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Comment by abstractbeliefs | Hacker News Reader

The pros have to bid at auction to tie up bandwidth with encrypted comms that cannot benefit or be used by others.

If people want encryption, they are welcome to use the ISM bands where it is allowed, or get licenses for the commercial areas of the spectrum.

But amateur radio is a public commons for those who have the interest in getting licensed, and encrypted comms being normalised damages that, making it less accessible to others and discouraging interaction between enthusiasts.

I fear that with encryption allowed, amateur radio will become a collection of competing 1-to-1 links and hidden commercial activity taking advantage of the cheap spectrum at everyone else's expense.

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There is a lot of utility in having a bunch of 1-to-1 links. If you look at the internet you will see that it supports multitask, but it is rarely used nowadays. You would expect to see similar things from other communication protocols. The days that everyone's communications went to everyone are over.

Even if there is hidden commercial activity going on, is that really so bad? Imagine if the internet banned commerce on it, there wouldn't be so much investment into it.

There is a lot of utility in 1 to 1 links, but you don't need encryption to do that, while adding it does encourage it at the expense of other modes.

As for commercial activity, the whole point of the amateur spectrum is specifically to carve out portions of the spectrum protected from commercial interests! I agree that commercial, and also unlicensed use of radio is important, but leave commerce out of the tiny portion (and it really is small) part of the spectrum that's specifically regulated to be free of commercial interference.

What percentage of the Internet, and the devices that connect to it, is devoted to ads, spam, malicious traffic, and the prevention of malicious traffic?

I’d rather not have the ham bands reduced to more of the same.

Why are ads lumped in? Typically they are only a fraction of the content they are sponsoring and they provide a service to consumers by connecting them to businesses they may find value in.

Nothing stops spammers from spamming on HAM right now and it's 1 to many which makes it more effective.

> Nothing stops spammers from spamming on HAM right now

Except the existing regulations, which is why spamming is relatively rare on Amateur radio.

Occasional infringement does occur, but it is relatively easy to track down and deal with.

And of course this is is the whole point of this thread.

The existing regulations would still exist if encryption was allowed. Spammers still are incentivized to not encrypt their spam to maximize the number of listeners that exist.

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