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

[paulears]

There are few younger scanner users in the UK that even know our emergency service communication used to be available for anyone to listen to. A few complained using the weak arguments like public money paid for it so the public should be able to hear which of course is rubbish. We pay for fancy fast vehicles too but can’t ask to drive them or have a ride in a helicopter. In this dangerous age, they need secrecy more than ever! Our government are a bit lax on radio issues but anybody sticking Heathrow or Gatwick airport streams on the net get jumped on very quickly!

 

[scanmanmi]

The domestic terrorists are listening.

I dare you to prove it.

 

[paulears]

If you were a terrorist, you can bet you’d do it. You don’t have to be a genius to understand communication security. The world’s arenas forces and security services have been pretty keen on it since ww2. This of course doesn’t even touch organised crime and less criminal things like where the radar speed guns are hiding. Police become less efficient when the criminals know what they’re doing! It inconveniences hobbiests! Sad but necessary. The denial merchants who do seem prevalent in the US about so many things make me question sanity sometimes.

 

[scannerizer]

Please allow me to bite:
Lately, I've been listening to the Skokie (IL) Police Primary Channel through Broadcastify's Calls platform. Let me tell you - every so often you can hear something IN THE CLEAR. You read right! Most transmissions, naturally, are garbled, but every now and again it feels like the encryption "breaks," for lack of a better word.

What then does that say to our brave men and women? THAT ENCRYPTION IS NOT FOOLPROOF AND NOT WORTH WASTING MONEY ON. They have MDTs and they can also equip officers with handportable PDAs for relying of sensitive info (same with fire/medics). I could not believe my ears, that's for sure...

 

[paulears]

That's simply not possible - if you hear something in the clear, then it was transmitted in the clear. Some repeaters were programmed, and this applies to all comms systems really, to pass through analogue and digital during the crossover period. Two groups of users could just exist together although it was a mess (here in the UK with business comms) because digital radios ignore analogue and analogues look for the CTCSS - but it sort of worked. With digital, it's problematic to get continuous audio from digital systems when signals approach the boundary level - and the stream gets chopped resulting in that Dalek like speech that stutters and slows, then cuts. In the UK we have had encrypted emergency comms for quite a while now and it's reaching the end of it's life and soon to be replaced. It is not foolproof with dead spots and other issues, but pretty much it has worked and also for the first time allowed ALL emergency services to talk to each other if the need arises. It never replaces digital with analogue. It's completely different and there is NO analogue fallback in the system - at all. You don't have analogue facilities in the box whatsoever. If you listen on a scanner, then you will be hearing things the digital users cannot. It's unlikely, but possible that maybe their system is dual mode, and they still have a few analogue radios that still work, but that's probably accident. Maybe if they do have a dual mode system, they kept the analogues for emergency backup - but encryption costs nothing - it's a feature of digital systems that takes just a mouse click to activate. All the hams are using digital systems now. I can pick up a radio, select a channel and have a chat with someday in the US, from my office in the UK. Ham systems have endless grief entering the right data in boxes to set things up, but once it's done it works brilliantly - but if everyone in the entire world put a tick in the encrypt box, and secretly shared the many digit number, then it would be useless to anyone without the key.

If you can hear plain speech = it was analogue, not faulty digital. Faulty digital is the sound of silence, or that horrible buzz saw noise - nothing else.

 

[MTS2000des]

Let me tell you - every so often you can hear something IN THE CLEAR. You read right! Most transmissions, naturally, are garbled, but every now and again it feels like the encryption "breaks," for lack of a better word.

Nothing "breaks". The subscriber unit is either not encrypted by user selection, or it's programming. Sorry but all the belief that encryption is infallible isn't going to make it go away. FWIW I manage a system with over 4,000 strapped encrypted subscribers and in 5 years, not one has "lost" it's keys, and the way we have setup the subscribers, users aren't able to disable encryption on the talkgroups where they are authorized to use it- it's known as strapping.

 

[jthorpe]

Please allow me to bite:
Lately, I've been listening to the Skokie (IL) Police Primary Channel through Broadcastify's Calls platform. Let me tell you - every so often you can hear something IN THE CLEAR. You read right! Most transmissions, naturally, are garbled, but every now and again it feels like the encryption "breaks," for lack of a better word.

What then does that say to our brave men and women? THAT ENCRYPTION IS NOT FOOLPROOF AND NOT WORTH WASTING MONEY ON. They have MDTs and they can also equip officers with handportable PDAs for relying of sensitive info (same with fire/medics). I could not believe my ears, that's for sure...

Encryption doesn't break. Like MTS2000des said, I also do the same. I strap encryption on our TG's because I don't want a user who doesn't understand the select switch. It's either on or off. The system you're listening to probably has a user who every once in a while, selects to transmit in the clear by accident. First responders live on muscle memory. I try to eliminate as much as possible, any errors that can be made while they are operating in the "heat of battle" so to speak.

 

[mmckenna]

What then does that say to our brave men and women? THAT ENCRYPTION IS NOT FOOLPROOF AND NOT WORTH WASTING MONEY ON.

Except it doesn't necessarily cost money, so none may have been wasted.

I'm spec'ing out a new system right now for our PD. Harris is including single key encryption on their radios for free. The trunked system I run, all the radios included basic encryption standard.

The cost argument against encryption doesn't work.

They have MDTs and they can also equip officers with handportable PDAs for relying of sensitive info (same with fire/medics). I could not believe my ears, that's for sure...

Officers already carry smart phones, and those are encrypted.

 

[N1KK]

I think a lot of the concerns about Broadcastify and online feeds causing strong motivation for local and state governments to encrypt could be alleviated by Broadcastify imposing a delay on all transmitted feeds... nothing too crazy... maybe a 10 minute delay. This would significantly decrease any tactical gains by the "bad guys."

I've been looking at a way to do this delay on the transmission end so I can put a scanner feed for my local area online without compromising safety of local responders without relying on a 3rd party who has a financial stake in feeding news to the masses as fast as possible... but I am also looking at feeding my audio without using Broadcastify as I am not hugely in favor of an entity reaping big profits from something I would be providing for free.

I look at it from a safety point for the listener of a scanner/broadcastify. Knowing what's going on in the neighborhood before its to late and become obvious is important too. The Police can't be everywhere at the same time especially with the craziness of defunding going on.
Broadcastify offers awareness to the good guy too, a comfort levels especially with all the BLM riots going on today and how the Police are being held back from doing their job. I can understand the safety of the Police officer but awareness and safety of the neighborhood is important too. Scanners and Broadcastify offer
a great service keeping me informed. Its a trade off. There should be a happy medium never allowing 100% encryption always leaving the main dispatch channel in the clear. This also offers Transparency for the Police which can be positive, clearly showing the great work they do.
Gun sales are on the rise. Keeping people in the dark doesn't help.

 

[Ravenfalls]

Who likes this idea!?

 

[JD21960]

You mean during RIOTS? It's sad this has to even be mentioned. People have abused everything forever. Radio and freedom trampled under too because of their own felonious and violent behaviors. Instead of a hobby like those of us who are older ... the marxist and nihilist noobs of today use it as a tactical device against our Police neighbors, friends and relatives.

 

[Ravenfalls]

Attacks again LEO, Mass Shooting, Protest, Riot etc

Disable all streaming for that metro area for a period of time.
That time determined by local public safety until its deemed safe.

 

[phillydjdan]

It's too late. The damage is done. The LE community already hates that their activity had been streamed this far. And most are actively pushing to encrypt. Blanton should have thought about this 10 years ago

 

[Citywide173]

If you turn off the feed, you interfere with the revenue generating model. Lie down until that thought passes.

 

[Ravenfalls]

I heard that Fremont County, Colorado encrypted all their main dispatch talkgroups because they didn't want to be "live fed" on the internet. Looks like it worked...

I'm sure there are others...

Mosy all of Denver County FD & PD gone

 

[Ravenfalls]

It's too late. The damage is done. The LE community already hates that their activity had been streamed this far. And most are actively pushing to encrypt. Blanton should have thought about this 10 years ago

1000% agree.

 

[trentbob]

It's too late. The damage is done. The LE community already hates that their activity had been streamed this far. And most are actively pushing to encrypt. Blanton should have thought about this 10 years ago

Well Dan I wanted to give you a like but I see that the thread was moved and I'm unable to do so. We listen to Bucks County PA who never had issues with encryption. We had channels that were encrypted that could be used for Ops but dispatch was always in the clear until somebody started streaming them. Of course right away testing began and we had intermittent encryption on dispatch that was being streamed, now we have FULL encryption on police, very upsetting. Law enforcement has made it clear why we are encrypted.

Law enforcement has always told me in my career as a newspaperman that they had no problem with media types, First Responders and serious hobbyist buying sophisticated radio equipment with good intentions.

For five years we had the nxdn system in Trenton New Jersey in the clear but it was made known that if it was streamed they would throw the switch it was and they did.

I have been monitoring police since 1966 when I was 12 and I've listened every day since. You know how upset I am Dan that I can't hear the police anymore. My SDS 200 will be going on the market soon as well my apx 7000. Very upsetting.

 

[phillydjdan]

If you turn off the feed, you interfere with the revenue generating model. Lie down until that thought passes.

Considering I don't listen to the feeds at all... Done! 😁

 

[Ravenfalls]

If you turn off the feed, you interfere with the revenue generating model. Lie down until that thought passes.

Financial Gain is more important than Public Safety? These agencies are ENC specific for streaming.

ENC, does not cost much extra if not included.

San Bernardino County Sheriff

Vegas Metro PD

So Cal - Coachella Valley PD

Riverside County Fire made it clear, no streaming of East County Fire Dispatch for Coachella Valley. Thats the only hand shake agreement I'm aware of.

Riverside County Fire may move dispatch to the new Sheriff system. Tossing around dispatch ENC. Keep VHF f/g, tacs etc.

 

[MTS2000des]

ENC, does not cost much extra if not included.

Most digital subscribers include basic encryption for free. MSI APX radios came with single key ADP, and later, single key AES-256 (software encryption) at no charge.
The only cost would be adding it to consoles and the labor involved in programming, which is usually included in initial purchase.
The idea that "encryption adds tremendous expense" ended about 15 years ago. Every P25 vendor includes it in some form these days.