paulears
Member
This! We all expect privacy in our lives, so there are no reasons at all to not provide it when we can.?
The Official Thread: Live audio feeds, scanners, and... wait for it.. ENCRYPTION!
- Thread starter blantonl
- Start date
People can rationalize and justify anything if they look long and hard enough for reasons to do so.
paulears
Member
Pretty much it will be airband and marine band that will be the only thing to listen too - quite soon I suspect.
I think the unavoidable RoIP (Firstnet style) revolution will come to pass sooner rather than later. I think those who remain on "repeaters" will be the same departments who are currently still on simplex analog VHF or similar, or for some technical reason can't access reliable 5G or 6G...like Alaska State Police.
Paul
...And maybe railroads.
paulears
Member
- I'm in the UK, we've lost these already.
#tetrapocolypse
Stephen
Member
At least someone made a good chunk of $$ off broadcastify before the scanner hobby went into the ground. They helped sink the very hobby that they began trying to promote with this website.
This is exactly correct... AGREED
I find it ironic, after 9/11 I figured that they were going to do something to encrypt or at least stop making scanners with airband. Never happened. What's happening today is even worse. Welp, we had a good run. Glad I didn't buy an SDS-100. It'll be a really interesting paperweight though.
Oh, and the fishermen will probably go encrypted too. Don't want to give away their position to other fishermen if they're hauling a good catch
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The problem is that a public employee has no legal expectation to privacy while working for that public entity.
This statement completely contradicts your original statement below. Do I think that departments that are encrypting are using it as a quick solution to avoid addressing problems, absolutely, but saying EVERYONE has a right to privacy isn't accurate when it comes to public employees.
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I get the nuance, but a public employee using a public radio system in the course of their duties do not have a right to the privacy of those transmissions. Some circumstances require secrecy, but that's an entirely different animal.
The thing I find most frustrating with the loss of transparency is the safety aspect for those of us who actually listened for our own situational awareness and safety. In the last 6 years, I've had 2 tornado calls (That we heard and prepped for 4 to 6 minutes before they were broadcast on the weather emergency links). More than a dozen times I've had calls for drunk drivers on the very road I was on, so I pulled off a sideroad and took another route. 1 of those involved a head on collision from a wrong way driver 1 minute after I pulled off the main road which involved the red Chevy truck I was behind. Had I not heard that call, I could have been in that accident. And when there was a dog on the loose in my neighborhood (I have 3 small Shi-tzu puppers), I pulled them inside just as the dog came up the street and attacked the neighbors dog. Also had several calls where criminals were breaking into cars or suspicious persons were in our neighborhood, so I kicked the outside lights on and patrolled the yard. These are just the primary cases. There have been dozens and dozens of more items that just weren't as significant. Not to mention the missing persons. Had a young autistic boy run away from his mom this winter when she was carrying groceries into the apartment. They did not call in the volunteer search (Still don't know why) because it was 28 degrees out and the boy only had a light jacket, no gloves or hat or anything. Myself, my wife and my oldest immediately jumped in our cars and headed out to assist in the search. It took nearly 2 hours to find the boy (He was curled up behind a dumpster at a local gas station about a half mile from his apartment). It was a volunteer fire department person who heard the call over the scanner that found the boy, not the police.
I just feel blind now, like I used to be able to see, and now, I'm walking around blind. There is so much benefit to open broadcast, and absolutely zero detriment (As proven by every case study done so far) to open broadcast. What is the real reason for "Hiding" this information. For taking this extra piece of situational awareness away from the public? There is no justification for it.
I just feel blind now, like I used to be able to see, and now, I'm walking around blind. There is so much benefit to open broadcast, and absolutely zero detriment (As proven by every case study done so far) to open broadcast. What is the real reason for "Hiding" this information. For taking this extra piece of situational awareness away from the public? There is no justification for it.
I wish there were some mechanism in the P25 trunking spec that allowed for on-the-fly dispatcher console controlled talkgroup encryption...meaning the channel is clear until the dispatcher flips the E switch and then the channel is protected and mobile units are auto-E enabled. It's only a matter of time before all the trunking systems go off-line and are replaced by RoIP walkie talkies, even if that amounts to IP protocol over trunking system frequencies as data in areas where 5G or whatever would not be reliable. I wonder what "the news" will look like in a decade when everything is encrypted or unmonitorable, and "news" is whatever Joe Blow driving by happens to film or Tweets what he thinks is happening. If there becomes a monetary motivation to "citizwen journalize" reporting, and lookie-loo laws become defunt because every citizen is the media trying to make a buck...ugh, gives me a headache.
Paul
Paul
paulears
Member
In the UK, the complete reverse has always been the case. Radio has never been 'open', indeed, anyone putting Heathrow or Gatwick airport radio on the internet get closed down VERY quickly. We've never had this obsession with historic rights as anyone born in America takes for granted. If you are a scanner user here, then you have maritime, aircraft and analogue business radio available to you, and the legality of listening to those, strictly speaking, is that you CANNOT listen to anything other than broadcasting and ship-to shore or aircraft are not considered broadcasting. They obviously turn a blind eye to most causal listeners, but casual listeners who re-broadcast ANYTHING will get closed down if it comes to their attention. We also have new obsessive legislation that require business to reveal exactly how they keep information private, and how it is stored and controlled. The upshot is many business users who need to give information containing personal data, and this includes names and addresses are paranoid about passing it over radio systems, so going digital with encryption solves the data protection issue. A first responder given a name address and say a suspected heart attack, would risk a fine if they informed all and sundry that Mr Smith at number 22 had a potential heart complaint and if circulated could impact his employment prospects - that kind of silly stuff. So all our emergency services now use a Government system that is 100% secure. So secure that sometimes the Police find themselves unable to talk to other Police until links are approved - in my case even within one Police Service in a County. If there is no need to be able to be heard, it usually stays secure.
We have never had this notion that a public service equates to everyone being able to listen - our citizens have no built in right to be able to do this. We've never had it, any enthusiasts listening to emergency services were an inconvenience, and tolerated if they kept it quiet. Our news media have NEVER been able to broadcast stories obtained by intercepted communications. It hasn't been ever our way, and although some reporters may well have had a police scanner unofficially, now they cannot do it practically. We cope fine. America has joined the secrecy club and probably this is good. Nobody has ever provided a good reason to allow it - Terrorism clearly makes it stupid to allow people to hear the Police before they knock on your door. To the rest of the world we view your amazingly liberal gun laws with jaw dropping amazement of how stupid they are. Equally, we read the pro-gun lobby material about it's your right, Blah-blah-blah. It's just a really stupid right that has caused so much bad history. I'm not knocking the system, but when the rights were designed, it was possible justifiable, like so many other now unacceptable parts of history. You've sorted out so many of your bad legal historic rights, but guns? Over here, we always laugh when people go on holiday and come back with stories of Wallmart stores with sweets and candy in one aisle and bullets next to them. Two Hershey bares and a box of ammo please. To us, this is so laughable, it does colour our judgement on US law. Of course, every US citizen thinks their system is best. History suggests it probably isn't.
When our emergency services went encrypted, it annoyed our scanner users. The Government reaction was "tough - you shouldn't have been listening by the the Wireless Telegraphy Act law introduced just after WW2 - you've had sixty years grace, now ......hard luck". The general public never even noticed the change.
We have never had this notion that a public service equates to everyone being able to listen - our citizens have no built in right to be able to do this. We've never had it, any enthusiasts listening to emergency services were an inconvenience, and tolerated if they kept it quiet. Our news media have NEVER been able to broadcast stories obtained by intercepted communications. It hasn't been ever our way, and although some reporters may well have had a police scanner unofficially, now they cannot do it practically. We cope fine. America has joined the secrecy club and probably this is good. Nobody has ever provided a good reason to allow it - Terrorism clearly makes it stupid to allow people to hear the Police before they knock on your door. To the rest of the world we view your amazingly liberal gun laws with jaw dropping amazement of how stupid they are. Equally, we read the pro-gun lobby material about it's your right, Blah-blah-blah. It's just a really stupid right that has caused so much bad history. I'm not knocking the system, but when the rights were designed, it was possible justifiable, like so many other now unacceptable parts of history. You've sorted out so many of your bad legal historic rights, but guns? Over here, we always laugh when people go on holiday and come back with stories of Wallmart stores with sweets and candy in one aisle and bullets next to them. Two Hershey bares and a box of ammo please. To us, this is so laughable, it does colour our judgement on US law. Of course, every US citizen thinks their system is best. History suggests it probably isn't.
When our emergency services went encrypted, it annoyed our scanner users. The Government reaction was "tough - you shouldn't have been listening by the the Wireless Telegraphy Act law introduced just after WW2 - you've had sixty years grace, now ......hard luck". The general public never even noticed the change.
MTS2000des
5B2_BEE00 Czar
Contrary to popular belief in the United States, there is no "right to listen" to anything either. There is what is ALLOWED under the Communications Act of 1934 and subsequent legislation PROHIBITS certain intentional interception (e.g. cellular telephones), but nowhere in the US Constitution or Bill of Rights is the verbiage that one has a right to intercept any communications from the government or private citizens.
The fact that our governments (municipal, state and Federal) use radio spectrum receivable on consumer equipment over the many decades is allowable for interception under the Communications Act of 1934. Beyond this, no exclusive "rights" exist under Federal or state statutes.
Encryption of communications is a natural progression in technology. The fact that one can't casually intercept what was once in the clear is not a violation of anyone's Constitutional rights.
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