> It's a hobbyist set of bands, and encrypting traffic is against the hobbyist spirit of it.
I disagree. The vast majority of modern hobbyist radio technology involves encryption as an integral part-- both because the ease of abuse has made cryptography a mandatory feature for communications generally, because radio censorship rules are incompatible with lots of perfectly reasonable communications (you can't lawfully read HN over the radio, for example, because posts can and sometimes do contain naughty-words... you can't even read most ham radio internet message boards over the radio!) and because it's a standard part of existing protocols and software designed for usage over the internet.
The ham prohibitions on encryption are just keeping that usage out of ham bands which, particularly in UHF remain somewhere between dead and completely dead. This will ultimately result in our loss of these allocations, and the experimental usage is hampered by the restrictions in the ISM bands and the lack of potential for coordination that comes from having identified and competent operators.
> Part of the beauty of ham is being able to go along the dial and be able to observe the traffic. That would die with widespread encryption.
Digital modes in general break this, because there is a proliferation of them and some are only readable if you pay considerable licensing fees or buy special licensed hardware. I disagree that this is an essential part of the radio as it's already not true. Though, one could preserve it to a degree by requiring some amount of plaintext identification of the traffic, the identities of the parties and the purpose of the communication.
> Your insulting of people who try to maintain radios for emergencies is unnecessary, too.
If you're at all familiar with amateur radio usage in the US you've probably encountered wackers. Heck, even if you are considered one yourself by others you've probably seen people worse than you. The ancestors post didn't suggest that all emergency prep activity is excessively LARPY, at least by my read.
The excessive restrictions harm more boring usage like "I want to check my email from the woods on infrastructure that I built and maintain". The larpy usage doesn't care, because it's mostly fantasy and if there were some doomsday event no one is going to care what encryption you're using (or at least won't be able to do anything about it). :)
> The excessive restrictions harm more boring usage like "I want to check my email from the woods on infrastructure that I built and maintain". The larpy usage doesn't care, because it's mostly fantasy and if there were some doomsday event no one is going to care what encryption you're using (or at least won't be able to do anything about it). :)
Amateur radio bands are not intended to work as ghetto ISP bands.
Whether there should be some lowers band available for that is another discussion.
That position is inconsistent with both the law and the history of amateur radio. There is no general field of use restrictions (outside of music and broadcast which themselves were originally allowed but eventually restricted to restrict competition for commercial broadcasters). Amateur radio is open to qualified persons of any age who are interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and without pecuniary interest.
You can't because (among other reasons) the responses may contain naughty words-- you can't even read HN or most amateur radio forums over amateur radio without violating the regulations. You also cannot use standard software over the radio due to the mandatory encryption (or inability to do authentication without encryption) which is ubiquitious in software designed for use on public networks.
I disagree. The vast majority of modern hobbyist radio technology involves encryption as an integral part-- both because the ease of abuse has made cryptography a mandatory feature for communications generally, because radio censorship rules are incompatible with lots of perfectly reasonable communications (you can't lawfully read HN over the radio, for example, because posts can and sometimes do contain naughty-words... you can't even read most ham radio internet message boards over the radio!) and because it's a standard part of existing protocols and software designed for usage over the internet.
The ham prohibitions on encryption are just keeping that usage out of ham bands which, particularly in UHF remain somewhere between dead and completely dead. This will ultimately result in our loss of these allocations, and the experimental usage is hampered by the restrictions in the ISM bands and the lack of potential for coordination that comes from having identified and competent operators.
> Part of the beauty of ham is being able to go along the dial and be able to observe the traffic. That would die with widespread encryption.
Digital modes in general break this, because there is a proliferation of them and some are only readable if you pay considerable licensing fees or buy special licensed hardware. I disagree that this is an essential part of the radio as it's already not true. Though, one could preserve it to a degree by requiring some amount of plaintext identification of the traffic, the identities of the parties and the purpose of the communication.
> Your insulting of people who try to maintain radios for emergencies is unnecessary, too.
If you're at all familiar with amateur radio usage in the US you've probably encountered wackers. Heck, even if you are considered one yourself by others you've probably seen people worse than you. The ancestors post didn't suggest that all emergency prep activity is excessively LARPY, at least by my read.
The excessive restrictions harm more boring usage like "I want to check my email from the woods on infrastructure that I built and maintain". The larpy usage doesn't care, because it's mostly fantasy and if there were some doomsday event no one is going to care what encryption you're using (or at least won't be able to do anything about it). :)