Orange County CCCS P25 Update

allend

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Just found out a few weeks ago and confirmed that all of public safety will be 100 percent AES-256 bit encrypted when the cut-over to P-25 happens in the next couple of months.

Yes, and I mean everything including fire talk-groups too. All of their new Motorola APX radios that were issued a couple of months ago all the zones show the AES-256 symbol on the screen. The County of Orange wanted full encryption almost 20 yrs ago but at the time all they got was LE on-board. Now all of the fire agencies will be encrypted too now. This go around it looks like it was agreed across the board that they are taking everything away.


Not good news. Very horrible news moving forward for the industry and the scanner industry.
 

krazybob

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Just found out a few weeks ago and confirmed that all of public safety will be 100 percent AES-256 bit encrypted when the cut-over to P-25 happens in the next couple of months.

Yes, and I mean everything including fire talk-groups too. All of their new Motorola APX radios that were issued a couple of months ago all the zones show the AES-256 symbol on the screen. The County of Orange wanted full encryption almost 20 yrs ago but at the time all they got was LE on-board. Now all of the fire agencies will be encrypted too now. This go around it looks like it was agreed across the board that they are taking everything away.


Not good news. Very horrible news moving forward for the industry and the scanner industry.
All of the fire groups including dispatch or just the EMS talk groups which is normal?

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AA6IO

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Indeed horrible news for us here in area and for scanning industry in general. But we all suspected it was coming. When LAPD, LA County Fire, and all the major other cities (by going to encrypted ICIS, RICS, etc) finally decide (and they will some day) to go this route, sales will further plummet in So. Cal. Won't be long before San Diego follows suit. Glad we have all had many years of scanning enjoyment.
 

krazybob

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Indeed horrible news for us here in area and for scanning industry in general. But we all suspected it was coming. When LAPD, LA County Fire, and all the major other cities (by going to encrypted ICIS, RICS, etc) finally decide (and they will some day) to go this route, sales will further plummet in So. Cal. Won't be long before San Diego follows suit. Glad we have all had many years of scanning enjoyment.
As one who lives in the burn areas known as the San Bernardino Mountains, I'm not so much worried about sales. I'm worried about not being able to hear when a is fire coming up my butt. I think it is completely irresponsible, especially for those people that live in the Cleveland National Forest County area, not to be able to hear the same thing. Right now they're worried about flash flooding due to the fires. If Orange County Fire were encrypted they wouldn't have a clue.

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leonzo

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That is why now is the time to contact your local elected representatives and make your arguments against full encryption. While it may be too late for Orange County, it is not to late for jurisdictions that are not now encrypted. Your argument should always be for leaving dispatch channels open (reference law enforcement), that you as a citizen have a right to be able to hear dispatch. That still allows agencies to encrypt "sensitive" channels/talkgroups as needed but also acknowledges the lip service paid to things/words like full accountability, openness, and working with the community with regards to programs to strengthen the interaction between the public and the police. That sentiment starts with NOT ENCRYPTING DISPATCH!!!
 

krazybob

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I think we should all be getting together and open up a class action lawsuit. Especially those of us that do live in the mountain Urban interface. We are deprived of urgent communications at a time when it doesn't seem necessary to encrypt routine fire communications. If it's a arson investigation they can have an arson talk group that is encrypted just like law enforcement. I mean, they work hand-in-hand with the sheriff's department anyway in such regards. I completely understand encrypting EMS channels due to HIPAA. I'm okay with that just as I am okay with him encrypting talk groups related to narcotics and anti-terrorism. But I'm not okay with a blanket policy that encrypts 100% of communications. That's just ridiculous.

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krazybob

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That is why now is the time to contact your local elected representatives and make your arguments against full encryption. While it may be too late for Orange County, it is not to late for jurisdictions that are not now encrypted. Your argument should always be for leaving dispatch channels open (reference law enforcement), that you as a citizen have a right to be able to hear dispatch. That still allows agencies to encrypt "sensitive" channels/talkgroups as needed but also acknowledges the lip service paid to things/words like full accountability, openness, and working with the community with regards to programs to strengthen the interaction between the public and the police. That sentiment starts with NOT ENCRYPTING DISPATCH!!!
I submit that it's not too late for Orange County. Especially if somehow those that live in Orange County and those that are affected by Orange County where to get together a class action lawsuit. I don't know what the cause of action would be though. There's no constitutional right that allows us to listen what is taxpayers that live in the city we are forced to pay through our taxes for a communication system we can't listen to. I don't live in Orange County so when I say we I mean those of you that do.

The same issue is going to come up in San Bernardino where I do live in the mountains. I see no reason why the dispatch channels for the sheriff's department are encrypted or even the ATAC or the CTAC channels that are used for search-and-rescue. I worked with SAR and we had specific radio codes that would indicate that a victim had been located deceased. I wasn't with them long enough however to know how frequently they found someone that was the victim of violence.

That being said, since the discovery would have been after the fact anyway there wouldn't be no exigent circumstances present that we should cause the sheriff's department to go to encrypted mode. I wonder if someone good at writing could write a letter template and for example word or Excel and then share it with the rest of us so that we can send it to our Board of Supervisors as well as our elected officials.

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marcotor

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There is always a large disconnect between what one **believes** the law and Constitution should protect, and what the law and Constitution **actually** protect. I also would like to hear the cause of action that any media/citizen/outraged scanner owner could bring. None.

Whining in these forums endlessly serves no purpose. And I would have thought after years and years of reading the same slightly different worded, rebaked after more that a couple of bans, tired, posts, encryption will continue. And there will be no "mass casualty incident" that causes it to be removed, in spite of some in the forums wishing for thousands to die, so they can listen to the local PD.
 

krazybob

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There is always a large disconnect between what one **believes** the law and Constitution should protect, and what the law and Constitution **actually** protect. I also would like to hear the cause of action that any media/citizen/outraged scanner owner could bring. None.

Whining in these forums endlessly serves no purpose. And I would have thought after years and years of reading the same slightly different worded, rebaked after more that a couple of bans, tired, posts, encryption will continue. And there will be no "mass casualty incident" that causes it to be removed, in spite of some in the forums wishing for thousands to die, so they can listen to the local PD.
Pretty harsh comments. Quite a bit of assumption as well. Those of us that actually live in the fire prone areas such as the Orange County Mountain portion of the Cleveland National Forest and in my case the San Bernardino Mountains that burn and a very regular rate have great concern that soon we will no longer be able to listen to the fire department and have advance notice that we should start packing. I have no objection to EMS being encrypted as I said. But the fire department would be hard-pressed to show a reasonable basis for encrypting fire operations. Allowing the traditional news media access to radio so that they can report after the fact isn't the same.

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Engine104

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FWIW, I can't see a reason to encrypt fire comms, though I know that is happening in many jurisdictions. This is more than a hobby to those of us who live or work in brush fire areas. When there is a big fire, we need to know what what's going on and where the fire is going.

I don't agree with those who say we should just sit back and that we have no recourse. Maybe we don't have a cause of action to oppose this, but it is worth a fight, even if we lose in the end.
 

allend

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I will not comment anymore on this situation at this point. All I know it has been confirmed at several sources and the radios show AES-256 on all of the new Zones of the radios.

At this point you just let the chips lay where they will and see what happens down the road with these decisions.

We will let The Law of Physics decide what the long term effects that will happen with a NO BALANCED approach to The County of Orange radio communication decisions. The Third Law will decide the fate as time passes.

Newton's Third Law of Motion explains that forces always come in action-reaction pairs. The Third Law states that for every action force, there is an equal and opposite reaction force
 

krazybob

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FWIW, I can't see a reason to encrypt fire comms, though I know that is happening in many jurisdictions. This is more than a hobby to those of us who live or work in brush fire areas. When there is a big fire, we need to know what what's going on and where the fire is going.

I don't agree with those who say we should just sit back and that we have no recourse. Maybe we don't have a cause of action to oppose this, but it is worth a fight, even if we lose in the end.
This is not a rant nor is it whining. It is an attempt at adult conversation. To me, this is not at all about encryption! Although that's the technology being used to keep us from monitoring, to me it is about the loss of the ability to monitor. To me there is a distinct difference.

As I mentioned and you followed up in your own fashion, for those of us that live in the mountains that burn regularly the loss of the ability to monitor the fire department know how important the loss. Some of us monitor the fire department and run Facebook groups where we give accurate information to our communities based on what we hear. Those of us with actual public safety experience may be more in tune with what we hear because it's a second language for us.

There may be no legal cause of action but I've got to say that as a taxpayer that helps pay for these radio systems there seems to be a disconnect between what we the citizens want and what some arbitrary committee decides for us. When they don't ask for our input and just do it is when I get angry.

My public safety experience was in law enforcement. But later in life I did work with the fire service. I can see the need for protecting law enforcement communications to some extent but cannot for the life of me find a valid reason to cut off fire communications with the exception of EMS. This can literally be a life-or-death situation for us. For some of you with the thrill of hearing a structure fire put out over the air. For those of us that live in forest fire country it's hardly that.

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fireinoc

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Wildland fires in the OC will continue to shift to VHF systems immediately following dispatch. This includes the SOLAR plan for most of the County and the PROS plan for the very South County. The intent here is to establish common interagency communications for multi-agency response. Those plans can both be found in RR files if you do a search.
 

Engine104

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Thanks, Fireinoc.. There is also the air to air freqs that would continue to be active.

I live in LACo and work at Pepperdine. My scanner was invaluable to me during the Woolsey Fire last year, as it has been for over 40 years now. I'd hate to think that this hobby is going away. Let's see what the future holds for not only the ORCo CCCS, but also LARICS and the new Ventura Co system.
 

xjf79

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Motorola + P25 phase2 trunk radio service = AES- 256
encryption for all PS services .
if you don't have it now you will at some point in the future :(
 

Anderegg

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Were the fire people claiming "safety" as the reason for encrypting fire comms? I always thought playing the "safety card" was a method to get their hands on all the DHS grant money for "safety" in communications equipment.

Paul
 
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