Owensboro Police Transitioning To Encryption

[dwh367]

At the moment they are simulcasting on two talkgroups. One is encrypted and one is not. My guess is this is only a temporary patch until all of their radios have encryption enabled, at which point the unencrypted patch will probably be removed.

 

[kd4bas]

Well, there goes my hometown listening.

 

[trido]

The Daviess County Sheriff’s Office added an activity map to its website

https://www.tristatehomepage.com/news/daviess-county-sheriffs-office-adds-activity-map-to-website

 

[Scannerboy1999]

Their comms have been open from the beginning and they to stay and it’s a waste of money people will just start buying p25 radios off eBay and guarantee you some one will come out with software to sniff for encryption keys if it’s not already out there

 

[w4wsm]

Their comms have been open from the beginning and they to stay and it’s a waste of money people will just start buying p25 radios off eBay and guarantee you some one will come out with software to sniff for encryption keys if it’s not already out there

You can't just buy a p25 radio and expect to find the encryption key. Doesn't work like that. What we need to be asking is what do they have to hide? They are saying that Owensboro has a big problem of kids chasing scanner calls and shooting people? I never heard that one before. Also it seems they are saying so many people are showing up at calls that they have to send more people just to control the crowds in Owensboro. Another thing they are citing is when a house with a door kicked in from a burglary will people listen to the scanner and loot these houses. Really a stretch. Could it actually be that a good radio salesman told them they needed to spend money on it?

 

[KE4ZNR]

Their comms have been open from the beginning and they to stay and it’s a waste of money people will just start buying p25 radios off eBay and guarantee you some one will come out with software to sniff for encryption keys if it’s not already out there

Only way that might happen is if they went with low end ADP/RC4 encryption and entered the key into programming software. If they went DES/AES loaded via KVL there is no way to "sniff for encryption keys".
Just not going to happen.

 

[scannerboy02]

Governments have spent millions upon millions of public money to purchase P25 radio systems under the premise of interoperability and to then take that interoperable radio system and encrypt it is not keeping with what they said they were building the radio system for. While it is possible to share encryption keys the logistics involved in that are not always easy especially when it comes to active incidents that may require resources from outside the region, think about a school shooting as one possible scenario, or an aircraft crash as anothe, or a large tornado as another.

A good example of this actually occurred in my city a few weeks ago. The police got a call of a person who said they were going to go over to a local school and start shooting. The police in my city moved over the an encrypted channel and the incident eventually escalated to a SWAT call-out and officers from neighboring agencies were unable to communicate with my cities department because they didn't have radios with encryption capabilities and therefore they refused to respond to the incident because they felt it was unsafe for them to respond into a scene without direct radio communications.

 

[KE4ZNR]

Governments have spent millions upon millions of public money to purchase P25 radio systems under the premise of interoperability and to then take that interoperable radio system and encrypt it is not keeping with what they said they were building the radio system for. While it is possible to share encryption keys the logistics involved in that are not always easy especially when it comes to active incidents that may require resources from outside the region, think about a school shooting as one possible scenario, or an aircraft crash as anothe, or a large tornado as another.

Sorry bad interop planning by those in charge is not an argument against encryption. Here in NC we have both a statewide radio interop guide as well as a statewide encryption interop guide. Encryption and interoperability can co-exist safely and securely when done in advance and when followed by the end users.

 

[KC4FCF]

This entire business of scanner listeners being a problem is a bunch of BS. Very, very few criminals use scanners. They just don't want anyone to know what they're doing. They act like they are the CIA or military and they aren't. They are paid with public funds, wearing uniforms and driving cars purchased with public funds. The radios they use are purchased with public funds. They are supposed to be public servants, not the other way around.

 

[kd4bas]

I've tried to talk to several department heads about encyption and why the switching. I have heard a bunce of excuses, the excuse here was "the public was trying to beat the cops to the scene" I ask him why not go with a 10, 15, or even a 30 minute delay of the dispatch channel and only encrypt your TAC, Detective, Coroner, Jail Channels, OPD-ERT team. His comment was this is easier.

 

[scannerboy02]

Start putting in public records requests.

You can make a request for something like "the computer aided dispatch logs and radio communications traffic from xx/xx/xxxx to xx/xx/xxxx". Then post that information on a website and you'll be committing an act of journalism and that has many protections under the law.