type bands, putting some of it under the ham umbrella could be very positive development.

> a disaster occurred

In the case of emergency, the restrictions on your license no longer apply. You can use whatever means necessary to establish the desired communications.

There is a difference between disaster and emergency. The emergency exception is for immediately saving a life. It is basically that if need to call 911 and can’t, you can break rules on radio.

There are lots of people who think the rules are suspended during disaster. That is only true if actively saving a life during a disaster.

Cool, so a central component of a disaster response is preparation. How do you practice for that when you can't do real key enrollment/management outside of a real disaster?

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