Panel: P25 encryption is not for everyone

[blantonl]

Craig Jorgensen, former president of the Project-25 (P25) steering committee, indicated that encrypted communications are vital for some specialized personnel - for example, members of SWAT teams, bomb squads and narcotics operations - but that it is not advisable to use encryption for all public-safety communications.

Full article here:

Panel: P25 encryption is not for everyone | P25 content from Urgent Communications

 

[w7mag]

A voice of reason?
How refreshing!

 

[blantonl]

There is a simple reality - and that is that in lieu of true interoperability solutions, public safety often relies on equipping their staff with radios (and scanners, gasp!) that provide those responders with the ability to monitor their neighboring jurisdictions to keep abreast of incidents.

A great example is the State of California signing a huge contract a while back with GRE to provide scanners for their patrol vehicles:

GRE America, Inc. - Powered By Kayako SupportSuite

 

[scannerowner]

Looks promising! I wonder if it'll mean anything to agencies that do encrypt. I see the reason to encrypt sensitive comms, but not dispatching unless it risks officer safety...

 

[Markb]

Yeah, it sounds all warm and fuzzy, but I don't see anyone backing down from encryption because of this article or a P25 best practices guide. Where I come from, 99% of LE comms are encrypted and have been so for 15+ years. They've never had an issue to my knowledge, so why change?
That's not to say that I don't agree with the article. I just don't see the local-level policy makers changing their minds.

 

[blantonl]

Yeah, it sounds all warm and fuzzy, but I don't see anyone backing down from encryption because of this article or a P25 best practices guide. Where I come from, 99% of LE comms are encrypted and have been so for 15+ years. They've never had an issue to my knowledge, so why change?
That's not to say that I don't agree with the article. I just don't see the local-level policy makers changing their minds.

It would be interesting to know where you come from - that might give us a better perspective.

 

[Markb]

Orange County, California.

 

[tsalmrsystemtech]

Reading this article really was a breath of fresh air. I work for a big technology firm where we have big executives in the IT field and we also have a steering committee. These people that are a part of the steering committee get together and talk about the positive and negative of issues. Just to let everybody know that these committee's get to make big decisions and give advice for best practices and it does work.

I do agree on certain things to be encrypted but obvious not everything especially day to day operations and also interoperability. There has been a lot of problems that cities in California got into when they have had full encryption in their city and when they needed mutual aid from surrounding cities which they got the support but could not communicate and got caught with their pants around their ankles.

In the county where I live our whole LE has been fully encrypted since 2001. Interops is somewhat of a problem when LE has to communicate with Fire and Fire has to communicate with LE on big incidents. The main problem is that LE is fully encrypted and Fire is wide open analog and digital in the clear. So they have to patch an encrypted talkgroup to a VHF and UHF conventional frequency.

Well hopefully some big wigs and people with high power can come to some sort of agreement across the board sometime in the near future and come up with a reasonable plan and be fair to their people for safety reasons as well as for the scanner industry. Its just going to be a win win win for everybody. Keeping responsible people in your own community in the clear would be a win for any LE agency. Having your own people working together is what its all about. There will always be bad seeds but there is always more good people in the world than bad.

Plus there will be transparency which is the right thing to do. Okay now I will get off of my soap box. Also, to add the GRE PSR 600 is still the best digital scanner on the market enough tho they are not making them anymore. I will never part ways with this radio until it dies a slow death.

Orange County too.

 

[Ensnared]

Craig Jorgensen, former president of the Project-25 (P25) steering committee, indicated that encrypted communications are vital for some specialized personnel - for example, members of SWAT teams, bomb squads and narcotics operations - but that it is not advisable to use encryption for all public-safety communications.

Full article here:

Panel: P25 encryption is not for everyone | P25 content from Urgent Communications

I would love for that to come to pass, lessened encryption. For example, I believe Waco P25 has it right. They have everything opened up with the exception of DEU. I wish Tarrant County would reconsider their use of encryption, but thanks for this information. This is really good news.

 

[RodStrong]

Don't get me wrong, as I like Tait products, but this article is clearly an attempt to dissuade people from going with ADP.

 

[jim202]

I think that if you do some homework, you will find that the majority of the agencies that go full encryption are all Motorola systems. What you have is a very well trained sales force to sell, sell, sell, every item they can. The managers of the radio systems really don't understand the whole pitch, but they fall for the story that the encryption is the way they need to go. I call this the smoke and mirror sales tactic.

Another part of the story here is the greed of the sales force. They get a commission on every dollar they can squeeze into a contract. So if they can manage to get encryption in each portable, mobile and dispatch console, their check for their smoke and mirror dance is bigger. They laugh all the way to the bank thinking what a sucker I just managed to get a signature from on the contract.

These agencies generally don't have anyone internally that has a full understanding of what is going on with the proposed radio systems or changes. These agencies probably don't have an outside consultant to review what is being proposed. So these agencies are at the whim of the sales force that is wining and dining them all the way until the contract is signed.

Who takes the hit on the extra cost and un needed extras. You got it, us poor broke tax payers. The agencies feel there is a blank check just waiting to be spent. We are a public safety agency and will get what ever money we need for our radio system. There is no check and balance system in place for these agencies. The commissioners that are over the agencies are not technical and so just go by what the agency managers feed them.

Bottom line here is most of the radio systems are over sold by the sales force and lack the real area coverage that the end users need in their daily activities. When a system becomes too expensive, you don't see items like full encryption taken out, but you do see a tower site taken out of the system to save costs. Not what I call wise upper management choices. But if they are not smart enough to have the needed internal technical team in place, so this is what you end up with.

 

[oregontreehugger]

These agencies generally don't have anyone internally that has a full understanding of what is going on with the proposed radio systems or changes. These agencies probably don't have an outside consultant to review what is being proposed. So these agencies are at the whim of the sales force that is wining and dining them all the way until the contract is signed.

Who takes the hit on the extra cost and un needed extras. You got it, us poor broke tax payers. The agencies feel there is a blank check just waiting to be spent. We are a public safety agency and will get what ever money we need for our radio system. There is no check and balance system in place for these agencies. The commissioners that are over the agencies are not technical and so just go by what the agency managers feed them.

Nailed it.

 

[ScannerDude244]

There is a simple reality - and that is that in lieu of true interoperability solutions, public safety often relies on equipping their staff with radios (and scanners, gasp!) that provide those responders with the ability to monitor their neighboring jurisdictions to keep abreast of incidents.

A great example is the State of California signing a huge contract a while back with GRE to provide scanners for their patrol vehicles:

GRE America, Inc. - Powered By Kayako SupportSuite

CHP new setup also has UHF,VHF,700/800mhz p25 radios in all their cars that are program to their local area and can be program even if system is encrypted.

 

[ab3a]

The problem with discussing interoperability is that problems won't be discovered until that interoperability is needed. And those situations are frequently large scale disasters. That's when people discover the awful Tower of Babel they have created --only by then it is usually too late.

This piece is a well intentioned bit of advice, but it fails to properly justify itself.

 

[GTR8000]

Don't get me wrong, as I like Tait products, but this article is clearly an attempt to dissuade people from going with ADP.

Motorola gives away ADP on these systems like candy on Halloween, practically for free. The reason is simple: because it's proprietary, it forces the users of the system to use Motorola radios. Shrewd move on their part, all but ensuring that if they can convince the users to roll out ADP encryption, they won't be able to use competitors' radios on the system. So it's not so much the commission the sales force makes on selling the encryption to begin with, it's the long term profits Motorola guarantees itself by locking these agencies into buying Motorola subscriber units for the life of the system.

 

[bluefox2163]

wolcott pd

here in Connecticut the Wolcott police chief all of a sudden changes his mind on full time encryption his statement was if people want to listen let em listen what a great chief huh

 

[trunktracking]

Florida Agencies Use Of Public Safety Radio Encryption

C.A.N.T.R.E.E. (Citizens Against Non-Tactical Radio Encryption Evolution) is getting traction here in Central Florida as Senator Darren Soto (at my request) has recently written a letter to the Director Of The Florida Department Of Law Enforcement, requesting a copy of their Radio Encryption Policies.

For many years, the FDLE's RDSTF (Regional Domestic Security Task Force) has educated and encouraged law enforcement agencies within the State to migrate to full time; boot strap radio encryption, when implementing new P25 systems.

Our group feels this practice is not a 'balanced' solution, nor does it promote 'transparency' by law enforcement agencies who pride themselves with Integrity.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement


C.A.N.T.R.E.E. : Mattern Media


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[RoninJoliet]

My city, Joliet,IL joined the ILL-Digital Starcom and we are PD-FD total ENC. The FD were not happy about the FGND being ENC but the police chief forced it on everyone...He pushed the PW's on to cell phones...He just became the police chief of two years and now is retiring after he screwed us over....Some cops are unhappy actually that listeners like me and others are no longer "tipsters" as no one can hear the troubled areas anymore.....

 

[SCPD]

If we could get ProVoice to understand

I liked the term TRANSPARENT and with Integrity, How can that be when everything is on a system that is totally unmonitorable. City Of Springfield, OHIO use PROVOICE years ago they left Hi-Band basically telling Neighborhood watch, fend for your self. So nobody, basically, can monitor, news media has radios to hear, I mean they even have this on FIRE dispatching, what to keep people home?? . I like to know where the fire truck is going or the police car when it goes lights and siren down a street, not just wonder, but those with the POWER have made up their mind they want nobody to listen. Its a joke, and then the City wonders why NOBODY in the County wants on this white elephant? Wait until a few years when Nobody supports this and they have to start all over again.
And why does Ohio StatePatrol have to Encrypt air traffic control , the plane clocking speeders in zones,that used to be great fun to listen to, now all License ID goes on encryption, Identity Theft, I dunno??
The guy is right about more commission. Its nothing to do so much with interopability as that almighty dollar, but wait for that next big disaster whn it doesn't work right. More upgrades next time. The sport is going away to listen to the scanner, not surprised GRE gave up the ghost

 

[jim202]

The problem with discussing interoperability is that problems won't be discovered until that interoperability is needed. And those situations are frequently large scale disasters. That's when people discover the awful Tower of Babel they have created --only by then it is usually too late.

This piece is a well intentioned bit of advice, but it fails to properly justify itself.

Interoperability is something that can be done without robbing a bank. Unless you have a statewide trunking system that every agency is on, you need some sort of interoperability. Virginia saw this as a very important issue and did something about it a number of years ago. There was a mix of various interop systems here and there around the state. They put together a well wrote spec and put it out to bid.

Encryption should never be part of interoperability. It is too hard to control the keys and program the radios for interoperability. The encryption also negates being able to talk with any responding outside agency.

What was surprising is that all the big players fell short on submitting their bids for the state wide interoperability system in Virginia. A small firm in Alexandria, VA. won the contract. Their solution didn't use expensive T1 circuits like Motorola's MOTOBRIDGE. It wasn't a spoke and hub network like the Raytheon / JPS ACU gateways used. The COMLINC Project in Virginia used the RIOS gateway that utilized standard IP connections that could use leased network links or normal Internet connections. If one gateway went down, the rest of the network stayed up unlike the ACU gateway system or the Motorola server system. The different users can inter connect their radio channels through the linked gateways.

There are some 170 gateways between the 911 dispatch centers and mobile command vehicles around the state. It allows connection between just about any radio connection that is currently being used around Virginia. This includes simplex low band radio channels, VHF simplex and repeaters, UHF repeaters and the mix of the 800 trunking systems that include EDACS and a number of 25 systems.

The statewide trunking systems out in the mid west have to interface to some of the agencies that didn't become part of the statewide systems. To do this there has to be either a patch at some console or a gateway where the equipment is commonly located. Maybe you should ask those users just how happy they are with the gateways they have and the ease in using them.