I'm concerned about the future of our hobby.
Please, hear me out for the compromise.
With more departments going dark by the day (encrypting), many are citing concerns that teenagers are simply able to "pull out their smartphone and hear the cops coming" (
Nashville police to encrypt radio communications, block scanners (tennessean.com). More dispatch feeds/talkgroups are coming online, allowing anyone with a phone to know when it's time to "wrap up" a burglary, or that it's time to turn down the music. While most don't buy the officer safety bit (considering marked cruisers are a thing), the growing concerns of teenagers using their phones to stream the local PD while committing crimes is
definitely a legitimate concern.
Rather than self-sabotage and force our beloved hobby into extinction while giving lowlife thieves an advantage, would it be reasonable to
INSIST (or implement server-side)
all feeds having a HEAVILY ADVERTISED
minimum delay of
several minutes (not just the 30 seconds inherent to transcoding) to get ahead of the curve while also NOT allowing criminals to use the Broadcastify service to their advantage? While some departments have made up their minds to encrypt either way, it may take the pressure off of the rapid pace of which encrypting _everything_ has moved. Delayed information is borderline useless to criminals (and may even lead to many getting caught thinking they're ahead of the cops), and the common regurgitation often stated by the cops (officer safety and criminal advantage) will no longer be founded. While some may argue that it's going to happen either-way, more often than not, I'm seeing departments mention online streaming as their number one concern.
To the CEO of Broadcastify, feed providers, and all other fellow enthusiasts of this hobby, please consider a delay to slow the rate of encryption while promoting transparency, otherwise the well will dry up, and encrypted
EVERYTHING public-safety wise will be the future, or rather the death, of the scanner. We know some public safety organizations are on board with a form of this (
Chicago Police Department Moving Dispatch Traffic to Encrypted System | Chicago News | WTTW ), so why not get ahead of the curve?