FCC ISSUES SIGNIFICANT RULE CHANGES

Albert, this is an excellent example in support of your point.

First Larry tells us he was published in (and I quote him) Public Safety Magazine. When I ask him to give me an article citation, does he do so? No. He talks about getting a hit for a Public safety communications magazine" on google. No volume, issue, date and pages, just more misdirection.

Apparently Larry can't even remember the name of the magazine he was published in, let alone the issue.

But best of all, he ignores the real question, which is Why does infotrac show no article with the title he gave?.

Pity that he can't do something as simple as write down a proper citation for a magazine article.

 

That's all fascinating, Larry.

Much of it's demonstrably not true, of course, especially the bit about

but you've written another long post in which you side stepped the question:

Also, why doesn't a patent search for Datotek patents show your name if you had such a wide ranging responsibility for product design and implementation?

Not, as I've already said, that it matters, much, as 20 year old crypto hardware hardly qualifies as EMCOMM credentials.

(PS: Don Knuth is the only person in the entire world who has shipped bug free software.)

 

So you're saying that there's no independent documentation of a Texas EMCOMM statewide system that you built?

There's no state of Texas documentation of the bidding and winners?

There's no facility where it was installed that has some comments about it on their web site?

Was it, by any chance, removed already? Is it no longer in use? Was it ever used in an actual emergency?

 

Larry, now you're contradicting your own earlier postings.

You were never in NOLA according to you. You "heard" about it while you were driving on I12, you said.

I wasn't in NOLA, either. But you don't have to be at both ends of a communication system to use it, and I did use it. The BBC used it. Ars Technica blogged it while it was happening.

 

I'm still waiting for you to answer any of my questions the first time, Larry.

 

That's a fascinating story. Especially fascinating is that it was written sixteen years after the event by ham who doesn't even live in San Jose. Perhaps a ham not unlike yourself?

Why is it, Larry, that official reports from San Francisco are, in your opinion lies but web pages written long after the fact as advertisments for ham radio are gospel?

 

It's probably going to be a long wait, he still hasn't given a different answer then "someone did it in a few hours" the first time I asked him WHO has decoded pactor III.

 

Posting the URLs from the Palo Alto ham made this whole exchange worthwhile. That's some of the funniest stuff I've ever heard; especially as I was here for the whole thing.

The best parts were:

1) The stupid advice to the individual who wanted sprinklers on because of hazmat that he should "light a match if it's not explosive".

2) The attempt to get an ambulance for a broken leg.

3) The guy who couldn't find the antenna lead at the fire station.

That one wouldn't have been so funny, but the one time I did an exercise with SPECS, 12 years after Loma Prieta, they still couldn't find the antenna lead at that fire station.

Now contrast that with 1989 Earthquake History and ask yourself why it is that hams seem to be the only people that think hams contributed during the quake.

 

WA5BEN says:

Boy, talk about being a clueless troll !

Any person who would defend WinLink in light of what is now known about it - would lie about anything. In this case, WA5BEN appears to believe it is necessary to lie about Packet Radio in Florida.

Why would he lie? - Ever hear of the "Not Invented Here" syndrome that tends to affect weak-minded technophiles? WA5BEN would make a great poster-boy for NIH, a symptom and indicator of the crippling "protocol warrior" syndrome that has undermined our progress in digital ham radio for decades.

For the real story on Amateur Packet Radio, stop by at USPacket.Org.

For the real story on the SEDAN emergency digital communications network, stop by at APRS Florida's SEDAN page or even better, the SEDAN Florida website!

As opposed to being an internet troll who acts as if he might be just a little bit "mental", the dedicated Packet node SYSOPs at SEDAN have been quietly saving lives and property for decades instead of dedicating thier energies into making up lies to tell to and about thier fellow amateurs on the Internet.

I know of situations ( multiple hurricanes a few years back ) where SEDAN SYSOPS were up 24-48 hours at a stretch, putting damaged nodes back online in order to open up digital communications for all participating agencies, and manning the microphone for hours at a time to coordinate emergency efforts on VHF/UHF repeaters. These are real hams who work WITH other amateurs and support thier efforts, unlike the pack of sorry Lids at WinLink who are solidly into "Them and Us!", looking upon thier fellow hams as competitors instead of comrades.

In other words, the SEDAN folks have all scraped better than WA5BEN off of thier shoes and it is a travesty that this little man shows up here on QRZ to disparage and lie about his betters.

 

N5PVL, thank you for your kind words about SEDAN.
sysops do not look for praise but when it comes it is appreciated.
WB4OLD ex-LAN mansger Ga.

 

ex-Lan manager too

 

The "bugs" to which I referred are those that transmit information. The Datotek equipment is not software-based.

Strategic-level and Diplomatic-level encryption devices are NOT software based. The reason is that there is simply no way to absolutely separate plaintext and ciphertext in software encryption.

The key generator is a single chip, protected from probing and shaving. The key generator produces a keystream, which is fed to one input of a 100% balanced encryption element. For encryption, the other input is the plaintext. For decryption, the other input is the ciphertext.

The plaintext does not come near the key generator at any time.

In a software-based system, the algorithm operates on the plaintext to encrypt, or on the ciphertext to dedecrypt. The plaintext, keystream, and ciphertext cannot be separated. That is the primary reason that software encryption can be of only TACTICAL strength, regardless of the number of bits.

The basic rule of Cryptography is that you must be able to give your worst enemy your exact device, in your exact configuration. If he does not have your Master Key(s) and/or Working Key(s), the device must afford him no advantage in attempting to read your traffic.

This means that:

Running your intercepted traffic against your device must afford no clue to whether he is getting closer to your code.

No portion of an intercepted message may be decoded on an incorrect key.

A single bit of key change in the Master Key and/or Working Key will produce an ideally 50% noncorrellated output.

The device output has no "signature" of the Master Key and/or Working key

That no portion of the Master Key or the Working Key may be contained in the keystream (prevents inputting all zeros or all ones to read the key).

That the only attack possible is brute force -- meaning he must try every possible Master Key and /or Working Key combination.

That the cycle must have no "minicycles" (repetitions of keystream).

That successfully decoding a single message must not allow use of the recovered keystream to decode another message sent in the same Master Key or Working Key.

And those are just the "high points"....

The design of the key generators would have to be disclosed in a patent application. Absolutely NO CRYPTO COMPANY has ever applied for a patent on a high-level key generator because not one company has EVER disclosed the design of its key generators -- primarily because a) national governments that use them would not stand for it, and b) it would disclose trade secrets to which competitors would dearly love to have to have access. Only generalized patents have been filed in areas that would (as an example) preclude a competitor from marketing a device with the same method of key exchange.

What DOES directly address my EMCOMM credentials is 40+ years of HF, VHF, UHF, SATCOM, Television Broadcast, cellular, and various other RF and modem technologies. In my role as the Senior Field Engineer, I used every bit of previous experience -- and gained a lot more. It was my sole responsibility to design and refine the interface between our crypto products and ANY audio, RF, SATCOM, or landline device and/or system. That includes (in the radio world) PRC-77 VHF manpacks, manpack HF radios by at least a couple of dozen different manufacturers, "special forces" HF/VHF radio", 100 Watt to 150 Watt base radios from most of the same manufacturers (plus a few others), a 400 Watt Russian mobile HF transmitter in a Russian comm trailer (running full-duplex 2400 bps synchronous digital voice over HF between army HQ and our location in the Sahara -- on independant RX and TX dipoles WITHOUT RX pre-filter or TX post-filter), 5,000 Watt and 10,000 Watt split site full and half duplex HF systems linked by microwave, 5,000 Watt full duplex single site / separate antenna HF systems, and one heck of a bunch of other radios and/or systems.

In more than one country, I beat competitors by a) knowing how to correctly interface my products to their radios to take advantage of all of the usable power available, and b) knowing how to choose and/or erect my antenna for optimum signal at the other end of the link. EXACTLY the requirements to put in place an EMCOMM solution.

In one country, my field set-up with a 20 Watt manpack was so much stronger than the 100 Watt base station that the other end thought we were running an amplifier. We were less than 300 feet from the 100 Watt station. I was running a dipole connected to the manpack. The base station was using its normal antenna -- a 1/8 wave vertical, installed in the middle of the metal roof of a 300 foot long building.

 

Strategic, Diplomatic, and Tactical encryption devices are NOT software based. The key generator (KG) is a hardware chip, composed of many, many shift registers and gates, with carefully designed interconnections that are constantly changed -- and include a non-linear "S-Box". Building and testing a high-level KG is extremely difficult -- and very expensive.

Software encryption is adequate only for low-level "privacy". (Military tactical devices use a strategic level hardware KG.)

A patent is a good way to reveal trade secrets. Trade secret protection is quite often superior to patent protection.

EMCOMM related:

40+ years HF, VHF, UHF, SATCOM, landline experience
38 countries on 5 continents

Field experience with all of the military radios in almost every one of those countries.

Full-duplex 2400 bps synchronous secure digital voice over HF -- using a Russian 400 Watt transmitter in a Russian comm trailer in the Sahara, WITHOUT TX post-filter or RX pre-filter -- and 2 field-constructed dipoles.

5,000 Watt and 10,000 Watt HF full and half duplex split-site HF experience.

Solving HF communications problems for several countries. That includes using a 20 Watt HF manpack on a dipole at a carefully chosen height to illustrate that the antenna type used at the 100 Watt base station was ineffective. (The operator at the other end -- who was NOT told in advance of the test, immediately asked if we had put in an amplifier.) (I was invited to the general's office within half an hour. At his request, I wrote a technical assessment and antenna recommendation that was rapidly implemented.)

Crypto systems cannot operate if the radios and antennas do not operate as they should. This is ESPECIALLY critical at HF. That means that the interface between the crypto device must be optimized for maximum RF power with essentially zero distortion, that the transmitter must feed the correct type of antenna for the link(s), and that the antenna must be installed at the correct height for the link(s).

As Senior Field Engineer, I was soley responsible for our product interface to any radio or system in any environment. I was also ultimately responsible for successful operation of our devices in the customer's environment. I never encountered a radio or system that I did not successfully interface -- including those with schematics in Russian (the resistor, capacitor, tube, and semiconductor symbols are QUITE different).