The Official Thread: Live audio feeds, scanners, and... wait for it.. ENCRYPTION!

[kc2asb]

Here in my town they CAN do this. Data was usually on TAC 2. They also have MDTs in the car. Yet they chose to encrypt the entire thing shutting out the public and the press at large. When I could monitor I heard things that NEVER got reported on that should have. This is what I'm referring to about transparency. But again, ws.

That was the situation in my town also. On traffic stops, the initial call to run the plates was made on dispatch channel 1. The officer was then told to "go to 2" for the driver's info. Channel 2 was encrypted. It was standard procedure to transmit PII only on a secure channel. Now, police dispatch and the fire department is 100% encrypted.

There are valid arguments on both sides of this issue and I do get them. Hopefully, it will result in a solution that both sides can happily live with, but that is probably wishful thinking.

 

[BinaryMode]

Absolutely not all.
MDT's are great in the car. Not so great when on foot. Or when driving, especially fast. Or when the officer has his/her hands full.

What part of encrypted TAC channels/MDTs do you not understand?

I understand what you are saying, but your point of view as a scanner hobbyist isn't letting you see the entire picture. That's why we share our point of view.

You keep mentioning this "scanner hobbyist" thing, but it's much more than that as I have pointed out. As it stands now with encryption, transparency and accountability are in the toilet. The departments can filter what ever they want. The press are blinded. And during a major emergency those who wish to know what is going on can't. Like the aforementioned tornado, earthquake, flood, hurricane, dam break, wild fire, etc.

The requirement to protect CJI/PII is not optional. Doesn't matter what happened in the past.

What part of encrypted TAC channels/MDTs do you not understand? It's very doable. And like I already mentioned, many departments share a dispatch feed that is delayed.

The press has other ways of gathering news and public safety agencies have other ways of getting them the info they need. The world does not revolve around scanners.

I know that the press has other means, but as the world does not revolve around scanners, so does it seem not to revolve around commonsense or the idea that public safety serves the community at large with OUR tax dollars. We as citizens are in control, not the government. We are a government by the people for the people, and that's the way the world NEEDS to revolve! Again, there is more here than just the scanner community.

Addendum:

All this talk about CJI/PII is a massive joke. Take HIPAA for example. Data brokers and the government have your information. Yet it's supposed to be highly regarded as private. Never mind the fact all doctor's offices, hospitals and a dentist office is running an operating system known as Winblows 10 or 11 that POURS telemetry! Never mind the fact there are database breaches every - single - freaking - day! And what is the DOJ doing about it? What is congress doing about it? I could grep a leaked database and find any judge, politician, lawyer, anyone. Because EVERYONE'S data is breached. Yet we have to concede to the fact that CJI/PII is like HIPAA or something? And because of that public safety communications that chose NSA level encryption can't even offer a dispatch only delayed feed? Is that is not reasonable? Really?! Not even during times of mother nature's fury?

Again, this country is no better than a Soviet Communist bloc country. Where the PD has military gear and the EPA has guns and night vision.

 

[MTS2000des]

Again, this country is no better than a Soviet Communist bloc country. Where the PD has military gear and the EPA has guns and night vision.

In the UK and most of the EU, public safety communications has been on encrypted TETRA for nearly two decades. The technology of LTE integration is spreading like wildfire. In a decade, most populous cities may very well be using LTE/5GNR/6G or some converged system. The reality is the nature of radio communications is moving into the next phase of it's evolution and comsec is "built-in" not "bolt on" like it was 20 years ago.

One can decry corruption, transparency et al and it isn't going to stop or even slow down the pace of progress. As far as politics, well be careful as this will get one censored quicker than you can stay "Stalag 17" round these parts but I don't disagree with you.

 

[buddrousa]

And I offer this.
If you do not like the way things are you have 2 choices.
1. Move somewhere else.
2. Run for President and change the Laws to suit you if the rest of the Government lets you.

 

[EAFrizzle]

Every time I check in on this thread, I'm somehow reminded of Lawnmower Steve...

 

[kc2asb]

In the UK and most of the EU, public safety communications has been on encrypted TETRA for nearly two decades. The technology of LTE integration is spreading like wildfire. In a decade, most populous cities may very well be using LTE/5GNR/6G or some converged system. The reality is the nature of radio communications is moving into the next phase of it's evolution and comsec is "built-in" not "bolt on" like it was 20 years ago.

LTE is truly game over for us in the radio hobby as there is no way to monitor it. Not that encryption wasn't, but there are systems employing encryption which have talk groups that are either partially encrypted or fully in the clear.

One can decry corruption, transparency et al and it isn't going to stop or even slow down the pace of progress. As far as politics, well be careful as this will get one censored quicker than you can stay "Stalag 17" round these parts but I don't disagree with you.

Absolutely, there is no stopping the march of technology. Scanner enthusiasts and the media are obviously not the first or even third concern as departments make choices about their communications systems. In the US, we've had the ability to listen in on our local public safety departments for nearly a century. It's just difficult for many of us (myself included) to come to terms with being cut off.

I think RR had a forum for political discussions at one time, but there is no such animal in the Tavern section now. There is a forum for religion, though.

 

[kc2asb]

All this talk about CJI/PII is a massive joke.

It's not a joke, but to use a centuries old cliche, it does seem like fixing the barn door after the horse ran away. As you said, there have been and continue to be many serious breaches of our data through so-called secure systems. The chances of identity theft from having your name and D/L, etc transmitted over a non-encrypted radio seem to be slim at best. Too bad these concerns about PII were not front and center 30 years ago when the internet was just getting on its feet.

 

[BinaryMode]

In the UK and most of the EU, public safety communications has been on encrypted TETRA for nearly two decades. The technology of LTE integration is spreading like wildfire. In a decade, most populous cities may very well be using LTE/5GNR/6G or some converged system. The reality is the nature of radio communications is moving into the next phase of it's evolution and comsec is "built-in" not "bolt on" like it was 20 years ago.

One can decry corruption, transparency et al and it isn't going to stop or even slow down the pace of progress. As far as politics, well be careful as this will get one censored quicker than you can stay "Stalag 17" round these parts but I don't disagree with you.

In my state the P25 system has been in place for about 23 years now.

If a scanner manufacture can get a licensee for LTE I wouldn't exactly call it game over. But I don't know all the ramifications of that.

 

[kc2asb]

If a scanner manufacture can get a licensee for LTE I wouldn't exactly call it game over. But I don't know all the ramifications of that.

I don't know either. Even if they did get a licensee, wouldn't there be some form of encryption employed? Seems like we would be right back where we are now, lamenting encryption and discussing the merits of delayed dispatch channels.

 

[chrismol1]

Scanner mfgs getting a license for LTE? Thats a new one! Haha. You do realize that's talking about cellular networks, that's what is meant by LTE.

 

[kc2asb]

Scanner mfgs getting a license for LTE? You do realize that's talking about cellular networks, that's what is meant by LTE

That is what I thought we were talking about also, as mentioned by @MTS2000des in post #1,763. I assumed no scanner would ever have the ability to monitor these comms. Game over for the hobby.


MTS2000des said:
In the UK and most of the EU, public safety communications has been on encrypted TETRA for nearly two decades. The technology of LTE integration is spreading like wildfire. In a decade, most populous cities may very well be using LTE/5GNR/6G or some converged system. The reality is the nature of radio communications is moving into the next phase of it's evolution and comsec is "built-in" not "bolt on" like it was 20 years ago.

 

[mmckenna]

If a scanner manufacture can get a licensee for LTE I wouldn't exactly call it game over. But I don't know all the ramifications of that.

Couple of challenges with that:

LTE is a very broadband signal, often 10MHz wide, and there's two of those, uplink and downlink. That's beyond what a consumer scanner can handle.

LTE isn't just one band, the bands used for this service are all over the place, including up into the 2.5GHz range, well beyond what consumer scanners will handle.

Traffic is packetized, so simply listening in on the data stream isn't enough, the scanner would need to pull specific packets out.

Traffic is duplex, so it would need to be able to listen to both uplink and downlink at the same time.

And to top it all off, LTE Is encrypted, and we know the chances of getting the encryption keys.

Such traffic would include text messages, e-mail, video, photos, web surfing, as well as everything else that happens on these devices. Even if just a LMR radio with LTE capability, there's a lot of other information in the packets.

Cell sites are small, on purpose. Unless you were on the same cell as the radio, you would not even hear the traffic, it's not like a simulcast system where the same traffic is sent from all cells. It's more like a trunked system without simulcast. You'd have to have connection to the exact same tower as the device.

No cell carrier is going to give access to that level. The FCC isn't going to allow it, same reason they had the "cellular blocked" limitation on scanners back in the 90's.

 

[kc2asb]

Excellent explanation, as always, sir. To put it simply, LTE is lights out for the scanner hobby. Even collecting talk group ID's is out the window.

I do remember how quickly calls handed off from the towers that were in range of my radio when listening to analog cellphones in the 90's.

Would it be safe to assume that cities like NYC and Chicago that just installed new digital/encrypted systems will not be going over to LTE any time soon? Or does their new equipment have LTE capability already? Sorry for all the questions - just a fascinating topic.

LTE is a very broadband signal, often 10MHz wide, and there's two of those, uplink and downlink. That's beyond what a consumer scanner can handle.

LTE isn't just one band, the bands used for this service are all over the place, including up into the 2.5GHz range, well beyond what consumer scanners will handle.

Traffic is packetized, so simply listening in on the data stream isn't enough, the scanner would need to pull specific packets out.

Traffic is duplex, so it would need to be able to listen to both uplink and downlink at the same time.

And to top it all off, LTE Is encrypted, and we know the chances of getting the encryption keys.

Such traffic would include text messages, e-mail, video, photos, web surfing, as well as everything else that happens on these devices. Even if just a LMR radio with LTE capability, there's a lot of other information in the packets.

Cell sites are small, on purpose. Unless you were on the same cell as the radio, you would not even hear the traffic, it's not like a simulcast system where the same traffic is sent from all cells. It's more like a trunked system without simulcast. You'd have to have connection to the exact same tower as the device.

No cell carrier is going to give access to that level. The FCC isn't going to allow it, same reason they had the "cellular blocked" limitation on scanners back in the 90's.

 

[mmckenna]

Would it be safe to assume that cities like NYC and Chicago that just installed new digital/encrypted systems will not be going over to LTE any time soon? Or does their new equipment have LTE capability already? Sorry for all the questions - just a fascinating topic.

I don't know what they have, so can't comment on NYC specifically.

I can say that many agencies are looking forward and starting to move in this direction. An agency about an hour north of me went with Harris radios and they use LTE as their primary connection. LMR is still in place, but secondary. This makes a big difference in coverage as LTE covered better indoors. Where the old LMR system had a lot of dead zones, and it would have been expensive to fix, relying on the LTE network ultimately saved them a lot of money.

Georgia State Patrol now uses Harris radios and LTE is primary, LMR is backup.

State of California CRIS statewide trunked has the Motorola SmartConnect system and if users go with SmartConnect capable radios (APX Next), they can roam between LTE and LMR coverage.

When I replaced our PD radios, we went with Harris so we had the LTE capability. Haven't cut over to it yet, but it's on the roadmap.

Here's the big benefit:
A big part of public safety radio coverage is getting inside buildings. That is getting harder and harder to do.
Bi-Directional Antenna systems are not the best solution. They require a lot of maintenance and careful design. They often cause more issues than they solve. They are also very expensive for the building owners.
LTE can solve a lot of those issues since cell sites are closer and the frequencies used can penetrate buildings better.
That makes a big difference with residential construction also. So, officer, paramedic, firefighters inside your home or commercial building can benefit greatly from this.
Most of these systems can also use WiFi. In a place like a school, hospital or courthouse, the WiFi network can be setup with an ssid that the radios can connect to.
Another benefit is that officers can now travel outside the radio coverage area and still be in contact with dispatch. A couple of our lieutenants live outside the area, but found it beneficial to be in contact with dispatch as they headed home, or if needing to respond to an issue out of hours.

Now, a bunch of people will try to convince you that such a system is a bad idea, will never work, will fail when needed, is costly, etc. But these systems are already in use by large agencies and it's working well. It's frequently talked about in trade magazines, conferences, trade shows etc. This isn't something new, it's been around for a while and it works well. The LTE ship has sailed, and LMR is onboard and enjoying an adult beverage.

But it's not something that can be monitored with a scanner, and never will be. It's not going away, either.

 

[MTS2000des]

We have SmartConnect and do P25 over LTE. It's the beginning of the end for LMR. Not now, but eventually, after our next SUA/SUA+/MAP or whatever, will most likely be the last call at the bar for LMR. In 10 years, I can see the LMR side being set aside as a "backup" and all provisioning of talk groups set to "broadband preferred" instead of "LMR preferred" as broadband capable subscribers are programmed.

Cities such as NYC and Miami-Dade are already doing the same with huge investment in converged subscriber radios and networks.

 

[kc2asb]

Now, a bunch of people will try to convince you that such a system is a bad idea, will never work, will fail when needed, is costly, etc. But these systems are already in use by large agencies and it's working well. It's frequently talked about in trade magazines, conferences, trade shows etc. This isn't something new, it's been around for a while and it works well. The LTE ship has sailed, and LMR is onboard and enjoying an adult beverage.

Sure, we hear about cell networks going down, so my thought was also of LTE outages vs the reliability of LMR. However, as indicated in the post above, the LMR can work as a backup if LTE goes down. More reliable coverage inside buildings is a major advantage. Very interesting, and thanks.

 

[MTS2000des]

Carrier aggregation is the answer to network failures. We practice the same thing with LMR via cross programming, ISSI, etc.

 

[mmckenna]

Sure, we hear about cell networks going down, so my thought was also of LTE outages vs the reliability of LMR. However, as indicated in the post above, the LMR can work as a backup if LTE goes down. More reliable coverage inside buildings is a major advantage. Very interesting, and thanks.

They do go down. But so do LMR sites.
Towers get knocked down. Microwave dishes gets knocked out of alignment. Utility power goes down. Generators fail to start. Transfer switches fail to transfer. Fuel runs out. Fuel gets contaminated. Fiber suffers from 'back hoe fade'. Vandalism.

I live in a somewhat backwater area and the last time I actually lost cell service was probably 15 years ago. And it lasted about 30 minutes.

Cell sites also often have some amount of overlap, so losing a site doesn't mean service is lost. Throughput might be impacted, but prioritizing public safety users (FirstNet, etc) helps address that. Plus some devices, like Cradlepoint modems, can run different carrier SIM cards, so reliance one carrier isn't a limitation. Since the Cradlepoints can run WiFi, the radios can connect through that.

Economy of scale plays into this, also. The cost per subscriber for a properly built out public safety LMR site is really high. Spreading that same cost across thousands of cellular customers reduces it considerably.

In the state of California, the PUC has required most cell sites to have an onsite generator and substantial amounts of fuel storage to address disasters and the reliance on cellular to reach the public with notifications. Most macro-cell sites run a considerable amount of battery backup.

Backhaul is often the bigger challenge, but that's not the issue it once was.

 

[AK9R]

While LTE is certainly a possible direction for public safety communications now and into the future, perhaps the LTE discussion is off-topic for a thread about live audio feeds and encryptions. Yes, LTE is an answer to the problem of live feeds, but LTE is pretty far outside the scope of the typical over-the-air scanner listening hobby.