Comment by abstractbeliefs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by abstractbeliefs | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

abstractbeliefs

You talk about retrojustification, but in many parts of the world this has long been written into law, for example in the UK's Wireless Telegraphy act:

1(1) The Licensee shall ensure that the Radio Equipment is only used:

a) for the purpose of self-training in radio communications, including conducting technical investigations; and

b) as a leisure activity and not for commercial purposes of any kind

As for it being "good" not to have privacy, it's really not about having privacy or not, but respecting the situation that there are different tools for different needs. If you need to speak to your spouse, there are tools to speak to them privately! Amateur radio isn't the only option, and it isn't the best.

The problem is that encrypted comms tie up spectrum space without giving anything back. Now, I don't ragchew, I think it's incredibly boring and unnecessarily toxic chat given most of the personalities and topics involved, but at least anyone can choose to drop in/out of that as needed.

What I'm more interested in is radio as a sport, where I can climb mountains and operate from them, pushing myself and engaging in that competitive activity with others. It's hard to do that if everyone has decided to start using the 2m band as their private internet link because it goes further than WiFi.

> If you need to speak to your spouse, there are tools to speak to them privately!

Apart from amateur radio, what tool exist, that does not require the assistance of private corporations, ISPs, service fees, patents etc? I go camping way outside of cell phone tower ranges and it would be should be legal to communicate with my group privately.

Radio is the only form of totally citizen controlled real time distance communication we have, if we do not count smoke signals. Snail mail encryption is already allowed. Encryption must be allowed on radio as well.

I think a legitimate fear of radio amateurs is that encrypted, fully autonomous, long distance communication is such a killer application that usage would explode from commercial devices sold to take advantage of the ham space, leading to some kind of WiFi cacophony.

Perhaps some kind of compromise is possible, where all encrypted ham must broadcast their callsign in the clear every few seconds.

With 2.8kHz of bandwidth, the requirements to obtain a license to transmit, and the restrictions on commercial use in the ham bands, I don't think your fears are warranted. I definitely think the ham bands would get more active for data uses, but I doubt they would get flooded with newcomers.

You must already broadcast your call sign at a regular interval when transmitting.

It seems like that frequency space would be doing more good for more people if that were the case?

> Perhaps some kind of compromise is possible, where all encrypted ham must broadcast their callsign in the clear every few seconds.

My thought is that it would always include that part. Maybe not every few seconds, but the same as the current rule - end of every broadcast or every 10 minutes, which ever is shorter.

You want to use a piece of limited spectrum, don't want to pay for a private slice of it, and complain that you have to be 'public' in a public slice of it?

Yes. Just as I have a right to be on a public highway with whatever personal items I want in my trunk. I will agree to speed limits. I will not agree to letting any member of the public look in my trunk.

But the idea/premise of a highway is to move stuff (people, drugs in your trunk) from one location to another one.

The idea/premise of a private frequency band is to move data (voice, binary,..) from one point to another (or many).

The idea/premise of ham radio is to learn and experiment, to test your devices, compare with others, see how far your signal reaches, etc. It was never meant to be a means for private 1-on-1 conversations.

How will i test my receiver if your transmission is encrypted? What will I learn from that? How do I know that you're not abusing the bands for commercial use? And what do other ham radio operators gain from you transmitting encrypted data?

Who cares? Really, what is the big deal? Nobody is saying that it will always be encrypted. Other radio operators gain the ability to learn about encryption! And we expand the hobby, which as a new member is dying. The radio waves are dead. Why?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com