Presidential inauguration interoperability

[canthonysmith]

As many people know, multiple states send groups of state troopers to D.C. for the inauguration. Does anyone know how communications are handled for all of these additional law enforcement agencies bringing a variety of radios from their state systems? I was curious if they used national interop channels, patched multiple bands of interop frequencies together for the event, or if anything is used at all. I know that in most photos that states have posted on social media the troopers were all carrying their state issued radios.

 

[jkahn]

Our local group, Capitol Hill Monitors, just published their Presidential Inaugural special edition newsletter, which can be found here:

https://henney.com/chm/0125/chm0125.pdf
Scanning the 60th Presidential Inauguration

The contributors do a really good job every 4 years to make this a worthwhile endeavor. This is probably the 4th or 5th time this has been done. Enjoy.

 

[BinaryMode]

from the PDF:

Since the 2017 inauguration, news reports surfaced that
the Russians had successfully hacked the FBI’s en-
crypted radio systems. Activity on the Bureau’s radio
channels had also declined in past years. One might
also expect the agency to move frequencies to conform
with the NTIA band plans. What radio traffic that cur-
rently exists is light and encrypted.

Hacked how? Encryption? The system? What?

 

[ecps92]

As many people know, multiple states send groups of state troopers to D.C. for the inauguration. Does anyone know how communications are handled for all of these additional law enforcement agencies bringing a variety of radios from their state systems? I was curious if they used national interop channels, patched multiple bands of interop frequencies together for the event, or if anything is used at all. I know that in most photos that states have posted on social media the troopers were all carrying their state issued radios.

VHF, UHF, 700/800 common Interops. (See/Google the NIFOG) also from past experience they have been known to PAIR Officers up with a LOCAL who then has the normal radio channels

 

[maus92]

from the PDF:



Hacked how? Encryption? The system? What?

We don't know what "hacked" means in this context. Did they brute force decrypt AES? - doubtful. Did they somehow obtain the keys and fab a keyloader? - maybe. This assumes the FBI was using AES, but maybe they were using a less secure algo. Perhaps there was a "man-in-the middle" attack. We just don't know all the details, and how much of the story is actually true.