Walton County Probably Going Silent

[AerialEars]

Got word today that the 911 director says the new Walton County P25 system will be encrypted.

 

[N8IAA]

Got word today that the 911 director says the new Walton County P25 system will be encrypted.

Another county that really needs to go encrypted:>P Are they piggy-backing off of Gwinnett by chance?
Larry

 

[AerialEars]

They are building their own four site P25 system.

 

[roadranger]

encryption?

Well, that opens up a few more channels on the ol' conventional, doesn't it?

 

[Metrofire31]

Encryption

If ever there was a time in our history when our public safety officials need law-abiding citizens to support them (besides paying for all the technology!!) it is now. Encryption is very important in certain applications - undercover, investigations, and sensitive traffic such as identification of deceased motor vehicle accident victims. But NOT for the day-to-day, routine activities within a county.

Recently, I had the pleasure of spotting a BOLO person and was able to report their whereabouts to the police. How was I able to do that? Because I had been able to monitor their BOLO traffic and INSTANTLY had the same information the patrol cars did. YOU LOSE THAT WITH ENCRYPTION!!!

By the same token, I need to say this about us scanner enthusiasts. I've been a regular scanner guy since 1978. I believe, with the onset of the internet and scanner websites/blogs, that there are too many details discussed online about information heard over the air. We need to be less specific with that, in my opinion. We should never be the cause of losing our own hobby.

 

[N8IAA]

If ever there was a time in our history when our public safety officials need law-abiding citizens to support them (besides paying for all the technology!!) it is now. Encryption is very important in certain applications - undercover, investigations, and sensitive traffic such as identification of deceased motor vehicle accident victims. But NOT for the day-to-day, routine activities within a county.

Recently, I had the pleasure of spotting a BOLO person and was able to report their whereabouts to the police. How was I able to do that? Because I had been able to monitor their BOLO traffic and INSTANTLY had the same information the patrol cars did. YOU LOSE THAT WITH ENCRYPTION!!!

By the same token, I need to say this about us scanner enthusiasts. I've been a regular scanner guy since 1978. I believe, with the onset of the internet and scanner websites/blogs, that there are too many details discussed online about information heard over the air. We need to be less specific with that, in my opinion. We should never be the cause of losing our own hobby.

Absolutely!!!
Larry

 

[gatorhater]

Larry,

I'll Second that comment as well!

 

[MTS2000des]

If ever there was a time in our history when our public safety officials need law-abiding citizens to support them (besides paying for all the technology!!) it is now. Encryption is very important in certain applications - undercover, investigations, and sensitive traffic such as identification of deceased motor vehicle accident victims. But NOT for the day-to-day, routine activities within a county.

Recently, I had the pleasure of spotting a BOLO person and was able to report their whereabouts to the police. How was I able to do that? Because I had been able to monitor their BOLO traffic and INSTANTLY had the same information the patrol cars did. YOU LOSE THAT WITH ENCRYPTION!!!

By the same token, I need to say this about us scanner enthusiasts. I've been a regular scanner guy since 1978. I believe, with the onset of the internet and scanner websites/blogs, that there are too many details discussed online about information heard over the air. We need to be less specific with that, in my opinion. We should never be the cause of losing our own hobby.

As I said in this post regarding Gwinnett, we need to make sound arguments with facts- not just "I want to listen". The big kicker is how full time encryption thwarts interoperability from outside agencies during mutual aid requests is something not even the Motorola salesman can counter. It's common sense that building a walled garden is a way to keep people out- including those who wish to offer aid to you.

As far as Walton, you can thank the arseclowns who programmed unauthorized radios on their current Smartnet system (they were WCFD personnel) for that. These criminal actions (they were prosecuted for computer crimes, lost their careers, etc) polarized the system manager to take the actions she did. Just goes to show you how a few turds in the punch bowl ruined it for all of us.

 

[reformedMhacker]

Prosecuted?

You might want to verify your info, Mts2000des, I know for a fact that all three individuals who were accused of programming on the system all received letters from the Walton Co. D.A., and the Magistrate Judge DISMISSING ALL CHARGES in January of 2008 (being a comm's hobbiest, and having RSS which they were licensed for amazingly isn't a crime - the system keys the admin said they had, none found during searches of residences and PC's {the PC's the county had to give back fully intact}). One of these individuals is even now working for Walton Co. Government. - This had nothing to do with programming radios, but rather the fulfillment of a political agenda by Steve "Acrin Horse Manure" Couch and a personal agenda by Wendra "Power-Hungry Jaba the Hut" Williams. It's interesting that soon after these charges were filed, the lead investigator from the case was investigated by the GBI and quickly resigned from his position in law enforcement, and the Walton Fire Chief was fired by the Walton County BOC. All that is left now is W.W., who will inevitably lose her job when the BOC sees that this multi-million dollar downgrade to digital actually makes communications in Walton worse than when they had VHF conventional 15 years ago, and not to mention that digital WILL get someone in the fire service injured if not killed. - Oh yeah, and if this case really were about programming some radios without authorization, then I know that two Loganville PO's would have lost their jobs and been prosecuted also. - Oh yeah, and one more thing, these criminal actions you refer to, if the Feds were to raid the homes of every member of these forums, about a quarter (at least) of them would be found with evidence of unauthorized programming also. - Happy Holidays.

 

[b7spectra]

Ruh Ro!

Oh yeah, and one more thing, these criminal actions you refer to, if the Feds were to raid the homes of every member of these forums, about a quarter (at least) of them would be found with evidence of unauthorized programming also. - Happy Holidays.

Damn! Anyone out there either want a slow speed laptop or at least have a powerful magnet I could borrow?

 

[kg4ojj]

Mike, I can send you a 100-gauss magnet. They're the type I use when I program pacemakers (not radios, thank you).

 

[b7spectra]

Gee - my laptop seems to have met it's demise in the compactor at work!

 

[MTS2000des]

You might want to verify your info, Mts2000des, I know for a fact that all three individuals who were accused of programming on the system all received letters from the Walton Co. D.A., and the Magistrate Judge DISMISSING ALL CHARGES in January of 2008 (being a comm's hobbiest, and having RSS which they were licensed for amazingly isn't a crime - the system keys the admin said they had, none found during searches of residences and PC's {the PC's the county had to give back fully intact}). One of these individuals is even now working for Walton Co. Government. - This had nothing to do with programming radios, but rather the fulfillment of a political agenda by Steve "Acrin Horse Manure" Couch and a personal agenda by Wendra "Power-Hungry Jaba the Hut" Williams. It's interesting that soon after these charges were filed, the lead investigator from the case was investigated by the GBI and quickly resigned from his position in law enforcement, and the Walton Fire Chief was fired by the Walton County BOC. All that is left now is W.W., who will inevitably lose her job when the BOC sees that this multi-million dollar downgrade to digital actually makes communications in Walton worse than when they had VHF conventional 15 years ago, and not to mention that digital WILL get someone in the fire service injured if not killed. - Oh yeah, and if this case really were about programming some radios without authorization, then I know that two Loganville PO's would have lost their jobs and been prosecuted also. - Oh yeah, and one more thing, these criminal actions you refer to, if the Feds were to raid the homes of every member of these forums, about a quarter (at least) of them would be found with evidence of unauthorized programming also. - Happy Holidays.

The fact remains, unauthorized programming did occur- and they did get in trouble. Political or not, the actions of a few have brought unwanted attention and given ammunition to people like Wendra to justify this absurdity of full time encryption on public safety radio systems across the board. They were indicted, did have to spend money to defend themselves, post bond, etc...so let's not be all cavalier like it was nothing. And if you google around, you'll see that in other states (Michigan), similar cases have resulted in criminal convictions against persons who performed similar actions. The fact remains that unauthorized programming of government owned radios constitutes computer trespass and is a felony in Georgia. The ASK pretty much end alot of the B.S. that goes on and an audit trail now exists with subscriber radios so the days of the tricks are coming to an end anyway, encryption or not. You detailed yourself in this post how much trouble this cost you reformedMhacker, need I say more?

http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95124

The sales team at Motorola padded the bill on their sale of the Astro 25 systems to Hall and Gwinnett county and I know for a fact, the names of these people were mentioned by the FTR team who came into town to give their pitch...so you can thank them among others for why scanners are now silent and more local government radio goes underground. Like it or not, this is a trend that isn't going to die down, and adding encryption isn't like going to Securenet from analog FM in the P25 realm. The citizens did not make enough noise and offer valid arguments. The same worn out record got played here in Cobb county who's system manager is notoriously irritated by hackers and bootleg programmers on her old system, yet she chose NOT to go the full time encryption route (and Cobb county is "the most resource rich county in the state" so it's not like we could not afford it). Many of us attended the county's town hall meetings, communicated with the commissioners and commission chairman, and provided factual information not rhetoric or opinion and despite their decision to replace a perfectly good radio system, they did not opt to put a veil of secrecy on radio traffic and limit interoperability with mutual aid responders from nearby jurisdictions and they are to be commended for that.


Yes I am sure a good many percent of RR, Batlabs and even some PS managers have Syskeygen, Labtools, FTR keys that aren't theirs etc...but let's all be responsible and not add fuel to the fire. Being good members of the radio community and proving ourselves and asset not a liability is paramount if we want to keep on enjoying the art, business and hobby of radio communications in general. The big vendors (mainly Ma M) are working overtime to keep public safety radio a closed loop, and digital gives golden opportunity to create even more walled gardens. Walled gardens in wireless are great moneymakers for the vendors- look at Verizon wireless who sell crippled, proprietary devices with value added services yet their customers come back for more. You can believe that Motorola wants to push Astro 25 with encryption as it is a great moneymaker. An XTS5K with ADP, SZOL, etc runs close to 5 grand a piece. Locked down proprietary networks like Astro 25 ensure that you will pay whatever they want to charge you and you'll have a smile on your face the whole time.

Walled gardens may keep your people in...but it also keeps everybody out- the good guys too. Mutual aid is compromised when proprietary systems are installed, and encrypting everything limits who can access your network from the "outside". Radio systems managers need to be educated on this and use caution and common sense when choosing to encrypt traffic talkgroups. It's a no brainer that sensitive information should be protected such as CID/SID, SWAT, IA, and even patient info (thanks to HIPAA), but routine dispatch and car-to-car, fireground operations and the garbage collectors don't need to keep their radio traffic undercover. Educating the people who write the checks to spend our money on these elaborate systems is our job, and backing it up with facts not fiction is imperative to getting their attention.

Too bad Walton county has it's mind made up, but this happened quite along time ago- they've just ceased the opportunity to implement the desired changes. I agree P25 phase I is flawed garbage, the codec is ancient by today's standards as old and tired as iDEN and firefighters have already perished at the hands of this garbled garbage. But this isn't going to stop the sales teams at Ma M from selling their wares to buyers who have deep pockets and little unbiased information to make informed decisions.

 

[roadranger]

Alarming!

I've been reading on testing for a Hazmat CDL, and it seems that calling for, and receiving help alone will take long enough. Just think how toxic traffic will be when news doesn't get out when it needs to. COX Radio won't be on top of it that day! At least, not until it is too late! Poor officer, directing traffic by himself! Get a gas mask folks!

 

[b7spectra]

The real shame of everything is that Motorola, MA/Comm and all the rest have sold our poor jurisdicitions that their systems will afford them INTEROPERABILITY. Well, in a sense it does - IF you could ever get everyone to commit to a specific channel to do all the talking on! What is the killer is for when you have a County Police, Sheriff and Fire, City Police and Fire and other assorted groups that are in the same county, on the same TRS, but NONE of them have each others channels in their radios! So what happens in the REAL world? People get bootleg software, bootleg "keys" and buy their own computers (slow speed) and cables and add che channels to their own radios. Can you blame them? No! I can't. Our radio providers and all the politicians say that officer safety is their number one priority, and after $40million spent on their system, is there any interoperability? NO! If a city police officer needs to talk to a county officer, he has to contact his dispatcher, they in turn contact the county dispatcher - via a land line - who then contacts their officer to TRY and come up with a way for the two of them to talk to each other. IF they each have a common channel in their radio, SOMEONE has to make the decision of what common channel to use! I can't count the number of times I heard a county undercover unit calling their dispatcher to let a city within the county to let them know they will be operating in their jurisdiction because they DON'T have that city's channels in their radio - even though they are all on the same TRS!

It's a shame we can't get someone in the media to, out of the blue, have reporters ask 911 centers who is in charge of making the decision on who, in event of an emergency, makes that decision on how to have interoperability.

 

[nunyax]

It's a shame we can't get someone in the media to, out of the blue, have reporters ask 911 centers who is in charge of making the decision on who, in event of an emergency, makes that decision on how to have interoperability.

After confirming this summer with the Walton County 911 center director that all public safety talkgroups would be encrypted, a few weeks later Sheriff Joe Chapman was asked about it and he was totally unaware they would be encrypted. It looks like the public safety department heads probably had no input on whether or not to have all of their radio traffic encrypted. It was probably a decision made solely by the 911 center.

I passed that on to our local paper but I doubt they'll follow up on it. They ran an article on the new system which just passed on the 911 center spin that the new system "was not purchased for secrecy" but instead to "protect the public that we serve as well as our public safety officers.”