Comment by Manuel_D | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Manuel_D | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

While I wouldn't want encrypted traffic completely taking over the bands, part of the spirit of amateur radio is encouraging experimentation and expanding technical understanding [1]. Encryption is pivotal to modern wireless communications, and allowing it would expand amateurs' ability to experiment and building understanding in radio encryption.

Methods like spread-spectrum communication are allowed. It's not the same as encryption, but it it similar in that people without knowledge of the frequency hopping pattern are not capable of receiving the transmission [2].

Ultimately I'm not particularly invested in permitting encryption in amateur radio - my personal involvement is mostly homebrewing simple equipment - but I'd consider it a plus. I doubt it'd displace public participation around local repeaters and the existing radio activity.

1. https://www.arrl.org/about-arrl

2. Well, if they have an SDR with a wide enough bandwidth they can receive spread spectrum communications. And with modern SDR's that probably not that rare.

The problem with encryption is that it discourages interaction between hams (which is already pretty bad, tbh). Yes, you’re supposed to announce your callsign, but my bet is that unsavory characters would take advantage of that. I think it’s pretty cool to listen in on different protocols and see what people are trying out (M17 is an excellent example).

FHSS is pretty trivial to “decrypt” these days with an SDR.

While you’re not wrong about experimentation, I feel like ham radio should be focused more on the radio side of things rather than encryption implementations. Implementing the hardware and software encoding/decoding is the hard/fun part (at least to me). Encryption should come as a piece of cake after than if you can achieve a given bitrate.

And again - there already are bands that allow encryption. A couple hundred bucks and a few applications, and you’re free to go nuts.

And I completely forgot, but ISM bands do allow encryption, are free, and there is plenty of hardware out there readily available.

I would argue that the behavior of hams discourages interaction between hams.

What open hardware can legally do any useful (open source, auditable, and secure) encrypted voice communication at long distance via ISM?

Yes, please - I would like to see examples of the hardware stack that enables this use-case.

Thanks.

I’m trying to dig up the M17 messages on the chipsets, but until then - WiFi is incredibly popular and operates on ISM bands. Same with LoraWan, and I have seen some proprietary 900Mhz mesh devices (I think called Milo(?)).

The M17 project found some low cost transceivers that operate on a pretty low level, and I think those would be relevant for future development on ISM for people wanting to use encryption.

Talk to your radio supplier, there are many encryption devices routinely used on VHF and UHF.

Of course encryption is not impossible on HF, just a bit more difficult.

Whatever, both commercial and military uses are using encryption on HF.

Commercial and military use encryption with well known backdoors on HF, using bands only they are licensed to use with proprietary hardware.

https://www.wired.com/story/tetra-radio-encryption-backdoor/

This is why proprietary solutions are non-starters.

Civilians deserve real encryption they can control with provable privacy.

Then we restrict portions of the bands to encryption, just like voice, Morse code, etc.

I just don't see anything fundamentally unique about an encrypted communications stream that would require it to be used on the ham bands for 'furthering the radio arts.' Any stream being developed or tested for use over the air should be able to be effectively tested in the clear as allowed by amateur rules. Then further testing (incorporating encryption) can be done over internet or closed circuits. It seems to me that encryption as such is unlikely to have any fundamental effect on the outcome of on-air testing.

What I am hearing is we should only be permitted to have encrypted communication if we are near a cell phone tower and pay a corporation the appropriate fees?

You can use the ISM bands for free.

What open hardware can legally do any useful (open source, auditable, and secure) encrypted voice communication at long distance via ISM?

I’m just coming back to this thread to answer some of the other comments over the next few days, but WiFi does count here. It operates on ISM bands, AFAIK there are OSS chips, and it allows encryption.

What’s more interesting to me is that the M17 project has found some chips on aliexpress that are lower level and work on a multitude of bands. I’m trying to find this and will update when I do.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com