FCC Ruling On Trunking Encryption

[trunktracking]

I had a local Public Safety Trunked System Manager share with a close friend briefly some information about the FCC making a ruling on the use of encryption concerning Public Safety Tunked Radio Sytems, that will be enacted within the next few years.

Can someone with more specific knowledge dispell this myth and share what is happening, so that I can intelligently share this information with my local radio scanning community.

Happy Holidays!

Thanks,

Joe Mattern, WX4ADX, Founder
Greater Orlando Trunk Tracking Enthusiasts Monitoring
Celebrating Our Groups 11th Year
Of Responsible Trunked Radio Monitoring
GOTTEM.Founder@gmail.com

[fineshot1]

You failed to shed any light on specificly what he was refering to in that conversation - so no one here is gonna be able to help you unless they speculate without more info.

Originally Posted by trunktracking

I had a local Public Safety Trunked System Manager share with a close friend briefly some information about the FCC making a ruling on the use of encryption concerning Public Safety Tunked Radio Sytems, that will be enacted within the next few years.

Can someone with more specific knowledge dispell this myth and share what is happening, so that I can intelligently share this information with my local radio scanning community.

Happy Holidays!

Thanks,

Joe Mattern, WX4ADX, Founder
Greater Orlando Trunk Tracking Enthusiasts Monitoring
Celebrating Our Groups 11th Year
Of Responsible Trunked Radio Monitoring
GOTTEM.Founder@gmail.com

[N_Jay]

Originally Posted by trunktracking

I had a local Public Safety Trunked System Manager share with a close friend briefly some information about the FCC making a ruling on the use of encryption concerning Public Safety Tunked Radio Sytems, that will be enacted within the next few years.

Can someone with more specific knowledge dispell this myth and share what is happening, so that I can intelligently share this information with my local radio scanning community.

Happy Holidays!

Thanks,

Sounds like he is BSing you.

P.S. Put your sig in the sig so it is not included in quotes

[radiowaves1]

Yes I'm afraid it's true...The FCC can and from time to time does indeed "enact" rules and other actions of the sort that does apply to radio. I'm NOT BSing here. They have done this for many years now. LOL

Merry Christmas

[N_Jay]

Originally Posted by radiowaves1

Yes I'm afraid it's true...The FCC can and from time to time does indeed "enact" rules and other actions of the sort that does apply to radio. I'm NOT BSing here. They have done this for many years now. LOL

Merry Christmas

Yes, but there process is very public,. and no one KNOWS a "few years" in advance, what the rules will be.

I am sticking with the BS declaration until other information is provided.

[radiowaves1]

Originally Posted by radiowaves1

Yes I'm afraid it's true...The FCC can and from time to time does indeed "enact" rules and other actions of the sort that does apply to radio. I'm NOT BSing here. They have done this for many years now. LOL

Merry Christmas

...Sorry I couldn't resist.


Seriously however, the FCC is attempting to put in place some "standards" regarding encryption for Homeland Security combined with Public Safety inter agency operations. Specifically OTAR and common standards for TRS systems nationwide so that multi agency combined groups/taskforces can operate cohesively when in areas or regions during both, on & off hours and still have the knowledge to gain operability of the TRS system they are near or within range of without having to "wake anyone up" so to speak. With 16 million possibilities of any certain algorythym / key, you can begin to understand the need. Plus with thousands of police agencies who are talked into or unknowingly buy more radio system than they need by aggressive Motorola (and others too but primarily Moto) salesmen and women, local police agency commands tend to think that they have to use EVERY option built into their systems even if encrypting the transmissions of the local dog catcher and garbage collector who often operate on the same TRS system in many locales sounds a bit costly to the tax payer or, the scannist. And it will be costly when or if any type of standard is developed because then the fedgov will impose it's will upon agencys to go along with it, then you'll have higher taxes so that the average Joe can pay for all of this expensive Moto equipment. What the government would like to see is all police agencies using encryption. This has been expressed many times by gov reps because then, and only then would you actually have actual inter-agency w/government agencies communications across the nation because of the government's obsession with secrecy in communications. Thats thanks to the NSA but thats another issue altogether.
At the D.O.E. we use digital AES (256 bit keying) on our Liberty handhelds yet other D.O.E. sites use varying multiple keysets combined with different makes of radios which makes operating or training together sometimes sketchy at best. The encryption "order" will attempt to set some form of common keying solution to address this plus address some amateur radio P25 issues as the digital bug has struck there as well. Amateurs cannot by law or, Part 97 encrypt any transmission or data they send except to one place and if your an amateur then you know where that is. With that said the issue of using P25 (and even d-star) by HAMS has been a concern of some law enforcement groups like CALEA, APCO among others. Why they have a concern is beyond me but I would speculate that they have some out of place fear of someone "getting into" their system as some have said but these types who speculate on these issues usually know nothing about amateur radio and typcially lump us HAMS together with the unregulated CB crowd. Again due to myth-understandings about amateur radio.

A little off topic but in the same arena....

The FCC (from my understanding listening to people I know well and trust ) has recieved some requests from the amateur community to allow encryption, why? no one really has gone far enough to answer intelligently other than the typcial, "because it would be fun" answer. And the notion of HAMS authorized to use encryption of the many manufactuers like Motorola, Harris, Thales makes them cringe because in their viewpoint, no one needs to have access to encryption keys, equipment and proceadures because these particular manufactuers have always viewed encryption as a sort of thing that only the military, intelligence agencys and law enforcement should have access to. With that said, that includes the equipment to load, maintain and rekey proprietary radios and other equipment made by the forementioned manufactuers. Should the FCC rule that the amateur community can dwelve into and use encryption then by law of ruling of such an R&O then manufactuers of encryption "stuff" stand the chance of being sued for refusing to sell to any amateur wanting to purchase that type of equipment. True, no company has to sell anything to anyone however, if a federal entity has passed a law, in this case that amateurs can use encryption, then refusing to sell to them (amateur operaters) opens them (encryption equipment manufactuers) up for litigation for refusing to sell their goods when federal law (which is what an R&O is) says that a particular group can use those goods or like equipment. It amounts to discrimination and we all know that word shuts lots of folks up in a hurry even if they are not of the sort.

So, thats the short of it. Check the FCC website as I'm sure they will post something regarding it or do as i have done before, call them directly and request information on a particular topic. They are actually service friendly unlike other gov agencys.

Mike

[gesucks]

I see in you posts that you carry a Thales Liberty at work on Duty???? how long have you had it? How do you like it? What features does it have? Can you post some pics for us?

[radiowaves1]

Originally Posted by gesucks

I see in you posts that you carry a Thales Liberty at work on Duty???? how long have you had it? How do you like it? What features does it have? Can you post some pics for us?

That is my agency issued radio...not my personal one. I get asked baout it a lot and many want to see pics. I work for the D.O.E. and any photo equipment including cell phone cameras are forbidden. I can tell you the radio is one heck of a radio and the features are almost endless. Aside from having VHF, UHF, 700, 800 in it the radio is also able to recieve and send text messages. It is a NICE radio and I will say that Motorola does NOT have anything that can compare in the neighborhood.

Mike

[gesucks]

can you tell us some basic things, how many channels? display, how many lines? how many characters?
Does it do trunking? How long does you battery last? Can you get a model # or FCC # off it, that way we can look it up and get so details. And how long have you been using them?

Also if you can PM me with your Comms officers contact info, my buddy works at another NNSA site and the director there wants to get some Liberty's. So any info you or the Comms Officer has as far as which contract you ordered off of, CIN #'s or which procurement office took care of the order, that would be great.

[radiowaves1]

Originally Posted by gesucks

can you tell us some basic things, how many channels? display, how many lines? how many characters?
Does it do trunking? How long does you battery last? Can you get a model # or FCC # off it, that way we can look it up and get so details. And how long have you been using them?

Also if you can PM me with your Comms officers contact info, my buddy works at another NNSA site and the director there wants to get some Liberty's. So any info you or the Comms Officer has as far as which contract you ordered off of, CIN #'s or which procurement office took care of the order, that would be great.

Radio info: http://www.thalesliberty.com/

Don't take this the wrong way: Your buddy should already know exactly whom to inquire about purchasing anything. That is normally handled thru the Nevada Ops Center. RFQ's are usually handled on a standard form 1449. Your buddy needs to follow up with his interest in Thales on his own, thru his proper chain of command.

Mike

[com501]

This ought to be an interesting topic of conversation when I go down to the Nevada DOE office next month for training.

As a contractor at the NTS I am allowed a range control/security radio on site, and as the maintenance manager for the radio system there, it would be nice to have the Thales. Unfortunately, no one I have talked to can find a contract number for it. Guess we will have to make some phone calls...

[WA4MJF]

Radiowaves1, your answer raised questions with me. I retired before LE used anything but simple inversion and we could turn in off and on via a switch on the control head. From your post it seems that LE encrypted radios don't have a green/red switch like the mil radios have. Did I read that right?
I gathered that from you getting a cryto guy awakened to give someone coming in a key. Seems like it should be able to be turned off by the op. I know some current mil radios have a problem with the "clock" when operating peer to peer w/o a NCS radio and have to go red to comm. Is that a problem with current LE encryption ? Thanks

[AlexC]

Originally Posted by radiowaves1

That is my agency issued radio...not my personal one. I get asked baout it a lot and many want to see pics. I work for the D.O.E. and any photo equipment including cell phone cameras are forbidden. I can tell you the radio is one heck of a radio and the features are almost endless. Aside from having VHF, UHF, 700, 800 in it the radio is also able to recieve and send text messages. It is a NICE radio and I will say that Motorola does NOT have anything that can compare in the neighborhood.
Mike

Wow! Very very cool! I have only seen the pre-production model and even that didn't have text messaging. How long have you had the Liberty for?

Do you know what the text messaging is compatible with? Will it work with Motorola's TMS?

[radiowaves1]

Originally Posted by WA4MJF

Radiowaves1, your answer raised questions with me. I retired before LE used anything but simple inversion and we could turn in off and on via a switch on the control head. From your post it seems that LE encrypted radios don't have a green/red switch like the mil radios have. Did I read that right?
I gathered that from you getting a cryto guy awakened to give someone coming in a key. Seems like it should be able to be turned off by the op. I know some current mil radios have a problem with the "clock" when operating peer to peer w/o a NCS radio and have to go red to comm. Is that a problem with current LE encryption ? Thanks

System keys...talking about system keys here regarding "waking anyone up". System keys are what drives trunked radio systems. I said nothing about waking up a "crypto guy"...A system key is needed before any agency can "get onto" a local system in the area in which they are operating in. I thought that was stated clearly in the reply but I guess it wasn't clear enough.

Mike

[radiowaves1]

Originally Posted by com501

This ought to be an interesting topic of conversation when I go down to the Nevada DOE office next month for training.

As a contractor at the NTS I am allowed a range control/security radio on site, and as the maintenance manager for the radio system there, it would be nice to have the Thales. Unfortunately, no one I have talked to can find a contract number for it. Guess we will have to make some phone calls...

Phone calls are definitely a good way to find out "things" when one cannot seem to figure them out on their own. Including when others seem to know nothing as well.

Mike

[rafdav]

I don't blame you though. Some people never read what's written, only what THEY want to see/read. And then you got those who want to ask question that they know should be left alone.

[radiowaves1]

Originally Posted by rafdav

I don't blame you though. Some people never read what's written, only what THEY want to see/read. And then you got those who want to ask question that they know should be left alone.

I know man. I'm done here. Moving on now to bigger spectrum's.

[N_Jay]

Can some one provide me a link to any of this stuff regarding the FCC?

[WA4MJF]

Ok, I was confusing keys. In the encryption world, keys are for the cryto, which is what the para started talking about, "encryption for homeland security". So all ya'll can see how one would think that you were talking about the encryption key and not the radio key. Sounds more complicated than it ought to be, but that is the guvment for ya.

[N_Jay]

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