chaz0426
Member
I've read a lot of news articles online of various states starting to encrypt their digital public safety systems.
I'm starting to think that within the next 10 years, a majority of systems in most average sized cities will be encrypted.
It's not just police too, a lot of systems are interconnected (Fire,EMS,transportation, ect.) and hence will all be under an encrypted system.
People thought the end of the road was when public safety started moving to digital but as you can see, digital scanners are now easy to get.
But if you understand what encryption is, it is virtually impossible to listen to encrypted transmissions without having the correct key. (I'm a computer science major)
Yes theoretically it's possible to have a sophisticated scanner radio that could rapidly "brute force" the encryption and find the key and perhaps keep doing so. But considering today's powerful computers are having a hard time doing that within a year for DES and AES encryption which is what a lot of radios are encrypted with, I don't see that technology existing in scanners anytime soon. The only way such a scanner radio could be built is if you
A. travel 50 years into the future and obtain technology powerful enough and portable enough to be built into a radio.
B. Steal CIA and NSA technology (somehow they are probably able to listen in on encrypted transmissions).
Even then it would be illegal to listen to decrypted transmissions.
I've listened to a few encrypted systems and I've found that usually the dispatcher isn't encrypted and sometimes the police officer or whoever will forget to turn on encryption.
So scanning encrypted systems will have to rely on those human errors rather than the technology at least for the near future.
I'm just wondering what this will mean for the future of the hobby and I'm still very new to the hobby. I'm asking the opinions of many veterans on here and those more knowledgeable what they think.
Any thoughts?
I'm starting to think that within the next 10 years, a majority of systems in most average sized cities will be encrypted.
It's not just police too, a lot of systems are interconnected (Fire,EMS,transportation, ect.) and hence will all be under an encrypted system.
People thought the end of the road was when public safety started moving to digital but as you can see, digital scanners are now easy to get.
But if you understand what encryption is, it is virtually impossible to listen to encrypted transmissions without having the correct key. (I'm a computer science major)
Yes theoretically it's possible to have a sophisticated scanner radio that could rapidly "brute force" the encryption and find the key and perhaps keep doing so. But considering today's powerful computers are having a hard time doing that within a year for DES and AES encryption which is what a lot of radios are encrypted with, I don't see that technology existing in scanners anytime soon. The only way such a scanner radio could be built is if you
A. travel 50 years into the future and obtain technology powerful enough and portable enough to be built into a radio.
B. Steal CIA and NSA technology (somehow they are probably able to listen in on encrypted transmissions).
Even then it would be illegal to listen to decrypted transmissions.
I've listened to a few encrypted systems and I've found that usually the dispatcher isn't encrypted and sometimes the police officer or whoever will forget to turn on encryption.
So scanning encrypted systems will have to rely on those human errors rather than the technology at least for the near future.
I'm just wondering what this will mean for the future of the hobby and I'm still very new to the hobby. I'm asking the opinions of many veterans on here and those more knowledgeable what they think.
Any thoughts?
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