Provoice/DSD

[bigbud42010]

Is it illegal to use a program that copyright infringe's a imbe/ambe vocoder company?

To hear a transmission that the public does not have access to unless you buy a provoice radio?

I Know it ain't illegal to monitor provoice cause it's just digital voice non encrypted.

 

[davidbond21]

Is it illegal to use a program that copyright infringe's a imbe/ambe vocoder company?

I put the salient words in bold, which after reading them together should answer your question(by which I think you meant Intellectual Property instead of copyright, but the answer is still the same).

To hear a transmission that the public does not have access to unless you buy a provoice radio?

Nope, thankfully, but for reasons mostly unrelated to the above IP infringement issue(the radio was manufactured under license so the device itself is not in conflict with the patent holders; whose hands it ends up in is an entirely different matter).

I Know it ain't illegal to monitor provoice cause it's just digital voice non encrypted.

Unless you're monitoring it with a radio or program, how do you know it's not encrypted? ProVoice was developed to replace Aegis, which was largely developed in part to provide a voice mode that was not degraded by the use of encryption. The city where I work, uses mixed mode analog and ProVoice, with the majority of it in the clear, but there are a number of talkgroups that do use encryption full time.

 

[bigbud42010]

i'm using dsd 1.3 and you can tell the difference between voice and garble.

and can anyone answer the question thank you.!!!

 

[davidbond21]

i'm using dsd 1.3 and you can tell the difference between voice and garble.

and can anyone answer the question thank you.!!!

Here it is straight from the horse's mouth (DSD author, emphasis mine):

I am releasing the first version of my open source (BSD license) digital speech decoder software for Linux/BSD. This is broken into two separate packages, mbelib which describes all of the patent encumbered functions, and dsd which is intented to be patent-free. Source code only is provided for both packages, for educational use only as a written description of how such a decoder might be implemented. Compile or use at your own risk.

And this is from the wiki page on DSD:

While DSD was intended to be patent-free, mbelib describes functions that may be covered by one or more U.S. patents owned by DVSI Inc. The source code itself should not be infringing as it merely describes possible methods of implementation. Compiling or using mbelib may infringe on patents rights and/or require licensing. It is unknown if DVSI will sell licenses for software that uses mbelib. If you do not have a license and are in a jurisdiction protected by the DVSI patents you should not compile or use this source code.

Or can you not read between the lines on these either? Let's make it clearer: with the tacit admission you just made above, if DVSI were Motorola, their lawyers would have already given you a phone call this morning, if not already started drawing up papers to serve you with.

Personally, I think the release of this was wonderful, as not everyone can afford the hassle and costs of M/A-Com radios or even worse(financially), the digital voice conversion method. If agencies want secure communications, use digital voice with encryption and there are no worries about any unauthorized listening; but all the rest of the voice traffic is up for grabs and 99% is usually not even worth shielding from public scrutiny(from the view of the hobbyist).