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Comment by dist-epoch | Hacker News Reader

Is it still illegal in Europe to buy radios with 128 bit encryption?

I think what you may be thinking of is the export from the US of strong encryption products under ITAR. It was challenged by djb (of qmail/djbdns fame, among many other things) and the result was roughly that publishing software is protected expression like any other publishing (prior to that it was classified as munitions and required an export license).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States

As in TETRA? Probably not, as SDRs are widely available anyway, as are scanners capable of decrypting TETRA traffic.

You do need authorization to buy a transmitter though, at least where I live.

I meant like hand-held walkie talkies. But with 128 bit encryption.

Weird it's regulated, given you can use mobile phones like that (sure, you need coverage).

Mobile phones are backdoored and trackable by default.

I think on most public bands here, transmitting with encryption of any kind is banned regardless of the strength.

It's still illegal to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Its also illegal to report hospitals that post PHI (protected health information) over POCSAG or FLEX - pager networks. Of course, theres no encryption or anything. The encoding is plain text.

Yes, it is also illegal to post PHI over pagers, due to HIPAA addendum in 2016.

But 1986 ECPA law forbids decoding pager messages unless they were intended for you.

Well it's a good thing they made it illegal! otherwise criminals would use that to get your data!

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