Bought my SDS200 at the beginning of the year. New Braunfels, Tx already encrypted then a month later Comal County S.O. went E. Looks like now I have an $800 black paperweight. Can still get Fire/EMS, so there's that. Really wish there was a workaround for encryption but it's against the law whch I think is wrong. anyway, rant over. GOD bless y'all
The big E
- Thread starter Checkmateking2
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The best "workaround" I've found is listen to the neighboring agencies that are Not encrypted. Other city agencies, State police, Ems agencies to glean information that often gets leaked by other radio traffic. Interop frequencies are a good source too.
As I've said time and time again whenever I encounter these threads: One must learn to broaden their listening horizons when encryption comes to your area. Tune around and find new & interesting (or mundane) things to listen to. The scanning hobby is what you make of it. When my county police went encrypted I shifted interests to air, rail, businesses, etc
Elvin Hayes - Wikipedia
What I don't like most about encryption is that digital police stations take $20,000,000 of our tax money for just maintenance every year and after we've paid all that and who knows how much more, they took away our right to monitor by encrypting it. I'd like to know what I'm getting for my money, besides their never-ending excuse that they don't have enough money to hire enough police to serve and protect our cities. The police department in my town won't even take fingerprints at crime scenes, saying they have no fingerprint technician, as if they can't contract it out like they do their parking tickets.
It's like rolling the dice , $800 plus on something you want to use it for but can't , or only use it for a short time ! I certainly don't plan on buying another scanner for police and fire monitoring , only purchase I'll make is for a quality rail scanner perhaps
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There is no "right" for the public to monitor law enforcement communications..
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
Thanks for reminding me, I'm going to order one of these for my office and hook it up to a switch I can flip.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
That would defeat the purpose of encryption.
The work around is:
- Get a job with the agency as a sworn officer or dispatcher, get issued a radio.
- Freedom of Information Act requests, but PII/CJI will be redacted.
That it is.
You do have a right to listen to any radio broadcast that isn't encrypted, except phones. They abbreviate your right to listen to police calls simply with encryption, so encryption is the only restriction.
Border_Dave
Member
I wasn't aware that listening to encrypted comms is illegal (not that I even could). Is that a federal law?
Decrypting is against the law. Uniden scanners cannot decrypt. Unication radios can, but you need the encryption key. Being an officer or police chaplain can afford you the key for the talkgroup you're assigned to.
Unauthorized decrypting is against the law.
nd5y
Member
It's a federal law. It doesn't necessarily have to be encrypted communications.
Read Title 18 USC Chapter 119 Sec. 2510, 2511, 2512.
kayn1n32008
ØÆSØ Say it, say 'ENCRYPTION'
You will never be given a plain text encryption key... an an employee, you will be assigned a PV and portable that are key koaded.
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YES, it always has been.
Project25_MASTR
Monitoring
The topic and the exact location the OP stated came up in a COML course yesterday that I crashed for a few minutes. Funny coincidence.
I think it's interesting that a lot of people demand the key material to the encryption without knowing that 98% of the time the actual key material isn't accessible to anyone. One typically automatically generates the key material either via a Key Management Facility (KMF) or Key Fill Device (KFD) and then transfer the key between other KMFs or KFDs (vendor and settings allowing). At no point does anyone ever see the actual key string and most KMFs and KFDs are designed in a manner which that material cannot be extracted once it is put into the device. The only real exception to this is if you were to key fill a KFDtool, KFDmicro, etc.
I think it's interesting that a lot of people demand the key material to the encryption without knowing that 98% of the time the actual key material isn't accessible to anyone. One typically automatically generates the key material either via a Key Management Facility (KMF) or Key Fill Device (KFD) and then transfer the key between other KMFs or KFDs (vendor and settings allowing). At no point does anyone ever see the actual key string and most KMFs and KFDs are designed in a manner which that material cannot be extracted once it is put into the device. The only real exception to this is if you were to key fill a KFDtool, KFDmicro, etc.
kayn1n32008
ØÆSØ Say it, say 'ENCRYPTION'
On a radio network where encryption has been properly deployed, encryption keys are generated by the KMF. When transmitted over the air during a OTAR request, they encryption key(s) are encrypted before transmission with its own. key. A TEK, in plaintext, is a compromised key and needs to be discarded, and a new key used
Project25_MASTR
Monitoring
What I find so funny is that there was "unusual" activity going on last week involving encrypted and unencrypted traffic on 13E, 200, VTACs, 7TACs and 8TACS and no one really even noticed the odd traffic about large wildland fire. For all of those hill country scanner groups not a word got said.
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I heard alot of what youre referring to. Was veey interesting. There was alot of encrypted traffic on 7TACs. I tried to drive around to see if i could find out what was goin on but couldnt find anything. Then i happened to notice a DPS big rig. I wonder of that was involved with it. I didnt see any smoke so im not sure it if was in relation to a fire
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