Encryption in Georgia

[RomeRon]

In tha city of morrow, ga the city police dept. along with their dispatch center monitor the county police, sheriff, and fire dept. along with conjoining cities that respond mutual aid with them & being able to monitor one anothers radio traffic (Some are on totally different bands without being able to interop) and that has prevented them from sending ambulances to scenes where they were being canceled even before being dispatched to leave the station & fire trucks to fires that were extinguished before they could arrive so that kept equipment in service that would have otherwise been tied up going all the way into another city to the scene to find out they werent needed until they arrived. When this county goes P25 Digital Encrypted (And they are going there by their RFP cause of their feed being broadcasted over the internet) the cities public safety officers are goin to be out in the cold also. Having these scanners enables them to monitor the counties chases into their areas without them switching channels on their unit radios & losing contact with their dispatch. But, the benefits of criminals not being able to hear them coming outweigh the benefits of other jurisdictions having a closer ear on whats coming their way so the encryption wins! Stop broadcaasting the police calls & the encryption will decrease (Not Totally Stop Though!) on certain channels. They will always want Narcotics/Surveillance/Gang/Talk Around channels encrypted even in analog conventional systems, but as far as the fire dept. is concerned they will only be digital on dispatch, fireground will be simplex analog.(As requested in the RFP)

I don't know about all the scanner feeds, but i do know the one for Rome Ga, has Cave Spring Police and Fire, Rome City Police and Floyd County Police, and with a 30 second delay and no way to stop on a frequency may just get a criminal caught real quick like, Drug dealers don't depend on scanners they have look outs on the street corners looking for five-o.

 

[Buttabean]

Clayton County Copied Your Rome System!

Rome Ga, is just finishing up a 26 million dollar P25 system and so far, as I am told the only ones that will be encrypted is SWAT and Drug Task Force, this I can understand. But if the OP had his way we wouldn't even be able to listen to animal control. And he would expect me to just let it be water under the bridge when they added a dollar or two to my home and cell phone bill for upkeep on the system and encryption software.

He comes on here trying to draw blood with his people whining and moaning comments about not being able to listen to their scanner, but he whines and moans wanting somebody else to pay for his encryption, and how special he and his are, excluding the Fire Department, the rest of the public safety people are in no more, maybe less in danger than somebody working on an assembly line or any other job for that matter.

Funny thing is clayton county copied the floyd county RFP word 4 word & is gonna get in trouble if they go thru with it now. Scroll down to where Nick Tusa commented on the forum, his company designed the floyd county P25 System thats being built & found out about clayton county stealing their copyrighted work, but clayton county wants their police traffic encrypted from end to end, to stop Broadcastify from alerting criminals on their smartphone apps like Scanner Radio for androids. Read here---> BOCWatch Community Forum • View topic - Public Safety Radio RFP 4.5 million +

This is how they said they wanted their system setup, copied & pasted from the RFP:

3.2.3 Encryption
Digital voice encryption, using federally approved digital encryption schemes (i.e. DES/AES), is a
required feature of the new network.
Two modes of encrypted digital voice operation are desired:
1. Unit-to-unit, where conversations in an encrypted talk group are secure. These cannot be
monitored at a dispatch or control point.
2. Dispatcher-to-unit, where conversations between the County’s E-911 Center, Backup E-911
Center and field units are secure.
The new network shall provide encrypted transmission so that system access delays are equal to those in ADDENDUM #1 RFP PKG. #11-20 RADIO PROJECT PAGE 39 OF 127
the clear mode. Encrypted transmissions shall not degrade the operation of clear-voice features nor
lengthen system access or audio transport delays to other users. Encryption shall not degrade the range or coverage less than normal digital performance. Note, the logging recorder must be able to record encrypted communications as specified in section 8.6, Digital Voice Logging Recorder.

 

[rapidcharger]

It stands to reason that if the premise encryption will lead to faster response times, then that can be proven or disproven by comparing priority response times in a county like Gwinnett or Hall that have encrypted several years ago. Only the response times have been largely stagnant and didn't have an appreciable bump from encryption. It goes up, it goes down.

If you want to speed up response times, why not just hire more personnel or build more police stations? Oh... that's right... silly me... All the money's gone now. Been sent to Schaumburg.

On to the next theory. :roll:

 

[MTS2000des]

The comment about following the fire truck to a scene drives the point home. It's one thing to want to "help" when an event occurs but showing up on the scene of an incident within the first hour just to get a close look doesn't qualify as helping. Ask yourself these couple of questions, "Have you ever gone to a scene that you heard on the scanner but didn't have a valid reason to be there?" or "Have you ever called a third party to relay information you heard on the scanner?" If you answer yes to either of the questions then you can thank yourself for one of the reasons encryption is needed and now being used in the majority of new systems.

Well, first off, I´m kind of confused here, you come onto a board of radio enthusiasts and proclaim we are all a bunch of whackers that self dispatch to every call we hear.

I guess you missed the part that many of us also work in public safety and public health. Many of us also use scanners to keep abreast with what is going on in the next county over. You mentioned the floods in 2009, my employer was a big part of that response, and we used not only our expensive county P25 radios we pay dearly for to coordinate a response to incoming patients, but scanners as well to keep up with what is headed our way.

As I am sure you are aware, during such incidents, it is too often impossible for dispatchers to call EVERY involved agency in a timely manner, especially during rapidly evolving incidents.

Your point about divulging what one hears has validity, it is THIS reason I believe there is a push for encryption in the business, especially the unauthorized streaming and recording of other peoples traffic for profit.

But please dont lump all scanner users together as whackers with phony cop cars, many of us are those who you rely on to support you. Lock us out, and you make it that much more difficult to be there when you need us.

 

[dlls1415]

Well, first off, I´m kind of confused here, you come onto a board of radio enthusiasts and proclaim we are all a bunch of whackers that self dispatch to every call we hear.

I guess you missed the part that many of us also work in public safety and public health. Many of us also use scanners to keep abreast with what is going on in the next county over. You mentioned the floods in 2009, my employer was a big part of that response, and we used not only our expensive county P25 radios we pay dearly for to coordinate a response to incoming patients, but scanners as well to keep up with what is headed our way.

As I am sure you are aware, during such incidents, it is too often impossible for dispatchers to call EVERY involved agency in a timely manner, especially during rapidly evolving incidents.

Your point about divulging what one hears has validity, it is THIS reason I believe there is a push for encryption in the business, especially the unauthorized streaming and recording of other peoples traffic for profit.

But please dont lump all scanner users together as whackers with phony cop cars, many of us are those who you rely on to support you. Lock us out, and you make it that much more difficult to be there when you need us.

I never lumped all scanner users together as whackers. In several of my responses you'll find I said I'm talking about a very minority part of scanner listeners that are creating this problem. The unfortunate thing is that it only takes one or two to give everyone a bad name and agencies have no way of blocking traffic from one scanner and not the other so the end result is encryption ends up blocking everyone regardless of the end users intent.

What usually ends up happening is those like you that need access for support services can find a work around with the agencies you support under a simple memorandum of understanding between you, your agency and the agencies being supported. Now it may not be receiving traffic through a scanner but a radio programmed and authorized for that given system.

The fact is encryption can eliminate many problems but likely can cause the same amount of problems through unanticipated and unintended results. Never once have I said I'm for or against encryption, I'm simply stating that in the discussions I've been a part of, activities like showing up on scene, sightseeing in disaster areas, posting information from scanners on a message board and similar activities are creating unwelcome attention for scanner listeners which is leading to more encryption implementation.

 

[rapidcharger]

I never lumped all scanner users together as whackers. )))

In your OP, you did say "Quite often I hear the moaning and whining about how scanner owners are no longer able to listen to local radio systems because of encryption."

Do you not see how posting such a comment in a scanner owners' forum might rub a lot of people the wrong way?

((( Never once have I said I'm for or against encryption, )))

Never once?
Because it sure sounded that way to me when you said...

(((
I welcome the ability for agencies to encrypt their systems which will make their overall response safer and more effective.

 

[RomeRon]

The OP didn't answer the question has he ever passed along traffic to his family and friends, but we already know the answer to that.

Instead of me hearing that a person is 10.109D (dead) his family and friends get to hear all the gory details, now how two faced is that.

 

[dlls1415]

Ok so you're right if hearing that makes you feel better that I said I support encryption in a previous post.

Glad you have the time to fact check but it still doesn't detract from the validity of the topic.

 

[dlls1415]

The OP didn't answer the question has he ever passed along traffic to his family and friends, but we already know the answer to that.

Instead of me hearing that a person is 10.109D (dead) his family and friends get to hear all the gory details, now how two faced is that.

Your assumption is wrong, I don't pass any information on to others whether family, friends or otherwise. I know the consequences of that activity and I'm not going to risk my career because someone wants the inside scoop. Many have lost their jobs for sharing facts of a call with family they thought they could trust who in the end passed it along to someone else and at some point the details made it back to the family of a victim.

You have a lot of nerve calling someone two faced for sharing factual information of a very small number of problematic listeners that is receiving unappealing attention. So I'll make some assumptions of you and your personality and from this point forward I'll just ignore any and all opinions you have.

 

[RomeRon]

Your assumption is wrong, I don't pass any information on to others whether family, friends or otherwise. I know the consequences of that activity and I'm not going to risk my career because someone wants the inside scoop. Many have lost their jobs for sharing facts of a call with family they thought they could trust who in the end passed it along to someone else and at some point the details made it back to the family of a victim.

You have a lot of nerve calling someone two faced for sharing factual information of a very small number of problematic listeners that is receiving unappealing attention. So I'll make some assumptions of you and your personality and from this point forward I'll just ignore any and all opinions you have.

Ignore, thats what people do when they get asked tough questions.

 

[MTS2000des]

.

What usually ends up happening is those like you that need access for support services can find a work around with the agencies you support under a simple memorandum of understanding between you, your agency and the agencies being supported. Now it may not be receiving traffic through a scanner but a radio programmed and authorized for that given system.

The fact is encryption can eliminate many problems but likely can cause the same amount of problems through unanticipated and unintended results. Never once have I said I'm for or against encryption, I'm simply stating that in the discussions I've been a part of, activities like showing up on scene, sightseeing in disaster areas, posting information from scanners on a message board and similar activities are creating unwelcome attention for scanner listeners which is leading to more encryption implementation.

Easier said than done. MOU´s and conditional access to proprietary radio systems is what is creating the lack of interoperability in this area. Encryption, especially the proprietary types like Motorola´s ADP, are creating the very barriers that were being used to justify the cost of these new and expensive radio systems to begin with.

Your logic about a miniority of scanner users causing problems justifies a total ban on monitoring is as full of holes as the gun grabbers blaming a small number of illegal firearm uses versus the millions of guns lawfully owned and operated by our citizenry. Blame the restrictions for all on the actions of a select few. How convienient, especially since encryption also keeps the mass media out of public safety´s hair.

And no, I do not condone nor support the corporate mass media, but I do recognize part of having a free society is having a media and people who keep an eye on what our LOCAL government does. After all, we are paid to serve our citizens. They are the reason we got to work everyday.

Respectfully, if you feel differently, maybe public service is not the right career path. Plenty of jobs for private security specialists who operate in the color of darkness and secrecy in the middle East these days I hear...

 

[RomeRon]

Your assumption is wrong, I don't pass any information on to others whether family, friends or otherwise. I know the consequences of that activity and I'm not going to risk my career because someone wants the inside scoop. Many have lost their jobs for sharing facts of a call with family they thought they could trust who in the end passed it along to someone else and at some point the details made it back to the family of a victim.

You have a lot of nerve calling someone two faced for sharing factual information of a very small number of problematic listeners that is receiving unappealing attention. So I'll make some assumptions of you and your personality and from this point forward I'll just ignore any and all opinions you have.

I apologize for using the words two faced, But I find it hard to believe you have never passed along information. I have known a few public safety people in my time, and one of them has even written a book about his time as a police officer, nothing gory, just his memories of his time on the police force and other things he has learned in life.

 

[rapidcharger]

Glad you have the time to fact check but it still doesn't detract from the validity of the topic.

The topic may be perfectly valid... you're certainly entitled to your opinion... but your claim that encryption speeds up priority response times is still nothing but conjecture.

Prior to spending untold fortunes to conceal and hide radio traffic as a means of speeding up response times, it would be prudent to establish the facts. To do otherwise should rightfully be deserving of armies of pitchfork-wielding tax payers marching into public meetings.

 

[nbarco]

Stop the bickering and direct your efforts at overcoming encryption. I can tell you that most encryption standards already have a workaround, some more costly than others.

 

[rdale]

Stop the bickering and direct your efforts at overcoming encryption. I can tell you that most encryption standards already have a workaround, some more costly than others.

By "most" you mean "20 years ago most". There is no workaround (costly or not) for P25 encryption.

 

[RRR]

I believe that if "dlls1415" is actually in Public Safety, he is a probably a volunteer or reserve or "Safety officer" or something similar. ...Most likely just one step above a "wanna-be".

People in the Public Safety business for a living generally don't get this emotionally involved in this sort of issue.

 

[nbarco]

Maybe...but I have been in law enforcement 17 years and have to say that scanning has never presented a problem. I have been a big city cop and never have I had anyone with a scanner interfere. We had scanners in our patrol vehicles to monitor surrounding agencies. Most of the times that was more efficient than interagency patches. Again, like gun control only the law-abiding population pays the price for ignorant people. The press is a different story. They won't be affected because they make deals, buy radios capable of being on the same net and have them programmed as receive-only on the dispatch frequencies. Your major networks have these arrangements in place. They are a bigger pain in the ... than the scanner rubber-neckers. If you are a fellow LEO and have a problem with your constituency enjoy watching what you do on a regular basis, maybe you are doing the wrong thing. I own a scanner and use it to avoid trouble areas and when traveling. Encryption uses processing and extra-bandwidth that is unnecessary for dispatch channels. I can understand records, H.E.A.R. and narcotics/investigative channels. With the new P25 technologies, that rely on data conversion and networking protocols, workarounds will be available when the right computer gurus get involved. Give it time. I see the future of scanning requiring a PC for decryption and processing, with a USB dongle that connects to a receiver.

 

[rapidcharger]

With the new P25 technologies, that rely on data conversion and networking protocols, workarounds will be available when the right computer gurus get involved. Give it time. I see the future of scanning requiring a PC for decryption and processing, with a USB dongle that connects to a receiver.

I know it's comforting to keep telling ourselves this but lets be honest.... that's not going to happen. Maybe there would be enough interest in doing it in some place like LA or NYC but those places are in the clear anyway. Even if there was some dongle, you'd be committing a crime by using it and hacking in to a computer network.

Personally, I like to think that someday Godzilla or the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man will come along out of nowhere and gobble up all the DTRSes and poop out piles of brand new analog conventional-only radios. Whatever helps ya sleep at night. :wink:

 

[Buttabean]

Am I Missing Something

I thought this website was FOR tha frequency scanner/Monitoring hobbyist? Has the hobby went sour & this site is now the burial grounds for everyone thats left owning a scanner and the ones that are looking to buy one? Back in 1994 when i bought my 1st scanner & analog trunking had just made it into GA u had to go to radio shack & buy a Police Call book or buy the crystals for the agencies u wanted to hear & they wasnt complaints about people listening to one showing up on crime scenes, or criminals using one to commit cri mes. I got out of scanning, CB radios, and communication hobby cause of being young (19yrs Old) and said i'd save that hobby for when i get close to 40, but since owning one again for the past year i see that radio communications along with the scanning hobby itself has changed to the point of being even less desired now than it was 19yrs ago! I bought a android phone & discovered the Scanner Radio app, installed it & liked it so much that i went & bought a Grecom PSR-310 scanner to listen with cuz i was told it would pickup Clytn Cty Public safety, Henry cty public safety, fayette cty, fulton cty, and several others. Now im hearing/seeing that i'll be lucky if i get to even hear Wal-mart talkin on it in a couple years as they too are buying digital radios in some areas! I just read this in another forum on this site today! Im missing something somewhere im sure! A new Grecom PSR-310 scanner bought in Jan,2012 will be as useful as a Old Realistic Crystal Controlled scanner bought in 1987 in about another year or two. As for who i blame for this happening to me? Myself, for not searching the net to see where the communications world is going. Just like i said in 1994, ive learned alot from this & "Experiance Is The Best Teacher You Will Ever Have!" It was nice while it lasted though!

 

[dlls1415]

I apologize for using the words two faced, But I find it hard to believe you have never passed along information. I have known a few public safety people in my time, and one of them has even written a book about his time as a police officer, nothing gory, just his memories of his time on the police force and other things he has learned in life.

Apology accepted and no worries here. Everyone has their own opinion and sometimes our personalities make it into forth or fifth gear before we know it.

As far as sharing information from work and through personal conversations, I really have never done it. Most people couldn't handle it and even if they could, it could go very wrong in a very short time by the story getting twisted way out of bounds and the end result is it's traced back to me and my security clearance and career are in jeopardy.

My post is only intended to point out the issue being created by a small number of people and a side affect of those activities could be encryption. First responder safety is not the one and only reason for encryption nor is blocking scanner enthusiasts, collectively though agencies will spend the money when they feel the costs provides the justification and benefits needed. Whether right or wrong the unfortunate thing is as technology evolves it will likely become more and more difficult to enjoy radio traffic simply for the enjoyment.