> Well, the FCC says, that if you need to encrypt them buy a commercial > business band license... makes the price of hardware go up by 3X.. > I think you could encrypt for quite a while before someone cought you... > but I wont risk it > > > Is there no way around that? The FCC mandates that all packet radio > > > transmissions be unencrypted? That sounds ridiculous :) it sounds ridiculous only because you're thinking in terms of other media. for example, if you were having a phone conversation, and a third person was eavesdropping on your conversation, and, after waiting for a while, joined in the conversation, you would probably find that quite strange. yet in ham radio, this is the general essence of communications. the ham bands are considered public space, and are perhaps analogous to a chat room in which anyone can participate. encrypted messages consume this public space (consuming spectrum space or code space if spread spectrum, in which the "noise floor" is raised), yet provide nothing in return to others not involved in the communication. thus encrypted messages are a form of "clutter" that devalues the space, which was originally intended as communal space. that's one reason TNCs usually have a /passall command so that you will see all data on screen, regardless of who the packets are addressed to. i think that if you try to change this tradition you will be met with considerable resistance by members of this community, in which free-spirited communication is the established order. in many ways, ham radio provides a sort of connected collective intelligence among everyone in the community, where all facets of it are open to new members. rather than trying to undermine public space that has been already established, perhaps there could be a new space created for encryped traffic. already there are ISM bands for "noise". maybe that's where encrypted traffic would fit, since there is already an assumption that various unspecified emissions might happen there.
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