The software was classed as munitions and one needed an arms dealer’s license to publish it, including online. The creator of PGP published the full source code as a book, as these are covered under first amendment rights.
The software was classed as munitions and one needed an arms dealer’s license to publish it, including online. The creator of PGP published the full source code as a book, as these are covered under first amendment rights.
Fun fact: They made encryption on Ham/GMRS radios illegal because they didn’t want the average citizenry to have access to secure off-grid comms without government spyware on networks that they control.
Reject Smarphones, Return to Amateur Radios. Just modify some radios, add a raspberry pi to do enccyption on the voice before it gets transmitted.
THEY CANT ARREST US ALL! (seriously tho, I haven’t heard of the FCC actually doing anything, unless you were jamming the airport radios or something crazy)
It’s illegal on licensed HAM channels, but legal on unlicensed channels like the 2.4 and 5Ghz ranges
Don’t ask me why the distinction still remains
international treaties, for one. second because lack of encryption discourages commercial/non-hobbyist use. third because the spirit of Ham is for Hams to all listen and transmit to each other.
I think FCC still takes it pretty seriously.
just use Meshtastic/LoRa. you can use encryption and you don’t need a Ham license. your output power is limited but I’ve heard of people getting 50+ miles of range for reception.
specifically, for ham you’re not allowed to obscure the meaning of your transmissions. this means no:
but you can use:
so authentication is possible, just not privacy.
Encryption using IP over HAM is still illegal - you can’t access Lemmy because it’s an HTTPS site, because we live in the 21st century.
Nothing stops anyone from running a webserver without ssl, there might be an instance that does it
I wouldn’t want to browse the web without ssl in 2025
Your only choice isn’t HAM
I know, the point is that you’re broadcasting over the radio that you’re encrypting the data over the one medium were it’s illegal to encrypt the data because the FCC thinks it’s still 1989 or whatever when it comes to amateur radio. So it’s not just that you’re doing something illegal, you’re using a registered call sign and a really loud, easily triangulatable signal to do it. It’s like putting a movie poster-sized sign on your fence that says “Rattlesnake venom for sale, inquire within.” It’s not a sustainable practice.
Ultimately, the amateur radio crowd needs to get this law 47 CFR 97.113 changed to allow an exception for encrypted internet over radio and allow for modern communications standards. Personally, I expect that it would only take one House Rep willing to score any sort of win with rural voters for this to work right now.
…they definitely can arrest a bunch of people. A better way would be to challenge it in court.
Or you could use other protocols like LoRaWAN
… this sounds like a fun project for the high school electronics club
Hell is a fun project for me too lol. I wonder if I could layer it with ggwave for shit and jiggles
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