Elimination of Encryption?

[werinshades]

News from The Associated Press

This is being discussed in other forums, but since it's a happening here more often, thought it would be worth a comment.

 

[Delta33]

Maybe in Conn, but definitely popular here. I don't think encryption is going away.

 

[mmckenna]

The reality of decision made when purchasing/turning up their systems is finally sinking in.

Encryption has it's place, but so does Interoperability. These agencies are just realizing that it's very difficult to have it both ways.

 

[allend]

Yes I feel its slowly sinking in. More and more individual systems and surrounding counties and cities want privacy to their system and its starting to take its toll on the need for interops.

These counties and cities get sold on this start of the art system with all of this privacy and then when Motorola wipes their hands clean and gets paid then county admins get stuck with the nightmare of maintaining the systems and the wants and needs of the police and fire departments.

We want this - We need this - and its a cluster "you know what".

I have worked in the IT fields for years now and I see this in the corporate america getting spilled over from all of these HIPA and FDIC rules with security and privacy. Trying to manage all of this IT security and encryption and keys and so on and so on.

I am starting to see my own IT department or the umbrella that I am underneath starting to lock me down from doing my own job with security policies and procedures and its a complete nightmare. Actually I want out of the industry because its getting harder to do my job and meet the needs of my end users and customers because of all this paranoia and rules and policies. I see more and more of these big companies locking down the internet. Most big corporations do not even allow you to even access your own personal emails from either Yahoo, AOL, GMAIL, and so on.

Its all a security concerns. Virus activity, launching .exe files from personal emails, end users at companies taking company documents off site. All computers including workstations and laptop are completely locked down. You can't access the USB thumb drive to move data off the machine. I see more and more companies installing video cameras not only in the parking lots now but in the office buildings where people work. Big brother is even watching what you do at work now, or video taping you at all times.

Not sure where this is going to end or bottle neck up, but its coming sometime in the near future

Its crazy and its very concerning to see what technology and how its affected our daily lives now. But it will come to terms one day.

 

[RRR]

Don't get your hopes up about any widespread rollback of encryption. Just about every official documentation on radio systems nowadays recommends encryption. The latest homeland security documents (posted in another thread) strongly encourages encryption on nearly every level of communication. Now comes "Link layer encryption" getting ready to be implemented, further encrypting header information so scanner users can't map out communications and follow talkgroups and such on encrypted systems.

There may be a few agencies here and there that feel they jumped the gun on encryption, and roll it back some, but those are being far and quickly surpassed by the ones who are encrypting more and more. And we have nobody to blame but ourselves. And I really can't blame them for encrypting
.

 

[jpm]

Listening to Pittsburgh PD at work and at times they used encryption mostly during location of the chase info to dispatch. This was on the internet here while working in Chi town and ironically no shootings from Pittsburgh's finest unlike Chicago.

 

[n3obl]

Don't know what you were listening to. Pittsburgh channels are narrow analog and don't have encryption. Might have just moved to channel that not streamed.

 

[jpm]

Don't know what you were listening to. Pittsburgh channels are narrow analog and don't have encryption. Might have just moved to channel that not streamed.

I know what encrypted sounds, trust me like can't tell ya from Chi town what channel was used for the incident sooooo. Whatever you claim.

 

[jpm]

Although there are still some analog Motorola encryption devices still in use, including simple speech inversion products ...... blah blah blah. As stated the location surely sounded secured. Black and white.

 

[jpm]

Analog Encryption Types and Products

Since speech inversion is easily defeated (the Ramsey Electronics SS-70), most law enforcement agencies have ceased using this encryption technique. I know of no federal agency that has ever used analog encryption devices. These simple, low-cost devices are more suited to the local police department, since all but the most serious scanner owner will not be able to understand the radio traffic. One of the largest manufacturers of analog encryption devices, Midian Electronics, offers a complete line of products from the simplest and smallest speech inversion scrambler to a highly sophisticated "rolling-code" encryption device.


http://www.radioreference.com/trunked/stuff/encrypt.html

 

[pinballwiz86]

Encryption....the scanner hobbyist's arch enemy! Would be great if there was no encryption. But I don't see it going away any time soon. Motorola has too much money to make by selling the optional encryption.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Encryption....the scanner hobbyist's arch enemy! Would be great if there was no encryption. But I don't see it going away any time soon. Motorola has too much money to make by selling the optional encryption.

Cost of encryption when deploying a multisite P25 system is peanuts. With ADP and single key DES being given away, its not for the cash.

 

[AC9BX]

The reality of decision made when purchasing/turning up their systems is finally sinking in.

Encryption has it's place, but so does Interoperability. These agencies are just realizing that it's very difficult to have it both ways.

Just last week during a weekly test of a DOJ system the FBI dispatcher called the DEA. I saw an encrypted signal follow but the FBI person apparently could not hear them, calling again and moving on as if no response. I have no way of knowing if that was indeed the DEA calling back but if so this is exactly the trouble with encryption living on what is supposed to be for interop.

 

[mmckenna]

Just last week during a weekly test of a DOJ system the FBI dispatcher called the DEA. I saw an encrypted signal follow but the FBI person apparently could not hear them, calling again and moving on as if no response. I have no way of knowing if that was indeed the DEA calling back but if so this is exactly the trouble with encryption living on what is supposed to be for interop.

That's pretty much what is driving this. It's easy to come up with these plans when the systems are installed, but maintaining them is the issue.
Encryption keys can be shared, but often departments don't always get along. The desire to work with another agency can wax and wane as staff changes.
The other issue I've seen is even simpler. Agencies will change encryption keys for various reasons and just plain forget that they need to let the other agencies know. I've seen it happen with simple things like PL tone changes.
Getting something simple like a PL tone change propagated through our own agency, getting all the radios located and programmed, is hard enough. Getting another agency to do it at the same time is even more difficult.
Then there are always the radios that get "forgotten". Spare radios, that one in the bottom of the drawer, the one that went off to the shop, all failure points.

As I said above, encryption has it's place, but that place isn't everywhere and it certainly isn't in interoperability.