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Mototrbo Enhanced and Basic Privacy question

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TRNcommLLC

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Hello All.

Anyone know what the difference is between Enhanced and Basic Privacy in trbo?
Been looking around but can't get a technical or straight answer.

All I'm hearing (even from sanitation workers and towing company's) that they are being told "Enhanced must be turned on and can't be turned off... ever!"

Why?

Thanks in advance.
John
 

JRayfield

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Basic Privacy uses a 'fixed' key, which is set when the radio is programmed. There are 255 possible 'keys'. This level of Privacy can be compared to a digital version of analog 'inversion' scrambling. This level of encryption or scrambling isn't very secure, but is ok for keeping the 'casual' listener from hearing anything.

Enhanced Privacy uses a 40 bit encryption key, which is also set when the radio is programmed. However, Motorola went a step further and the actual 'data' that sent over the air, changes in every 'packet' (voice or data). So, this level of encryption can be compared to a digital version of analog 'rolling code' scrambling. This level of encryption or scrambling is much harder to 'break'. Typically, it can't be 'broken' by anything to which the general public is going to have. Some people have claimed that the Enhanced Privacy would be easy to break, but those same people have not given any indication that they've 'broken' it and I've seen nothing else, anywhere, that would indicate that anyone has 'broken' it.

Either level of Privacy can be enabled and/or disabled, using either the menu or a button on the radio, if the radio has been programmed to allow for this.

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma


Hello All.

Anyone know what the difference is between Enhanced and Basic Privacy in trbo?
Been looking around but can't get a technical or straight answer.

All I'm hearing (even from sanitation workers and towing company's) that they are being told "Enhanced must be turned on and can't be turned off... ever!"

Why?

Thanks in advance.
John
 

iceman977th

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MotoTRBO Basic Privacy

I've been trying to monitor the local police department (running TRBO) and haven't had luck with DSD decoding. It reads, but the output was extremely garbled. My friend got an XPR4550 & had it programmed for them (as he's a member of emergency management) & helped me figured out they were using Basic Privacy. Does anyone have more info on BP, & is it a form of encryption that the makers of DSD wouldn't bother trying to implement due to lawsuits/etc. ? Thanks for the info in advance.
 

exkalibur

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Also, when a TRBO radio is set for Basic Privacy, there can only ever be one key for that radio (IE, if encryption is used on any channel in the radio, they'll all use the same key). Enhanced Privacy however, allows the use of multiple keys in the radio, just like regular OFB/AES encryption in the P25 stuff.
 

JRayfield

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I doubt that they're not trying to include decryption capability in DSD will have anything to do with lawsuits. It's more likelty that fact that it's illegal to monitor an encrypted transmission (even if you can figure out how to do it) that's being made over a public safety (FCC Part 90) frequency. The latest federal privacy laws cover this.

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma
W0PM


I've been trying to monitor the local police department (running TRBO) and haven't had luck with DSD decoding. It reads, but the output was extremely garbled. My friend got an XPR4550 & had it programmed for them (as he's a member of emergency management) & helped me figured out they were using Basic Privacy. Does anyone have more info on BP, & is it a form of encryption that the makers of DSD wouldn't bother trying to implement due to lawsuits/etc. ? Thanks for the info in advance.
 

scannerfreak

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I've been trying to monitor the local police department (running TRBO) and haven't had luck with DSD decoding. It reads, but the output was extremely garbled. My friend got an XPR4550 & had it programmed for them (as he's a member of emergency management) & helped me figured out they were using Basic Privacy. Does anyone have more info on BP, & is it a form of encryption that the makers of DSD wouldn't bother trying to implement due to lawsuits/etc. ? Thanks for the info in advance.

I merged this into an existing thread on the topic :)
 

JRayfield

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Not that I've noticed. That's one of the really nice things about digital encryption versus analog scrambling. The MOTOTRBO System Planner does indicate that their will be a very slight loss of range, though, if encryption is enabled (I don't remember if it refers to basic or enhanced, or both).

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma

Does the audio quality take a hit when using Basic or Enhanced privacy?
 

Packetpeeker

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Range

John, we did notice reduced range when we went to digital as opposed to analogue on our radio system, Mototrbo, however we did not notice any difference with range in digital clear or in digital enhanced.
We are using XPR 4550's, XPR 6550's, and the Mototrbo XPR 8400 repeaters, we have had to increase external amplifier power approx 30 watts to a total of 120 Watts to keep the same talk range that we had on analog, but voice is very much clearer even in noisy enviroments and data is received with no problems.
 

JRayfield

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That is very strange that you lost range when going from analog to MOTOTRBO. Two different public safety agencies in our area did "on the air" tests, where their repeaters were swapped out for XPR8300 repeaters, and both agencies saw a big increase in range with digital as compared to analog (one XPR8300 was running in mixed mode and the other one was set up with an MTR2000, such that the 'package' was running in mixed mode, too. That way, the users could switch between analog and digital to get a good comparison of the difference). And I've spoken with other users of MOTOTRBO who told me that their range increased substantially when they switched to it, from analog.

To add to this, the 'engineering math' indicates that MOTOTRBO should have as much as a 6 to 8 db increase over analog narrowband, and this would translate into a 3db increase as compared to analog wideband. So, the 'math' seems to match the 'on the air' reports that I personally know about.

Are you on VHF or UHF? How much power output were you using on analog?

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma

John, we did notice reduced range when we went to digital as opposed to analogue on our radio system, Mototrbo, however we did not notice any difference with range in digital clear or in digital enhanced.
We are using XPR 4550's, XPR 6550's, and the Mototrbo XPR 8400 repeaters, we have had to increase external amplifier power approx 30 watts to a total of 120 Watts to keep the same talk range that we had on analog, but voice is very much clearer even in noisy enviroments and data is received with no problems.
 

Picard

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very interesting discussion here.. so does the digital enhanced privacy come stock on a xpr 6550 portable?
 

exkalibur

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Yes, it does.

All forms of digital encryption will reduce your range slightly. Not quite sure why, but that's what users are reporting and it seems Motorola has finally begun to admit it.
 

N1XDS

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very interesting discussion here.. so does the digital enhanced privacy come stock on a xpr 6550 portable?

Yes, It's located in the Motorola CPS programming for the 6500 series XPR radios.
 

Forts

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Motorola also admits (I think it's in the system planner) that voice quality will take a slight hit when using Enhanced Privacy vs Basic Privacy. Something to do with the way the packets are formatted when using Enhanced Privacy. Whether or not anyone would actually notice a difference I don't know.
 

jackel0228

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Motorola also admits (I think it's in the system planner) that voice quality will take a slight hit when using Enhanced Privacy vs Basic Privacy. Something to do with the way the packets are formatted when using Enhanced Privacy. Whether or not anyone would actually notice a difference I don't know.
There's also a mention of a slight delay in the voice transmission. So where did we land on the "security" of the enhanced privacy on trbo?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk
 

Fidgety9996

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There's also a mention of a slight delay in the voice transmission. So where did we land on the "security" of the enhanced privacy on trbo?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

That is true, some bits that were used to code the speech are needed for encryption.

DMRA ARC4 40-bit encryption
(motorola calls it enhanced privacy, hytera Full encrypt 40 bit) is very weak. That is beacause our goverment agencies do not like when we as citiziens have privacy. When you want to buy AES encryption for your dmr radio here in EU you have to have permission to import this technology from national agency of internal security.
It is treated as you would like to import weaponry.
 

Mars_P25

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DMRA ARC4 40-bit encryption
(motorola calls it enhanced privacy, hytera Full encrypt 40 bit) is very weak. That is beacause our goverment agencies do not like when we as citiziens have privacy. When you want to buy AES encryption for your dmr radio here in EU you have to have permission to import this technology from national agency of internal security.
It is treated as you would like to import weaponry.
There's a whole lot of stupid when it comes to encryption, within government circles.

First, "AES" encryption, is not encryption. It's the name of a standard, of which includes an algorithm (Rijndael), created by two Belgian cryptographers, Vincent Rijmen and Joan Daemen. The Rijnael algorithm is open and available to anyone who wants to use it.

In 2001, the American National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) selected Rijndael as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). In other words, AES is not the property of the American government, even though they claim "It's secretive American encryption".

On top of this nonsense, the NIST stated in the AES standard (FIPS 197) the technology may be used by anyone.

http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/FIPS/NIST.FIPS.197.pdf Page 1:

American Government said:
...In addition, this standard may be adopted and used by non-Federal Government organizations. Such use is encouraged when it provides the desired security for commercial and private organizations...

So whenever we hear total nonsense and lies from Motorola about AES being "heavily restricted" or "top secret" or "law enforcement or government only", it's all crap. Not sure who started these myths, but it has to stop. And the US Government has to start paying attention to what's stated in FIPS-197 PAGE 1, instead of making up their own "policies" (which are not law) as they go along.

The rest of the world also needs to start understanding the algorithm outlined in the AES is open for anyone to use. The source code is on the Internet. If they don't like it, too bad. AES exists in nearly every wireless gadget available to consumers, from smartphones, routers, TVs, intelligent watches, embedded devices, etc.

Any government or corporation which claims AES is "highly restricted" is misinformed and has a hidden agenda. In Motorola's case, it's to sell the APX radios instead of TRBO radios, for customers who want to use the algorithm outlined in AES. In North America, the APX radios sell for 4-10x more money than TRBO radios.

Hope these facts shed some light on why TRBO radios have weak encryption, compared to APX radios. It's all about profits and nothing to do with "restrictions".
 

Fidgety9996

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There's a whole lot of stupid when it comes to encryption, within government circles.

First, "AES" encryption, is not encryption. It's the name of a standard, of which includes an algorithm (Rijndael), created by two Belgian cryptographers, Vincent Rijmen and Joan Daemen. The Rijnael algorithm is open and available to anyone who wants to use it.

In 2001, the American National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) selected Rijndael as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). In other words, AES is not the property of the American government, even though they claim "It's secretive American encryption".

On top of this nonsense, the NIST stated in the AES standard (FIPS 197) the technology may be used by anyone.

http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/FIPS/NIST.FIPS.197.pdf Page 1:



So whenever we hear total nonsense and lies from Motorola about AES being "heavily restricted" or "top secret" or "law enforcement or government only", it's all crap. Not sure who started these myths, but it has to stop. And the US Government has to start paying attention to what's stated in FIPS-197 PAGE 1, instead of making up their own "policies" (which are not law) as they go along.

The rest of the world also needs to start understanding the algorithm outlined in the AES is open for anyone to use. The source code is on the Internet. If they don't like it, too bad. AES exists in nearly every wireless gadget available to consumers, from smartphones, routers, TVs, intelligent watches, embedded devices, etc.

Any government or corporation which claims AES is "highly restricted" is misinformed and has a hidden agenda. In Motorola's case, it's to sell the APX radios instead of TRBO radios, for customers who want to use the algorithm outlined in AES. In North America, the APX radios sell for 4-10x more money than TRBO radios.

Hope these facts shed some light on why TRBO radios have weak encryption, compared to APX radios. It's all about profits and nothing to do with "restrictions".
I agree with you but the fact is in EU (not sure if that is not NATO agreement) AES encryption is treated as double appliance technology and importing to your country requires permissions similar as you imported weaponry. Radio distributor in EU will not sell you AES upgrade without paperwork from your national agency. That is a shame that we as citizens are not allowed for privacy technology but it is how it is right now.
 

masstech

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I agree with you but the fact is in EU (not sure if that is not NATO agreement) AES encryption is treated as double appliance technology and importing to your country requires permissions similar as you imported weaponry. Radio distributor in EU will not sell you AES upgrade without paperwork from your national agency. That is a shame that we as citizens are not allowed for privacy technology but it is how it is right now.

Not sure what you are talking about. For MOTOTRBO, our counterparts in the EU/EMEA easily get the AES entitlement. Even the XL region (Latin America) get it without trouble.

It has been impossible stateside, because you guessed it: asking for the AES entitlement requires "VP approval", and when we escalated, we were immediately denied, and then we were contacted about looking into APX products and a P25 site.
 

kv5e

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Not sure what you are talking about. For MOTOTRBO, our counterparts in the EU/EMEA easily get the AES entitlement. Even the XL region (Latin America) get it without trouble.

It has been impossible stateside, because you guessed it: asking for the AES entitlement requires "VP approval", and when we escalated, we were immediately denied, and then we were contacted about looking into APX products and a P25 site.

I think this validates the /\/\ nefarious intent to extract $$$$ and punish taxpayers.

With federal grants tied to P25 it is a classic case of Calvin Ball.
 
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