I was listening to MSP on the P25 Phase I system tonight when I overheard on SOPS that there are "new radios" with or radios with "updates pushed to them" as they were interfacing with Boston PD over a shooting. Supposedly BAPERN Central is encrypted or has encryption capabilities as well. This is just what I overheard on SOPS.
MSP SmartZone P25 Encryption updates
- Thread starter MikeWesty
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gillham
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I'd be very surprised if an interop/interagency talkgroup like BAPERN Central goes enc. Tac channels are a different story.
nikronzo
Active Member
BAPERN Central District is NOT encrypted, its a analog channel
BAPERN Central Tactical (different frequency) is a P25 channel that can support encryption.
BAPERN Central Tactical (different frequency) is a P25 channel that can support encryption.
This makes the most sense. I was wondering why they would encrypt a broadly used interop channel. In my defense, I was a bit tired and wanted to put the info out to see what the answer from the community was. 🧐🙂
Encryption in the correct use cases can be good. Encryption of almost your entire radio system is not. Considering MSP outfits their patrol units with Uniden scanners (the last model I saw being a BCD996P2 or XT I believe) as well as several mutual aid communities that have scanners in cruisers and apparatus, it hurts the ability to get clear and concise info directly from the source. I was with a fire agency that used APX radios on a Motorola Type II P25 system. We had encrypted channels for sensitive information, like patient identification info, etc. The county police encrypted TAC/Spec Ops channels but left all the patrol sectors, etc open. Of course this didn’t matter if I was on-duty as all the PD channels were programmed into the APX’s we had in receive only mode, this is a bad area down south so a lot of the times we were listening for shooting scene’s to be cleared to head in. Most department’s don’t need hard encryption, but the modern radio manufacturing industry is definitely pushing for it.
gillham
Member
Pretty often I hear road troopers self dispatching or radioing the barracks to reach out to a municipality because they catch something of interest on the scanner.
If the trend towards encryption continues, those days are numbered.
I think it’ll be very unlikely that they’ll install a separate radio with keys just for scanning. I’m also willing to bet the average Trooper doesn’t know how to modify a scan list on the fly.
Exactly. Nor do I think the commonwealth would approve spending for a 3rd party service vendor to modify the scanners to receive encryption. I listen to this system day and night as I am only 6 miles from repeater carrying towers both to the north and south of me, I also live in a cell dead-zone due to an airport right next door. So I can pretty often hear a lot of the traffic the system carries. Especially all the way out to B-Troop, C8/Small Town TG, and even FCECS on good nights in the summer and all day during the winter. I hear exactly what you said about the Troopers catching traffic before Control even knows a thing literally all of the time. Due to the amount of new Regional PSAP’s and with some municipalities still providing themselves their own sworn/civilian dispatching services, there is a need for non-encrypted radio interoperability between Regional PSAP to PSAP and Regional PSAP to municipalities who still have their own dispatchers. I even hear Troop base station’s dispatching Troopers based off of what they heard on their scanner! I highly doubt it will massively blow up, however, in my opinion the manufacturing companies are always going to position it as a selling point for COMSEC and “Officer Safety” so they can get more money.
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Also to clarify when I say sensitive information, I don’t mean radio reports to hospitals, running NCIC/CJIS checks, etc. None of those violate HIPAA. What I mean is, with the county I was in, we had a living pop of 1 million+ people, with more in the county during the day to work. That agency handles over 125k calls a year in just Fire/EMS alone. It is a huge county mileage wise. So, if I start a transport of a trauma patient to a trauma center 25 minutes away and the State Trooper on scene needs patient information, DL info, SSN, etc, and I have no cell coverage. I can switch to an EMS Tac with encryption meant for relaying information like that to say, an engine company or EMS Duty Officer still on scene, who can relay that to the State Trooper. I’m all for listening to CMED reports as well as the interop channels for MedFlight, and part of the reason those aren’t encrypted is because you aren’t giving out the info that can actually identify that person.
kayn1n32008
ØÆSØ Say it, say 'ENCRYPTION'
This can all be done over secure talkgroups. Especially with OTAR/OTAP. You don't even need to physically touch the radio after initial programming amd UKEK loading. The ONLY need to touch the radio again, is if it is intentionally zeroized by the user.
Yes I am aware of the OTAR/OTAP, but I am talking about small town departments and Regional PSAP’s whom run their own independent radio, mostly non-trunked analog or P25 conventional. Most of them around me are licensed well into the 2030’s. They have encryption capabilities but only use it when necessary. When asking for Mutual Aid, 99% of the time they are doing it on that PSAP/ECC or Department’s main channel.
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