FCC Opens Rulemaking to Allow Encryption in Amateur Radio Service

[alexmahoney]

Clarification on the Ham Radio Encryption Issue

First off, ALL of you are barking up the wrong tree.

I remind you of Amateur Radio's Creed: "When All Else Fails"

Some of you see no reason for encryption and want to bring HIPPA into it which is fine,

Some of you say that it needs to stay on service radios and the phone lines.

Let me ask you a question, If the service radios are down along with phone lines and cell towers, How else are we going to communicate??? Via Amateur Radio of course.

Encryption on amateur radio is LOOOONG overdue because of the above reasons I gave.

If amateurs and/or trained personnel have to relay VIP info, they must do it over Amateur Radio if there are no other working communcation lines.

Some of you just are not quite informed and don't realize that some Hams ARE ALLOWED to relay medical info to and from Hospitals and Triage sites. The key word is "RELAY"

I have watched as the original thread has fallen apart because some of you think ham radio is a god given right and encryption should stay off of amateur bands. I also remind you that ALL of you have also been against encryption on public service agency radios.

Look, you can't have it your way. I have seen you people cry when police encrypt their systems and now you want to cry when Encryption is SUGGESTED for the amateur bands.

WE, as Ham Radio Operators have a civil duty to help ALL agencies in a time of crisis. the constant bickering here on Radio Reference in ALL forums is downright disgusting.

when someone throws a disagreement or tells someone they are wrong, All hell breaks loose with the mods and forum managers throwing out wrongfully issued warnings and then bans.

Listen, ALL of you are adults, act like adults, because the whole world is counting on you for communications when everything else is down. There is no reason for censoring and/or warnings to come about when nearly every post is on topic and about communications as a whole.

Thanks,
Alex Mahoney.

 

[KA9QPN]

This whole thing is born out of a gross misconception as to what HIPAA means and what it does not mean. Amateur Radio does not provide healthcare. So, they are not bound by HIPAA under normal conditions, and we can train to avoid problems under special circumstances. Every time that 'we' ask the Fed for a solution to a problem that either doesn't exist or that we can fix ourselves, we get a solution out of proportion to the perceived issue. This will be no exception.

Apropos of nothing: the crude term 'whacker' demeans us all when it's used. It unnecessarily demonizes the target of the term, and marks the person using the term as one who can't express himself without being insulting and rude.

 

[KF4ZMB]

WOW! That would be a HIPPO and despite the fact that others have spelled HIPAA as HIPPA (including myself) on this thread no one has spelled it HIPPO. HIPPA, HIPAA, or even HIPPO (?) in this case, however, everyone understands what we were talking about. But if it makes you feel better to point it out I guess that is OK. Sad that is the case though...

Christian KF4ZMB

 

[PJH]

Well...

 

[KF4ZMB]

Apropos of nothing: the crude term 'whacker' demeans us all when it's used. It unnecessarily demonizes the target of the term, and marks the person using the term as one who can't express himself without being insulting and rude.

I would agree with you that name calling is inappropriate. I do believe that some who have used it on this board have done so with good intentions, however, truly believing that there are some people who would seek to destroy the hobby simply to be able to play police, rescue, EMT, green grocer , or anything other than using the radios in the furtherance of the hobby (even if the hobby does, at times, play a public service role). The truth is, though, that no matter how expressive someone is another person can allows find something that is offensive if they look hard enough. But as I say, I do believe name calling is inappropriate. Playing super hero police officer wanna be with a ham radio, however, is also inappropriate I might add. So, name calling should be out, but pointing out what ham radio is and is not should be in.

Christian KF4ZMB

 

[PJH]

Since we are way off topic anyways (but has some bearing on the ham radio community at large)...

The term "Wacker" has been around the fire service far long than most ham clubs stay in existance. It was a term given lightly or seriously to those firefighters who "over did it" on outfitting their personal vehicles with way more lights/sirens and other equipment than what was considered "normal" for the area. This could also extend to those who hang around the fire house day and night half dressed waiting for that call to come in.

In recent years, with the internet about, cheaper and easier to obtain vehicle equipment, many ham's, ham clubs, and strictly or loosely affilated ham functions (REACT, Skywarn, ARES, local EMA, etc) people/groups started to buy amber lights and other colors - and started to bridge out of the defined role of look, listen and report - to drive fast, get involved, self dispatch.

There has always been isolated cases, but starting in the very late 1990's and def after 9/11 had it become very noticable. Especially after 9/11, groups really wanted to find a role capitalizing on the "no comms for PD/FD" reports from the commision and some of the overly and explosively thought that no one anywhere had real communications in public safety, etc.

So, quite a few hams thought it was their place to get involved in more aspects of public safety in any way they could - right, wrong or indifferent. Usually due the neglect of limited oversight of some Emergency Managers or Civil Prepardness (do the the lack of any real need for such a department depending on geographical location) - they were now (the EM guys) had an important role again outside of the Cold War.

Now, important responders have lights and sirens. Well, we as affiated hams are now important and need to get to point a pretty quick, so we should put in blinkies in the 1985 Dodge Caravan with 30 antennas on top, with a jump kit, field rations, medical bags, 30 ht batteries that do not hold a charge anyways... etc.

Those, are wackers.

An entertaining read from someone's first experience with ARES:

Recently, I encountered the ARES which led me to your site.

I was driving along a few icy patches of road when I got t-boned by a tanker truck who was unable to stop after hitting a patch of ice. He wasn’t carrying anything but since the truck was now jacknifed across both lanes it caused quite a problem. Now, I crawled out of my vehicle and went over to the truck driver, and we called the police to report the accident. Within a few minutes a patrol car pulled up followed by the most bizarre site I have ever seen. There, in all it’s glory, was a genuine, official ARES vehicle, lit up like a Christmas tree, with more antenna than an insect orgy. After taking down the report, the police officer went back and sat in his patrol car awaiting the arrival of the wrecker needed to move the truck, and the flatbed to take away my car. The truck driver, and I were exchanging information, and a few of the locals had come out to offer some coffee, see if we needed anything etc. The “official” ARES person, guy, fellow, whatever, immediately jumps into action telling people to back up, that this is a very dangerous situation. I proceeded to inform him that the small piece of debris stuck into the grill of the truck was indeed my vehicle, and I had not recovered all of personal belongings yet. His response was that he was an “official” ARES something or other and that I needed to heed his warnings.

He proceeded to show me his identification cards, and HAM license etc. to which I showed him my Bass Pro Shops Outdoor rewards card, which seemed to aggravate him even more. He started yelling and fussing about something, I really started to get angry. I should mention that I am 6′ 300lbs with three tours of duty in the middle-east and this fellow was about 1 foot tall and about 99 pounds including all his radios, bat belt and tactical vest. Around this time the police officer, seemed to sense that I was about to pound this guy into oblivion, got out of his patrol unit and walked over asking who he was. To which the ARES fellow responded with the same nonsense he had spewed to me. Another patrol car pulled up and the officer hopped out and asked, verbatim:

“What the fu– is that thing?” Pointing to the ARES mobile. The ARES guy went to his spiel again after which he asked to leave, to which he said he had some sort of aggreement with the State Police,�the officers responded with telling him that they would more than happy to call the State Troopers to come pick him up after they brought him back to the station house. The ARES dude, then huffed and puffed about legal ramifications and then got into his “emergency vehicle” and drove off.

I was a radio operator in the miltary, and only discovered well after I was out of the military that you actually needed a license to talk on a radio. We always just picked a freq no one was using, and if they had a problem with it, well tough, we have a HMMV, with a MK19 on the roof. It wasn’t until this incident that I found out that HAMs are some sort of valuable asset to the emergency services and the Department of Homeland security. Thank you ARES you provide an invaluable service.

Join REACT International - YouTube
Skywarn Emergency Lights - Storm Spotter Class Training - YouTube

Special thanks to the HS crowed that has some good content

 

[KF4ZMB]

The term "Wacker" has been around the fire service far long than most ham clubs stay in existance ...

Thanks PJH for the history of the term "whacker". I had never encountered it until I discovered it on this board, but back in my volunteer firefighting days I encountered the type of person you are talking about. Some, at the time, refered to this, locally, as "volunteer firefighter syndrome", but I always thought this was unfair. Most of the volunteers did not even have one light bar or antenna on their cars. One of the local departments had a lot of members with wig-wags installed in their headlights, or amber, or rarely red, magnetic dome lights they could stick on the car, but since they responded to the scene versus the station this made sense. They ususally turned them on on scene to serve as warning lights the same as any other vehicle with flashing warning lights would do (including the utility trucks). Although this might ruffle some feathers, I have noticed this, locally, on a lot larger scale since the county fire and rescue department went to a combination paid and volunteer department. Almost exclusively this behavior has been witnessed, at least by me, in connection with the new paid firefighters moreso than the volunteers. This may be because, in the smaller areas like where I live, public safety employment is every bit as much a local status symbol as "stardom" is on a national scale to some involved. This, again, is not the way everybody sees it. The majority here, as I assume is the case everywhere, are involved for the right reasons. It only takes one outspoken nut (sorry if this is offensive) to ruin it for everyone though.

Sorry to stay off topic, but I just wanted to respond to the history lesson. Thanks for letting me do so.

Christian KF4ZMB

 

[sc800]

Here are my three points to add to this discussion, many of which have already been said, but I want to echo them.


1. In my area at least, most of the amateur radio repeaters and infrastructure are co-located with the emergency services infrastructure. So chances are if the emergency services radios are inoperable, the ham ones will be too.


2. The most common type of traffic passed by amateur radio in emergencies in this area is shelter to shelter, shelter to EOC and EOC to EOC. About 99.9% of the time, this traffic relates to large groups of people, not individuals; so HIPAA and "personal privacy" concerns really aren't valid, and as others have mentioned, HIPAA doesn't apply to radio comms anyway.

3. Actually sensitive information (i.e. law enforcement information about a suspect at large) would not be being passed over amateur radio anyway. Most likely it would be being passed over SatPhones, and MDT/CAD/WebEOC type software using secured cloud computing. So the hams that think they are going to be playing SWAT dispatcher are delusional.


And you know what, I'm not actually against ham's having encryption. If amateur radio operators truly think that encryption would be something that is cool to have and experiment with, then by all means petition the FCC....just be honest about why you want it, don't try to put this post-9/11 era "if all else fails" facade on it.

 

[KF4ZMB]

The whole discussion (and hobby) is totally irrelevant in the apocalyptic scenarios dreamt up to justify all sorts of ridiculous suggestions.

I totally agree. That has been my view all along. The scenarios that have been batted around, even among those with experience or employment in the EM field, are very worst case scenarios. They are not, as has been implied in some cases, "normal" disasters. They are not "normal" large area disaster scenarios. They are not even scenarios that involve rare, but occurable, disasters (such as large scale hurricane damage across several states in the same storm, or even a hurricane triggering another disaster such as a chemical leak for example). Rather, these scenarios, wherein all other forms of communications fail and amateur radio alone, for some unexplained reason, survives are "once-in-a-lifetime" or maybe even "end-of-life" (or at least a way of life) scenarios. As I have said repeatedly, IF (and that is a very big IF) these scenarios took place there would be A LOT more to worry about than whether or not a transmission about this or that was encrypted. Most likely the comms would be in the clear to facilitate large scale interoperability that would be required of a situation of this magnitude, and many, as others have pointed out, would-be volunteers would be, instead, trying to survive themselves. One thing left out of most of these scenarios, besides the ever present question of how does amateur radio equipment, of all comm equipment, survive while others become unusable, is issues dealing with other infastructure issues (keeping in mind that communications is only one form of infastructure). How do the hams with the encryption keys get from point A to point B to use the encrypted radios to begin with? Should they, in addition to having encryption capable radios on stand-by, also have an array of vehicles all securely stored in a bomb proof bunker somewhere? This way they can pull out the encryption enabled response boat, helicopter, or even bulldozer to respond to where they are needed in the first place. Finding gas to fuel these vehicles, and the countless generators needed to keep the amatuer systems "on the air", will be hard to find in this type of scenario, so the encryption prepared hams should also begin to stockpile gas. Having an assortment of weapons on hand might not hurt either since if the federal government and military has lost all its abilities to communicate encrypted without ham assistance then lawlessness and disorder is probably also taking over, or will soon enough. And since "sensitive" information is what should be encrypted, in these scenarios, then making sure these hams have, and are trained in the use of, radiation, chemical, and biological weapons suits would probably be a good idea too. Keep in mind that "cool toys" or not encryption WOULD NOT be needed in most natural disasters, so the need would come with manmade disasters such as bombings, or, heaven forbid, war for example. There is a lot more to the equation, in the scenarios presented, than whether or not a local EOC/EM would turn down ARES assistance simply because they did not have encrypted radios (which again I find illogical to begin with). I am not trying to be rude or belittle others ideas on this topic, but I am trying to be realistic about things (and what type of incident would actually REQUIRE -- if any every really would which I highly doubt -- the use of encrypted amateur radios to begin with). Again, this is not meant to rain on anyone's "hams to rescue" parade, but to supply a good healthy dose of realism.

Christian KF4ZMB

 

[KF4ZMB]

Here are my three points to add to this discussion, many of which have already been said, but I want to echo them.


1. In my area at least, most of the amateur radio repeaters and infrastructure are co-located with the emergency services infrastructure. So chances are if the emergency services radios are inoperable, the ham ones will be too.


2. The most common type of traffic passed by amateur radio in emergencies in this area is shelter to shelter, shelter to EOC and EOC to EOC. About 99.9% of the time, this traffic relates to large groups of people, not individuals; so HIPAA and "personal privacy" concerns really aren't valid, and as others have mentioned, HIPAA doesn't apply to radio comms anyway.

3. Actually sensitive information (i.e. law enforcement information about a suspect at large) would not be being passed over amateur radio anyway. Most likely it would be being passed over SatPhones, and MDT/CAD/WebEOC type software using secured cloud computing. So the hams that think they are going to be playing SWAT dispatcher are delusional.


And you know what, I'm not actually against ham's having encryption. If amateur radio operators truly think that encryption would be something that is cool to have and experiment with, then by all means petition the FCC....just be honest about why you want it, don't try to put this post-9/11 era "if all else fails" facade on it.

I agree 100% with all of these points including the very last one. Experimentation is, and should be, part of the amateur radio hobby, so I see nothing wrong with allowing encryption for experimentation purposes. This might require defining how this type of "experimental" equipment could be used (what freq ranges, repeater versus simplex, etc.), but that is all discussion for the topic of encryption as a whole versus just emergency purposes. If the whole purpose of wanting encryption, however, is, as you say, only to provide an "if all else fails facade" then I see little purpose in allowing it.

Christian KF4ZMB

 

[sc800]

I totally agree. That has been my view all along. The scenarios that have been batted around, even among those with experience or employment in the EM field, are very worst case scenarios. They are not, as has been implied in some cases, "normal" disasters. They are not "normal" large area disaster scenarios. They are not even scenarios that involve rare, but occurable, disasters (such as large scale hurricane damage across several states in the same storm, or even a hurricane triggering another disaster such as a chemical leak for example). Rather, these scenarios, wherein all other forms of communications fail and amateur radio alone, for some unexplained reason, survives are "once-in-a-lifetime" or maybe even "end-of-life" (or at least a way of life) scenarios. As I have said repeatedly, IF (and that is a very big IF) these scenarios took place there would be A LOT more to worry about than whether or not a transmission about this or that was encrypted. Most likely the comms would be in the clear to facilitate large scale interoperability that would be required of a situation of this magnitude, and many, as others have pointed out, would-be volunteers would be, instead, trying to survive themselves. One thing left out of most of these scenarios, besides the ever present question of how does amateur radio equipment, of all comm equipment, survive while others become unusable, is issues dealing with other infastructure issues (keeping in mind that communications is only one form of infastructure). How do the hams with the encryption keys get from point A to point B to use the encrypted radios to begin with? Should they, in addition to having encryption capable radios on stand-by, also have an array of vehicles all securely stored in a bomb proof bunker somewhere? This way they can pull out the encryption enabled response boat, helicopter, or even bulldozer to respond to where they are needed in the first place. Finding gas to fuel these vehicles, and the countless generators needed to keep the amatuer systems "on the air", will be hard to find in this type of scenario, so the encryption prepared hams should also begin to stockpile gas. Having an assortment of weapons on hand might not hurt either since if the federal government and military has lost all its abilities to communicate encrypted without ham assistance then lawlessness and disorder is probably also taking over, or will soon enough. And since "sensitive" information is what should be encrypted, in these scenarios, then making sure these hams have, and are trained in the use of, radiation, chemical, and biological weapons suits would probably be a good idea too. Keep in mind that "cool toys" or not encryption WOULD NOT be needed in most natural disasters, so the need would come with manmade disasters such as bombings, or, heaven forbid, war for example. There is a lot more to the equation, in the scenarios presented, than whether or not a local EOC/EM would turn down ARES assistance simply because they did not have encrypted radios (which again I find illogical to begin with). I am not trying to be rude or belittle others ideas on this topic, but I am trying to be realistic about things (and what type of incident would actually REQUIRE -- if any every really would which I highly doubt -- the use of encrypted amateur radios to begin with). Again, this is not meant to rain on anyone's "hams to rescue" parade, but to supply a good healthy dose of realism.

Christian KF4ZMB

I too wonder what kind of scenario these hams are envisioning...

I can only really think of one, and if that one happens lets just say those hams will have a fun time trying to get their radios working after the EMP pulses

 

[jparks29]

4 types of disasters.

Local,
Regional.
National.
Global.

In a local emergency, a river has flooded its banks, or a tornado has touched down, or something similar. ARES mans shelters and EOCs to pass health & welfare traffic aka status reports.

In a regional emergency, as in an earthquake, volcano, or civil unrest. Ares will be operating the same as in a local emergency, depending on conditions. The severity of the situation will determine when federal or mutual aid assets come into play.

In a national emergency, such as civil war, pandemic, etc. ARES is going to be useless.

In a global disaster... ZOMBIES!!!! RUN!!!


So, as mentioned, routine health/welfare traffic are sent. Status reports are sent. Messages are relayed from non-hams to hams, and hams to non-hams, where other means of communication have failed.

The most critical information I can see being relayed, is 'we have a patient here (on dialysis, needing medication, lost an inhaler, etc) who needs (...........).

Now, you don't need to encrypt that, #1. #2, it takes 2 seconds to get consent. #3, if it is THAT dire, and the patient will die, the name of the person is irrelevant.

HIPAA only protects a persons private information. I can go on the air and list 30 symptoms, known allergies, medications used, age, etc without giving a name.

A typical report is, 'we need blankets at shelter 4'

Yeah, totally needs to be encrypted. ..

As far as EMP goes, most EMPs only interrupt the devices while the EMP is present, a lot of devices will survive, or may suffer minor damage. It's not all up in a puff of smoke like most would want you to believe.

Now, when you have something like the Carrington Event, things might be a bit different. However I think lack of power/water/utilities is far worse than losing a radio, to the average person.

On September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. Aurorae were seen around the world, even over the Caribbean; those over the Rocky Mountains were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning.[People who happened to be awake in the northeastern US could read a newspaper by the aurora's light. The aurora was visible from as far from the poles as Cuba and Hawaii.

Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases shocking telegraph operators. Telegraph pylons threw sparks. Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.

More recently, in 1989, we lost control of a few sats, radio transmissions were toast, and SW radio was non-existent, in addition to most of Quebec being without power.. Because of a solar flare...

Anyway, back on topic.

 

[Jimru]

WOW! That would be a HIPPO and despite the fact that others have spelled HIPAA as HIPPA (including myself) on this thread no one has spelled it HIPPO. HIPPA, HIPAA, or even HIPPO (?) in this case, however, everyone understands what we were talking about. But if it makes you feel better to point it out I guess that is OK. Sad that is the case though...

Christian KF4ZMB

I put all kindsa lights and sirens on my HIPPO, but he refuses to budge.

 

[KF4ZMB]

I too wonder what kind of scenario these hams are envisioning...

I can only really think of one, and if that one happens lets just say those hams will have a fun time trying to get their radios working after the EMP pulses

See that's a great point. There seems to be -- and I realize I am somewhat rehashing the same argument here -- this belief that amateur radio is somehow the cockroach of the communications world if you understand what I mean. True, amateur radio hobbyists who are really big into homebrew equipment might be able to build up communications after an EMP, but this would most likely be something like CW transmission only. Which, I should point out, is in a way an "encrypted" transmission anymore in that fewer and fewer people seem to know morse code (and why not since it isn't used like it used to be). Now before I get all the "but that's a transmission mode not encryption" responses I perfectly understand this, but I was just making a comparison on the basis of being able to understand what is being conveyed in the message. And morse code can be "encrypted" in that you could send messages via morse code that require the use of a "key" to decode. This type of "encryption" is, of course, the oldest way of transmitting secret information. ABC123 without the code key might not mean much but with the key it might mean "move the EOC to Plan B" or something. Digitally encrypted radio transmissions are, after all, just a somewhat newer method in the field of cryptology. Anyway, I understand I am digressing away from the subject at hand here, but I still feel that it is highly unlikely that if all public safety radio systems, cell phones, data methods, satellite transmissions, etc. failed that amateur radios would somehow be the only communications system left working. The argument has, for some reason, taken the "if the local communications scheme fails then ONLY amateur radio is left" approach which might have been true fifty years ago but is not anymore.

Christian KF4ZMB

 

[KF4ZMB]

I put all kindsa lights and sirens on my HIPPO, but he refuses to budge.

But can you get it out of the water without it trying to eat you?

 

[KF4ZMB]

The most critical information I can see being relayed, is 'we have a patient here (on dialysis, needing medication, lost an inhaler, etc) who needs (...........).

Now, you don't need to encrypt that, #1. #2, it takes 2 seconds to get consent. #3, if it is THAT dire, and the patient will die, the name of the person is irrelevant.

I completely agree. Not to mention that this scenario happens every day of the year all over the world even without a disaster. When a person needs to dispatch an ambulance to the local YMCA because a boy that has asthma is having difficulty breathing and lost his inhaler they don't need to use an encrypted system to give out any of this. The people who support this approach in a disaster situation have not really given reason, in my very humble opinion, to make us believe that this would somehow "need" to be the case in a disaster. Why make the communications system more tedious at the very time it needs to be more streamlined? So, I agree with your point here.

Not to mention that most of the public safety field responders I have worked with over the years know that you push the PTT button before speaking. Now they may know more, and I am not intending to be rude here, but in their activities they do not need to know whether or not encryption is used on their system or even what system they use. The radio becomes a tool to help them do their job, and when it doesn't work they notify the Communications Center, etc. who notifies the Radio Techs if they aren't present in the Comm Center to begin with and they go from there. For them on their end the transmission comes through anyway even if the system is encrypted. In a disaster when they are even more stressed I find it hard to believe, no matter what the EM/EOC might want, that John Doe Deputy, EMT, Firefighter, etc. is going to say "hey will your radio let me talk to dispatch ... oh it will good ... oh wait before I key up I need to make sure you are in the encrypted mode and have the correct key". This simply doesn't work this way. Nor is a doctor at a hospital, who might rarely use a radio at all, going to be concerned if they are requesting help for a patient of a disaster only over an encrypted system (I find it unlikely the doctor would even be at the radio during that time at all).

Christian KF4ZMB

 

[Dude111]

Do we NOT have enough encryption elsewhere in the spectrum??

Why is it needed ANYWHERE OVER THE AIR????

Everyone knows RADIO IS NOT A PRIVATE PLATFORM,so why are they trying to make it such??

 

[com501]

Encrypt everything.

 

[DaveNF2G]

I do not say this as an attempt to cut off discussion.

We are beginning to talk in circles here. It is clear that some favor the proposal and some do not. The points of agreement and disagreement are clear. One could easily go through this thread and compile a roster of the Ayes and the Nays by name.

Unfortunately, none of that would have any effect whatsoever on what the FCC does about the petition after the comment period is over. Several participants in this thread, on both sides, have commendably participated in the official conversation - the one that really counts - by posting their comments to the FCC's EFS.

Many of us have had a more than adequate opportunity here to learn about the issue, give our views, and debate/argue with others who disagree. If there is anything new to say, then let's hear it. But let's not forget that it only really matters if the FCC gets to read it, which isn't happening here in the RR forums.

 

[Dude111]

Well Dave maybe they do read the bases here! (If so,maybe this thread will help)