At 5:55 PM 8/3/94, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:

That kind of explains why encryption is not allowed on ham bands, but it doesn't satisfy me. The difference between ham and other bands, is to use other frequencies I've got to pay the FCC major money for a license, or pay some commercial service provider who payed the FCC major money.

Not quite. As someone else noted, there are unregulated (except for power and equipment) bands where no license at all is required.

With ham, I don't have to pay no one nothing, except maybe $10 for a ham license. ham, or some other frequency reserved to work like ham, could easily serve as a poor man's connection to the internet. Anyone with a desktop PC can invest another hundred dollars or so, and have a really low bandwith (2400bps) direct connection to the internet. You can do IP over ham, although it's really dificult to do so currently without breaking the law and losing your license.

Doing IP over the amateur bands is easy, and is done by many people. Doing a connection to the Internet over amateur bands is hard.

A public ham or ham-like radio band would seem to be something the cypherpunks would really like. It would definitely facillitate the creation of a sort of blacknet type thing. The government has given the public citizens band, and ham radio, if they're not going to open up ham so it can be used in the ways I'm thinking of, why not take another hunk of spectrum and give it to the public, specifically intended for digital transmissions (IP or otherwise). This seems to be something we should be campaigning for, and the EFF should be lobbying for.

I don't object to your goals, but honestly, I think the EFF should be lobbying harder for some more important things, like killing the FBI's wiretap bill and getting cryptological export control lifted. Bob -- Bob Snyder N2KGO MIME, RIPEM mail accepted snyderra@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu finger for RIPEM public key When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.