ARRL wants to allow encryption on the ham bands!

I don't think you truly understand what I wrote.

If a protocol is not open and is only available to "authorized" people (i.e. those who buy a license, either by buying a modem or by buying licensed software/soundcard utilities) then it has exactly the same effect as an encryption method which only authorized people can decrypt.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it *is* most definitely a duck.

The email traffic may be readable by "authorized" personnel but it is NOT readable by the community-at-large.

If the protocol itself provides for meeting the intention of obscuring the message content then further actions *ARE NOT NECESSARY*.

You are using the same confusion tactic Larry is. He is trying to define encryption as a very narrow "thing". It isn't. The determining factor is *intent* and not method.

A closed protocol used to obscure message contents is just as much encryption as a simple substitution cipher.

Remember, the Greek word "cryptography" means "secret writing", nothing more. It doesn't define any specfic way of implementing that secret writing.

You and Larry are trying to take a narrow viewpoint and say it fits all situations. The rest of us are taking a wider viewpoint and saying that any plain text that goes into an algorithm and comes out changed in a manner that only authorized personnel can read it *has* been encrypted.

It *should* be against all amateur ethics as well as the rules to implement *any* kind of encryption on the ham bands. If the intent is to obscure meaning, either to further commercial interests or to further privacy, it should be done somewhere else than on the ham bands.

tim ab0wr

 

Would that group be either WINLINK2K@yahoogroups.com or wl2kemcomm@yahoogroups.com?

I'll reply to the rest later, just curious on this point...

 

Larry,

That's also a common problem with .45's, especially in ones with inferior materials.

Any spring, when permanently tensioned and never actioned, will take a set. Whether it will lose *all* spring tension or not is a function of the quality of the spring.

tim ab0wr

 

Tell that to Larry. He seems to think that SCS has documented pactor II and III.

 

But we are not discussing the F6FBB protocol. We are discussing Pactor II and III from SCS. Why do you keep dodging the truth?

 

Skip brought up the F6FBB protocol. Not Larry.

73
Mike

 

Tim Good info. Also we haven't even begun to discuss the use of email encryption programs like PGP or anything like that. If we cannot monitor even the protocol like Pactor III then how are we to even know that these guys are using PGP or any other email encryption program on the ham bands? This is a good way for terrorist to get around the FBI monitoring if you ask me. They pirate a few callsigns and the PMBO's forward their terrorist plans without anyone even knowing what they are saying.

The whole point that Tim, myself and a whole lot of others on here make is that winlink does not belong on the amateur bands because it is duplicating a commercially available service which is against the Part 97 rules. Apparently a few on here think that just because it is used for EMCOMM that it is a good thing. That does not make it good for amateur radio at all when you bend the rules just so you can pass email. Sorry but the rules were made for a reason and winlink is bending them severely.

 

Unfortunately, you mistake the meaning of "public key". The "public key" to which you refer does NOT allow anyone (except the recipient) to "decrypt" the message.

Each correspondent has a PRIVATE (secret) key (actually a set of two) AND a PUBLIC (non-secret) key. If "A" wishes to encrypt a message to "B", he/she must have the PUBLIC key from "B". Essentially, the system uses a complex relationship of raising to powers to allow the message encrypted by "A" with with "B's" PUBLIC key to be deciphered with "B's" PRIVATE key.

In point of fact, the PUBLIC key is actually two numbers ("e" and "n") which must be PRIME to each other. The "n" part of the PUBLIC key is the mathematical product of two large prime numbers ("p" and "q"), which are the "real" PRIVATE key.

Encryption takes the mathematical representation of the content, multiplies it by itself "e" times, divides the result by "n", discards the quotient, and takes the remainder (= "cryptogram").

For Decryption, the recipient takes the "cryptogram", multiplies it by itself "d" times, divides it by "n", and takes the remainder (= "plaintext").

"d", which is secret to the recipient, = the remainder of:
The greatest common denominator of "p"-1 and "q" - 1, plus 1, divided by "e".

After about 8 hours with the RSA cryptographers, while they laid out the mathematical proof, I was getting dizzy....

The "strength" of the algorithm lies in the difficulty of factoring prime numbers. Naturally, that becomes easier over time, as computational power and available memory increase.

The benefit to the Public Key system is that YOU can send YOUR key IN CLEAR to someone to use to encrypt messages ONLY for YOU. The weakness is that the system can be (and has been) broken at some levels.

BTW: The weakness in Schneier's book is that it is more or less restricted to software. No government will accept software based encryption for high-level security.

 

Larry,

That's also a common problem with .45's, especially in ones with inferior materials.

Any spring, when permanently tensioned and never actioned, will take a set. Whether it will lose *all* spring tension or not is a function of the quality of the spring.

tim ab0wr[/QUOTE]
Yep. And it get real "embarrassing" when your best defense is to THROW the #$@% thing at the guy trying to shoot you !

Yes, I know we need NATO, and I know we need to let the Europeans sell some of the arms to U.S. / NATO forces -- but they should actually work ! These sidearms are carried by officers, and their frustration HAS made its way into the Pentagon.

They don't like the lack of "stopping power" of the 9 mm, but they also know that many people cannot handle the kick of a .45 well enough to hit what they are aiming at. We may see a new sidearm sooner than later, though.

But, at least they are making Beretta fix the problem with the bad springs...

 

The problem here is that you can't just publish the "public" key in the clear anywhere you wish.

These keys *are* unique. Sending your key to someone over the internet can set up a situation where someone can intercept YOUR public key and substitute their public key before sending it to the intended recipient. They can then decrypt your messages, play with them them to their hearts content, re-encrypt them using their own key, and send the "diddled" messages on to the recipient.

That is what certificate authorities are for - to insure the key you get is the key you were intended to get.

And I will repeat this till I am blue in the face.

Ham radio is NOT, I repeat NOT the place to be sending governmental messages requiring encryption, especially at the level of which you speak. In fact, any National Guardsman at our EOC who sent this level of message over an amateur radio link would be court-martialed and probably spend time in Leavenworth.

The government has their *OWN* HF capabilities for handling encrypted messages. If your EOC has not availed themselves of this capability then, as I have said earlier, I never want to be in your state during a disaster. I just read that Maryland is doing the same as Kansas. They are developing their own HF/VHF capabilities using governmental and common carrier systems. It doesn't appear that Winlink will be a very big player their either. I suspect that this *IS* the wave of the future as DHS gets further and further into coordinating state level and even county level emergency responses.

tim ab0wr

tim ab0wr

 

Well Larry, Skip was unaware of the ex-parte fiasco until I emailed him at the request of another Amateur. So I guess you should blame ME for the potential ruination of AR. If you check the "opinions" area, there was considerable discussion by many of this before anything was posted here in "news". If you check the FCC EFS site after the ex-parte letter was posted, W3MIV and I were the first to comment and several days before anyone else as a result of the early QRZ.COM messages that Skip was NOT a part of.

You got your facts wrong, sir.

 

Quite correct. I thought everyone might like a look at what can be done to generate comments.

73,
Mark N5RFX

 

Actually, we need to tell Riley Hollingsworth (rhollilng at fcc dot gov) that.  I asked him to provide an opinion as to that point well over a year ago and thus far, no response.

Perhaps if enough of us were to ask him, with some good cites as to the relevant sections of Part 97, he might respond.  

 

Of course! What is the point of arguing about being able to copy Pactor-III when the use of F6FBB effectively obscures the meaning of messages even when transmitted by Pactor-I, which can be decoded! It is a necessary academic and legal argument, but any use of non plain-text or unapproved modes prevents radio amateurs from policing the bands.

If the amateur radio service is to remain amateur, then the regulations need to be changed so that plain text is the only allowed and all modes must be FCC-approved before being used. That is what protected the hobby from commercial interests all these years.

The relaxation of FCC approval of modes can be traced back to the predecessor of Winlink again, using the excuse that the FCC approval process hindered experimentation with new digital modes. The availability of the STA was completely ignored and the FCC convinced that the ARRL would keep all of us safe from undesirable modes like Pactor-II and Pactor-III with ARQ. It is clear what that has left us with!  

 

I don't have a problem with a PUBLISHED compression mode being used. I am sure with the computing power we have now a days it can be decompressed on the fly. At least with F6FBB an amateur is free to experiment with it. With pactor III you are not. You are tied to SCS's stupid licensing policy.