Re: radio net (fwd)
Forwarded message:
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 00:51:49 -0700 From: "William J. Hartwell" <billh@ibag.com> Subject: Re: radio net
I think a radio network linked to the Amateur networks sending secure packets, using tunneling or maybe just encrypted traffic (There may be some FCC rules regarding this.
The FCC prohibits the transmission of encrypted data via analog or digital signals by amateurs. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On 10 Sep 1998 17:51:31 -0500, Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com> wrote:
If you want to know what crypto regs and net use regs are going to look like in 10-20 years, look at the amateur radio regs now - we'll have citizens' committees (similar to the "block leaders" on GeoCities) who stay up late at night, unpaid, watching their fellow subjects for signs of pseudonym use, or the use of unlicensed/unapproved crypto, or "unlicensed Internet broadcasting".
Are we already seing this, with CAUCE and USENET II? Good users are known users (... and if it stops just one spammer...) -- Phelix
On Wed, 9 Sep 1998, Jim Choate wrote:
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 00:51:49 -0700 From: "William J. Hartwell" <billh@ibag.com> Subject: Re: radio net
I think a radio network linked to the Amateur networks sending secure packets, using tunneling or maybe just encrypted traffic (There may be some FCC rules regarding this.
The FCC prohibits the transmission of encrypted data via analog or digital signals by amateurs.
I'd love to see them try to enforce that. What about chaffing and winnowing? Stego? Transmission of random noise? ;) Anyone have the text of the actual rules concerning this? -- Brian Buchanan brian@smarter.than.nu Never believe that you know the whole story.
Brian W Buchanan <brian@smarter.than.nu> writes:
I'd love to see them try to enforce that... Anyone have the text of the actual rules concerning this?
This is enforced very strictly, with the diligent help of the amateur radio community itself. CFR47 says: 97.113 Prohibited transmissions. (a) No amateur station shall transmit: (1) Communications specifically prohibited elsewhere in this part; (2) Communications for hire or for material compensation, direct or indirect, paid or promised, except as otherwise provided in these rules; (3) Communications in which the station licensee or control operator has a pecuniary interest... (4) Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section; communications intended to facilitate a criminal act; messages in codes or ciphers intended to obscure the meaning thereof, except as otherwise provided herein; obscene or indecent words or language; or false or deceptive messages, signals or identification; (5) Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services. (b) An amateur station shall not engage in any form of broadcasting... [...] 97.117 International communications. Transmissions to a different country, where permitted, shall be made in plain language and shall be limited to messages of a technical nature relating to tests, and, to remarks of a personal character for which, by reason of their unimportance, recourse to the public telecommunications service is not justified.
The FCC prohibits the transmission of encrypted data via analog or digital signals by amateurs. I'd love to see them try to enforce that. What about chaffing and winnowing? Stego? Transmission of random noise? ;) Anyone have the text of the actual rules concerning this?
Put it like this, it took the Feds a long time to be willing to accept RTTY (Radio Teletype), because it used this 7(?)-bit ASCII CODE stuff. On the other hand, they've relaxed a lot, as amateurs have largely become computer hackers as well, equipment changed, Morse became less relevant.... As long as the ham user community doesn't get annoyed at you, and you don't abuse the available bandwidth, you ought to be able to stego a certain amount of traffic through the net, either using some sort of PointyHairedBoss code, or low-order bits in GIFs, or whatever. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
At 07:57 AM 9/9/98 -0700, Brian W. Buchanan wrote:
On Wed, 9 Sep 1998, Jim Choate wrote:
The FCC prohibits the transmission of encrypted data via analog or digital signals by amateurs.
I'd love to see them try to enforce that. What about chaffing and winnowing? Stego? Transmission of random noise? ;) Anyone have the text of the actual rules concerning this?
I don't know of a persistent web copy of the regs (only query-based ones, where the queries are only good for a few hours), but the regulation you're looking for is 47 CFR 97.113 - "(a) No amateur station shall transmit: . . . . (4) Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section; communications intended to facilitate a criminal act; messages in codes or ciphers intended to obscure the meaning thereof, except as otherwise provided herein; obscene or indecent words or language; or false or deceptive messages, signals, or identification" As I understand things (and I don't follow communications law, so I don't think my opinion is well-informed), the restrictions only apply to transmissions within the amateur band(s); so that's not applicable to, say, the FRS (family radio service, a band recently opened to non-licensed communications - used, for example, by the small Motorola TalkAbout radios), or cordless/cellphone frequencies. PDF copies of the FCC regs are online at <http://www.fcc.gov/wtb/rules.html>; amateur ("ham") radio is at Part 97. I'm working on a bigger rant about crypto and radio and guns and Y2K and the net; the gist of it is that amateur radio people, who are generally decent folks as individuals, have cozied up to the FCC to protect their "radio privileges" and have been rewarded with a mountain of bureacratic horseshit which outdoes even the idiotic regulations re crypto export and firearms .. and it's enforceable because the people who got licenses from the government to communicate with each other (but only in certain ways, on certain frequencies, after identifying themselves) fall over themselves to find people who *don't* think they need a license to communicate (or who think that the First Amendment *is* their license), and they rat those non-licensed folks out to the FCC. The FCC's got an army of unpaid volunteer informers who watch their fellow subjects to ensure compliance with these silly rules .. which leads to a situation where ham radios are mostly useful for talking to other people about how the weather is in some other part of the globe, and what kind of radio someone's got, and how big their antenna is. The FCC (and parallel organizations in other countries) are discussing liberalizing the regulations regarding amateur radio use, and a significant fraction of the current radio people are opposed to the liberalization, because it'll topple their little kingdoms and make their hard-earned licenses and certifications uninteresting. If you want to know what crypto regs and net use regs are going to look like in 10-20 years, look at the amateur radio regs now - we'll have citizens' committees (similar to the "block leaders" on GeoCities) who stay up late at night, unpaid, watching their fellow subjects for signs of pseudonym use, or the use of unlicensed/unapproved crypto, or "unlicensed Internet broadcasting". The citizens' committees will explain that they're dedicated volunteers devoted to keeping their communities "clean" and "orderly", and that without their intervention the FIC would be unable to ride herd on all of the wild people using programs nobody's inspected and communicating with ciphers nobody can read, saying things that just shouldn't be said because they'll make somebody upset or something. Besides, children might be reading. Everyone wants to be polite, don't they? -- Greg Broiles |History teaches that 'Trust us' gbroiles@netbox.com |is no guarantee of due process. |_Kasler v. Lundgren_, 98 CDOS 1581 |(March 4, 1998)
Hey, guys, Someone here already said it, but nobody else got it, so I'll repeat it: SSB, or Single Sideband. It's commercial ham radio, if you will, and all the ships use it. I expect that you can shove anything down an SSB set that you want, including encrypted traffic. Ham radio is a government nerd subsidy, and as such, doesn't do much but make more government funded/sactioned/approved/whatever nerds. :-). SSB would do just fine. It's an international standard, after all, and probably not under the control of any one government, even.e Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
At 6:21 AM -0400 on 9/11/98, Somebody wrote:
Actually, SSB is a modulation/broadcast *technique*. Used by commercial and ham operators.
Yeah, but there are SSB radios, with the same range as ham radios, which are, or should be, completely legal to do encryption on, among other commercial things. That was my point. ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
participants (7)
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Bill Stewart -
Brian W. Buchanan -
Greg Broiles -
Jim Choate -
Mixmaster -
phelix＠vallnet.com -
Robert Hettinga