Comment on Senate GOP budget bill has little-noticed provision that could hurt your Wi-Fi

• Cenzorrll@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It’s illegal to transmit music

  True, for obvious reasons

  it’s illegal to transmit anything encrypted unless you’re controlling a satellite

  True, it helps to ensure nothing illegal is going on and enforce keeping commercial interests out. It’s a self regulating space, one of the only cases I know of that tends to work due to there being no monetary interests allowed. The point is to communicate information, not hide it.

  it’s illegal to transmit anything for commercial purposes.

  True, the whole point is to keep commercial interests out. That’s what “amateur” means.

  illegal to transmit anything on a regular basis that could reasonably be communicated some other way.

  False. This is for something like a non-profit wanting to use radios for their operations, they should be steered toward another service like gmrs, FRS, murs, etc. instead of amateur radio.

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  • Mcdolan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    I call bs on the encryption part too. You just need to publicly post the key for your encryption and say you’re not trying to hide what you’re saying.

    I haven’t seen any regulations saying where you need to publicly post the key.

    I say license up now and learn it how the shit works. Never know when some “pirate” stations may be needed.

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    • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      There’s a difference between encryption and encoding, and that difference is intent.

      Encoding is the process of imparting a digital message onto the radio carrier. A simple example is Morse code; transmitted by keying a continuous wave on and off in pre-determined patterns of long and short pulses with long and short gaps between. Frequency shift keying and bodot code are the encoding scheme behind RTTY, etc. Hams are permitted to experiment with novel encoding schemes, and have invented a few, PSK31 comes to mind, a phase shift keying standard designed to use commonly available PC sound cards as a modem.

      Encryption is the process of obscuring the message for all but the intended recipient. There is one specific case the law calls out when this is permissible in Amateur radio service, and that’s control signals of Amateur radio satellites. A novel encoding scheme, like making up your own alphabet instead of the standard Morse one, or ciphers of any kind that are intended to make the message secret, is illegal.

      It’s not uncommon to hear encrypted communiques on the ham bands; I’ve picked them up myself. You want a fun rabbit hole to fall down, look up numbers stations. Some serious cold war james bond bullshit.

      I don’t believe it is legal to send a PGP encrypted message over the air (on ham radio, go ahead and send it over Wi-Fi, you can encrypt the shit out of that) even if you’ve posted your private key on your website. What would even be the point of that? tilts head It might be legal to send a PGP signed message over ham radio; if I understand correctly that’s basically a checksum that can guarantee the sender’s possession of a private key.

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      • MangoCats@feddit.it ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        difference is intent.

        And intent is functionally impossible to prove, but endlessly arguable and a judge can make a finding based on their judgement - something very different from proof.

        send a PGP signed message over ham radio; if I understand correctly that’s basically a checksum that can guarantee the sender’s possession of a private key.

        Correct.

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    • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Over here in Germany encryption is most definitely illegal. This includes encoded messages only the intended recipient could decode.

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