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Old 05-13-2009, 11:35 AM
ab3a ab3a is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Lisbon MD
Posts: 52
Angry English Lesson

Quote:
Originally Posted by vabiro View Post
I would wonder if there would be a couple of areas that would be applicable:

- Intercepting Encrypted Comms: I know that it is explicitly illegal in Canada, but not sure if it is explicitly identified as illegal in the US.
I want to emphasize, I'm not discussing encryption. I'm discussing encoding and decoding. They are different. Coding methods are like modulation methods. They're used to improve performance of a connection. Encryption is strictly used to keep unauthorized people from understanding certain information.

Coding methods are not the same thing as encryption methods. Sadly, this nuance is often lost on regulators, legislators, jurists, and the general public.

Secondly, there is another very persistent and ignorant notion that somehow one can "intercept" radio traffic. YOU CAN NOT INTERCEPT RADIO TRAFFIC! You can only receive it. The traffic may be unintelligible due to encryption or an unknown encoding method, but you still received it. Interception implies that you catch it and that it will never get to its destination because you got it first.

Someone needs to explain this to the communications lawyers before they screw up the language even more than it already is.

Mumble Grumble spit...

Jake Brodsky, AB3A
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