which digital encryption should i choose?

[suhl]

Hi

I want to buy some two-way radios (mobile + portable) for UHF band and want it to support some digital encrypted mode. What equipment should i choose? Which digital/encrypted system is most difficult to scan and decrypt?
Where should i start my searching? Thanks for any help.

Suhl

 

[scanjunkie]

I would talk to the sales reps for the different radio companies, gather your info, and decide from there.

Good luck!!
Mark

 

[JnglMassiv]

In a way, there's good news. This can be done relatively inexpensively.

Motorola's digital encryption products (Securenet in Motospeak) are among the most secure as well as the most available on the used market. Any of the Securenet products will be for all intents and purposes completely unintelligible to a scanner listener.

The big catch, if there is one, is that most repeaters can't pass this encrypted radio traffic. If you're planning strictly simplex comms, everything will be fine. Repeated operation will take some more information.

Motorola Sabers are great radios and many are secure-capable. The encryption modules are relativley cheap and available. They don't require advanced models of keyloaders like some other radios and they are super durable, feature-packed, and high power yet easy to use. Mobiles are a bit more costly to play secure but look into Motorola Spectras.

 

[FuelForFire]

As far as Motorola goes... If you are looking for encryption to use with an analog system in simnplex your best bet, as was said before, is to go with some analog sabers. They are relatively easy to find and the appropriate keyloaders are also readily available and comparatively inexpensive. Your options are DVP or DES both of which have an XL couterpart.

If you want to run encryption on a digital system your only option is DES-OFB. Of course, because now you are running digital your radios are going to be much more expensive and so are the modules. As far as a loader you can use either a KVL3000 which is hard to find and very expensive or use a DX model of the older style keyloader (for all but the xts5000).

There is also AES which is relatively new and is very powerful but its based on an open source so it has a huge back door. Also it is only available in the XTS3000/5000 and requires a KVL3000 which all adds up to big bucks.

If you are using a repeater it must be capable of passing the encrypted data which in the case of a digital quantar it means you have to pay to have the encryption algorithm installed in the Astro DIU.

Hope that helps.

Mike

 

[JnglMassiv]

Mike brings up a good point. Try to find -XL variants of any Securenet stuff. Much improved range.

There is also AES which is relatively new and is very powerful but its based on an open source so it has a huge back door.

I'm not convinced of this. I'd say it's more likely that there's a little known but major weakness. That the algorithm is open source suggests that there is not a backdoor.

 

[N_Jay]

Hi

I want to buy some two-way radios (mobile + portable) for UHF band and want it to support some digital encrypted mode. What equipment should i choose? Which digital/encrypted system is most difficult to scan and decrypt?
Where should i start my searching? Thanks for any help.

Suhl

Who do you want to protect from, and how much do you want to spend.