Encrypting to Block Scanner

[R Federle]

Morning all,

For what its worth and many of you probably know this already.

Here is a link to an article in the Hamilton (Ohio) Journal News. I pertains to local governments changing frequencies and encrypting rdio signals to prevent scanners from picking up transmissions.

I believe I saw mention of something similar, or hinting at this, in another topic to the effect that scanners would be of less use as time went on.

I have attached a link below.

http://www.journal-news.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2007/06/14/hjn061407radios.html?cxntnid=dh-061407

Copy and past all lines to the address bar if the link is too long to open right.

Have a good day all.

Robert Federle

[Hoydie17]

The reason you'll not likely see heavy use of encryption in the near future is cost and life cycle maintenance.   

An oversimplified definition  of encryption is not as this journalist says where a specific series of radios are required to talk back and forth.   Encryption is simply the re-arranging of an RF signal in a format that only the encryption "key" on the other end can arrange the message properly.   Almost any modern radio can be equipped to do this, it's simply an electronic upgrade to the radio, and in some cases simply a programming change.   

The problem with using encryption in civil/municipal applications is the enormous amount of money, time and maintenance the infrastructure requires.  Handheld radios with encryption capability are VERY expensive, and when you figure all the people that would need a handheld radio that price becomes phenomenal.  Then all the technicians who would command rather high paychecks for the training and requirement to be on call 24/7 when someone accidentally "zeroes out" or resets the crypto-key.   

The training of maintenance technicians is very expensive, while it is true this work could be contracted out, it becomes prohibitively expensive when the requirement for service during "non-standard hours" is applied.   Most police, fire and rescue forces are not going to be willing to suspend or compromise their operations simply to wait on a technician to respond to an urgent service request.   And many small non-metro governments won't be able to support the budget requirement to have even basic encryption services.  This is why the fire chief refers to it being "impractical" to run encryption 24/7 and that they'll need to have usage policies.

800Mhz signals are still receivable by specially designed scanners, and normally, local entities still simulcast their signals on VHF or UHF anyways due to the limited range of 800MHz signals.   It gets expensive to put relay towers every 10 or so miles to enable operations out in remote areas. 

Rumor mills have been churning out the belief that the railroads will eventually seek the ability to encrypt their communications, which is even less likely than local governments doing so for most if not all of the same reasons.

[R Federle]

That is something that has been around for a long time then. It seems the wording has changed with the times and not the actual technology.

I remember in the late 60's early 70's the local law enforcement in my hometown of Hamilton Ohio would "Scramble" transmissions when there was a need (certain situations, bad accidents or other when privacy or secrecy would dictate).

Seems then they may just be "upgrading" what they may already have in place.

Thanks Sean.

Robert Federle