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Privacy - Ham Callsigns Lookups on FCC Database?
catchy_handle asks: "In the US, all amateur radio (ham) call signs are public record. Anyone with a decent police scanner can listen to the local hams on the 2m and 70cm bands. Given an operator's call sign, one can search the FCC databases which will return the licensees street address, among other data. As a future ham, I found this thread on eHam.net somewhat alarming. The majority of respondents stated that it's always been this way, that they have nothing to hide, and to stop being paranoid. [I disagree.] As a victim of ID theft, the less joe-crack-head knows about me the better. I'm pretty sure of the typical Slashdot reader's angle here, but my question is to the hams: Does this bother you? Or is it part of tradition and something a good operator should be proud of? Is it too late since these guys already know all?"
"I was surprised by the resistance to reconsider the status-quo, to adapt to the new reality of criminals with computers.
I suggested that the portals to the public databases be replaced with a challenge/response system such that if someone wanted my address, I'd get a notification from the QSL bureau, or the FCC that so-and-so was requesting access to my data. I could then decide to grant or deny that request. One person said that California's DMV works this way already (very cool). Another option: anyone is allowed to provide a PO Box to the FCC, instead of a street address, but that's an extra expense to many. "
I typed in my zip code, found all the operators and their data within my zip.
C:\>
By FCC guidelines, the location of every licensed station in the US (this includes AM, FM, Ham, etc). must be available to the public.
They don't have a choice. Primary place of operation must be listed to register a callsign.
I find the callsign database quite useful. (I go through qrz.com) Need to send out a QSL card? No problem! Just look up the guy's address and send it to him! Granted, I can see the potential problems, but I've been a ham for about 5 years and never had anything bad happen to me. The database has actually been up for a while (the QRZ one, anyway), at least as long as I've been a ham.
Skills required: Grammar and basic html skills are not required for this job.
You'd think the editors would use the preview button if the submitter doesn't.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
We run an FCC lookup on our site, Electronicschat. Warning though, the data's out of date, I never programmed it to pull nightlies from the FCC ftp site.
Basically, such openness is necessary. If you hear someone on the air that is breaking a rule (maybe inadvertantly), then you need to be able to locate where they are transmitting from. Having the FCC database helps.
If you know where they are, you might try contacting them and asking them to stop using ham frequencies for commercial use. Sometimes they aren't aware that someone sold them radios that use a ham band.
It's not just hams, it's all callsigns that are available.
Maybe some large commercial radio station is making a mess on the air, you can look them up too, and contact their broadcast engineer with a description of the problem.
It takes a huge load off the FCC that ham radio is self-policing, and in general an asset to the airwaves. If the FCC had to constantly broker requests for information, and petty enforcement requests that might be handled civilly with some polite chat with the problem causer, then ham is a lot less likely to exist in 10 years.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Long before the Web, I recall looking up hams in those giant Callbooks.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I ask everyone that has nothing to hide please post your ssN, your creditcards with expiration date, your full mailing address with zip code, your phone number, your birthdate, your mother's maiden name, your religous and political affiliation and any other bits of personal info that might occur to you.
It is certainly good to have some measure of privacy. But when you are broadcasting, it is important to know to whom it is that you are talking to.
If I can't verify your identity, then the whole system falls apart and you are left with the mess that CB is. The more difficult you make getting the information, the more likely I'm going to just forget the whole deal, and then we all lose out.
Take a look at Kuro5hin for a system that is completely open. Every user must have a login ID and every moderation is completely visible to anyone interested. It takes a very concerted effort to destroy that system (and there are folks trying). Then take a look at Slashdot. ACs can post with impunity, moderators are answerable to no one, and the editors hide behind their cloak of anonymity and use their powers to silence people left and right.
Kuro5hin is known as a place where people can actually discuss things in a rational and intellectually stimulating manner. Slashdot is a place where people come to troll.
"Given an operator's call sign, one can A HREF="http://www.arrl.org/fcc/fcclook.php3">search the FCC databases which will return the licensees street address, among other data."
/. editors are worse than us! Sure we /.ers rarely RTFA, but the editors don't even read the damn article summary!
Jeez, these
I got some bad news for you, sunshine - not only is Pink not well, but you are listed in a lot more public databases than you might think.
Case in point: I got a spam at my work email, the title of which was:
my.work.address REFINANCE YOUR MORTGAGE ON my home mailing address.
Now, let me explain that at no time is my work address directly linked to my home mailing address, which is a P.O. Box. However, my work email address is of the form firstname.lastname@companyname.example, and I recently bought a house. The fact that I bought this house is a matter of public record, and my name, while hardly unique, is rare enough that a spammer could have cross-referenced it with a list of emails, filtered by the location of the company, and got a hit.
Database mining at work.
However, with respect to the entries in the FCC callsign database - while you must provide the FCC with the location of your primary station (a.k.a. your home for most hams), you do not have to have your home address listed on the database - for example, all you would get were you to look up myh callsign would be my mailing address - the self-same P.O. Box I mentioned before.
The long and the short of it is, if you are worried about it, then get a P.O. Box (or a Mailboxes Etc. box), and use that for all your addresses possible. Then, just like having a spamtrap address, you can decouple information from your physical address. If you are truly paranoid, get 2 mail boxes - one for business, one for "junk". This also has the advantage that should you move within the same area, you needn't fill out change-of-address forms for all your magazines and such.
Oh, BTW - if you subscribe to any magazines, you are probably listed on their databases as well, and guess what - they tend to sell those as well.
It's truly hard to be a blank nowadays.
(Bonus credit for readers - work out what my callsign is - I've given it before....)
www.eFax.com are spammers
How many slashdotters own a domain name (or 10)? My name address and phone number have been available in the Whois database since Jan 1997. Those who aren't such Internet newbs have had their info in Whois for better than a decade. So many of my friends have domain names that I've occasionally used Whois to look up their phone numbers. (I'm not sure I want to think about what that says about me or my friends).
Is it a problem? I don't think so. Home/mailing addresses and phone numbers are pretty trivial to get for just about anyone. What's the harm in having yet another source?
Then again, maybe this attitude will come back to haunt me...
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"Kuro5hin is known as a place where people can actually discuss things in a rational and intellectually stimulating manner. Slashdot is a place where people come to troll."
That has not stopped you from coming here and posting hundreds of messages. What is your point?
You are like the guy at McDonald's: "Your Big Mac really sucks. Can I buy 3 of them to go?"
"But when you are broadcasting, it is important to know to whom it is that you are talking to"
No. The idea is what matters.
You get a cookie - look in your browser's cache....
www.eFax.com are spammers
Could not help but continue the lyrics.
If you're broadcasting, then your exact location can be determined WITHOUT A DATABASE! You're sending out an easily-triangulatable radio signal. So why is having an address in a searchable database so much more invasive?
Certainly from a practical standpoint it makes harvesting easier... but on the "principle" of the thing is seems to me that any HAM operator is already publishing their location simply by broadcasting.
DiscDividers tabbed plastic CD dividers: divider cards f
As I also appreciate your posting your troll response to my AC troll as an AC, indubitably yes I do!
Identity theft is only possible because we have this insane notion that all *entities* should have a single *identity*. The slow convergence of our presence in the world to a single, uniform, all-inclusive identity is an invitation to abuse.
Why are we removing the natural sandbags that once limited the spillover damage by tacitly allowing companies and the government to reduce us to a single unique identifier?
There should be a mandatory separation between the identifiers used to authenticate ourselves to different industries and portions thereof. Why is a social security number used for financial transactions? There should be a clear separation between government business and private businesses and subsections within the both. This would automatically limit the damage an identity thief would be able to inflict, because our entire lives would not be based on a single identity! Our folly seems to be the thought that we can somehow achieve absolute identity. The best we can ever hope to get is consistent identity.
I'm not trying to be a troll here, but I seriously think that this whole privacy issue would be a whole lot less of a hot topic if we were to preserve the natural identity separation that has served us so well for so many thousands of years.
We have had this system in use in Australia for a considerable time now, and there are regular publications such as the WIA Callbook which contain copies of most of the callsign info. I think that it is fair enough to publish that information, we are after all using the government's spectrum. It makes operators much more accountable for their actions and is handy when you are trying to figure out whos who and whats what on which frequency.
-- Book
The FCC requires all radio stations to identify themselves with their callsign. This makes it much easier to track down sources of interference when combined with the license database.
The license database encourages accountability, and I think it should be kept a public record.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I have noticed this before, but it doesn't particularly bother me. By the way, I've been in the database for a few years now and I'm not in WhitePages.com.
Actually, what does bother me is that my Dad has taken steps to not show up on WhitePages.com and other similar pages, not show up in the phone book and such, and yet there is a whole lot of info you can find on him just typing his name into google because of the organizations he's in (and specifically their newsletters).
There's not a whole lot that he can do about this, but still, it seems like companies and organizations could be a lot better about putting info on the web. If it must be there, at least put in the simple robots file...
The regulations allow you to use a post office box as a primary point of contact. Remember, not everyone can get mail on a street address (look up Avalon California at the USPS website for an example), and these are point of contact addresses - as a PO box is a point of contact, you can use them.
This sig no verb.
I do know that they used to insist on a geographic address for the station. Every license application and renewal that I have filed had that language. They must have dropped the requirement since the last time I filled out the paperwork.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
F U D. Is your phone number listed? Are you registered to vote? Do you have credit cards? Guess what I can find out where you live as well. I could pay the $19.95 and get your 5 last known addresses and social security number. Protect yourself the best you can as having a history of being alive is hard to shake.
a slut did tulsa
The law is very else:
:-)
.sig):
:-( "Past is prologue"
:-)
- the Tax Office let's ANYONE walk-in &
use THEIR office computer terminal
(after swiping a security card to
limit access to read-only access
public info, or the like) to look-up
ANYONE's details, by name or
(person number = birthdate + 4-digit seq no)
BUT...
- Swedish datalagen (last I looked) FORBIDS
putting even Swedish telephone book info
online (ie, on the Internet), presumably
to protect the security of political refugees
who moved to Sweden in the past.
OT Commentary (consider it a
In Australia, we "protect" our refugees (aka
"boat people") by keeping them LOCKED-UP in
detention centres!
Our -happy- neighbor (New Zealand) SAVED MONEY
by releasing their refugees into the community
and letting them find jobs freely...
Suicide still happens at an alarming rate in Oz.
This has to be the most absurd thing I've ever heard of. Your name and address are a matter of public record if you have a driver's license, own property or are registered to vote.
Grow the hell up.
if you google my name, the first result is both my callsign and my dad's callsign showing our address, home phone number, etc. i mentioned it to my dad, and he didn't seem bothered by it. the only thing that worried him is whether it had our SSNs. it doesn't, so we're not worried.
in fact, more recently, if you look through the CDBS form 349 entries for Radio Assist Ministry and Edgewater Broadcasting, you'll find my name (in a handlful of applications) and the name (and address) of my current employer there. that doesn't bother me either.
honestly, if you're willing to get a licence, you should be willing to open yourself as a public contact. if you're not, then don't have a license for any broadcast permissions.
the FCC has always been public. why bother changing that?
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
I was a HAM radio operator a few years ago. Though my license has long expired, my information is still there. Does that scare me? Nope. Even if the info was up to date, it still wouldn't bother me. Why? The main reason is that they'd have to know my callsign to find it. If they find that, then yeah they'd have that info.
... uh.. do something that I can imagine, or I can just accept that my info's out there. Am I being ignorant? Maybe. However, if somebody wants to find me, they WILL. Frankly, I'm more interested in my friends and family finding that info then in preventing invisible enemies from acquiring it.
The problem is that my info isn't all that hard to find. I can either live in fear that somebody will *gasp* find my address and
I am a HAM, and you are mistaken.
My license has always been delivered to my Post Office Box.
I do not have US Mail delivery at my location in a small town in California.
It's not as uncommon as you may think.
73 - KE6EBZ
Most of these rules promote the openness of this activity. There is no room for commercial activity with its attendant focus on economy and trade secrets and whatnot, and there must be no encryption. As for things such as spread-spectrum communications where obfuscation is easy, only certain well-known keys are to be used. Furthermore, the transmitting station's callsign must be repeated at intervals.
The effect of all this is that anyone, whether licensed or not, may listen and immediately fathom what is being said and who says it. There is, by law, no hiding place here! This openness reflects the unfettered nature of the radio signals themselves, these obey no borders or other political boundaries. And as for using Ham Radio for political ends, this is also illegal.
I guess one could compare the callsign to the license plate on a car. (even so in these cases where someone gets themselves personalized plates with their callsign on it) Both are mandatory, both are associated with unique strings that have only a slight connection to the owner, both are visible (or audible) in public, and both may be looked-up to find out who is their owner.
For years, all call-signs came in big books, now I think they mostly are published as CDs. Not that different from phone books really. So once on air, someone listening may find out who you are. It has always been this way.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
Not only does it give your name and address, but it includes handy links to Yahoo Maps and Mapquest to show where you live.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Do you want to outlaw all phone books? That sounds exactly what this is for Ham radio operators. From the info listed, there doesn't seem to be any additional info that isn't listed in a phone book. If one pays enough, one can get that data "legally."
It's a simple as that. A Radio license is not a right, but a priviledge, and knowing who holds them (and might be abusing them) is in the public interest.
http://www.arrl.org/fcc/fcclook.php3?name=%25&city =&state=&zip=&optype=a
Go figure out how to get all the data yourself, it's not too hard.
I'm always surprised when I see a ham with a vanity plate on their vehicle with their call sign. It's pretty trivial to look that up and call them on their bad driving. But as far as I can remember, most hams I know are at least half decent drivers.
As a ham, I'm not thrilled that my address is listed for all to see, but I must admit that it's kinda nice to be able to do a zip lookup and find others from my community who are into radio. If it were voluntary, I always wonder how many of us would contribute our info. Of course, I've changed addresses about a half dozen times since I got my license, so the address on file is woefully out of date. Hmm. Guess that answers my question.
It takes more than your address and birthday to commit a serious case of identity theft... But if it really concerns you, I would just get a PO box. It's what all the rest of us do, unless we just don't care. Afterall I give my mailing address to people all the time. It's on my business cards. So basicly A) you're paranoid and probably a little egotistical to think that anybody cares what your address is, B) if it really bothers you, get a PO box, C) if it really really bothers you, don't be a ham, D) if it REALLY REALLY REALLY bothers you AND you really want to be a ham, then you can file a petition for a rulemaking with the FCC, which they will be required to make public and accept comments on it. Then they will probably throw it out, but nevertheless they will have to at least consider your position.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
I didn't realize that call signs could be reused. I looked up the call sign of an old friend of my dad who's been dead for a number of years. The guy was Olaf Pearson and he had been involved in radio for so long that as a child he, literally, had been employed as a go-fer and floor sweeper in Marconi's lab.
It just struck me as odd that his old 4 digit call sign now belongs to some guy in Georgia.
call sign lookup is rather useful when exchanging qsl cards - either here or abroad.
I suggested that the portals to the public databases be replaced with a challenge/response system such that if someone wanted my address, I'd get a notification from the QSL bureau, or the FCC that so-and-so was requesting access to my data.
That's not a "challenge/response system". Challenge/response is when you try to authenticate yourself to a computer, the computer challenges you with a question, and you respond.
You want to approve who gets to see your records. Sensible, perhaps, but completely different.
I'm a ham - I could care less.
Hard loop..... huh?
Dynamic Designs
Mod parent to this one up! I have been licensed for 25+ years now and this was my first thought upon reading this article. I didn't notice if this guy was a ham or not, but off the cuff, I'd bet he (or the others that are whining about this) isn't.
I wrote the initial story, but somehow missed its publication and now no one will read this. Nonetheless I want to clarify a few points.
Sorry about the broken links, I did preview and thought the corrections worked. As usual, many folks just don't read the story, or don't retain what they've read: I am not a ham yet, but have been around them my entire life and am aware of how things are.
I have had mail stolen from my front door and used against me. Welcome to urban life in the 21st century. And that's the point. If you've been a ham for 25 years and not had a problem yet and are heavily armed, good for you. (Remember to drag the body inside your house before making the phone call.)
A paper callsign book is the equivalent to a reverse phone book. I don't care about hiding my name, I care about advertising the location of a decent amount of electronic equipment that can be hawked for a week's supply of meth (the drug of choice in my neighborhood.)
I know my license will be public record and I don't want to hide that from fellow hams. Personal information didn't used to be such a commodity and liability, and milkshakes used to cost a nickel.
Cheers,
Kyle Accardi