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France Says D-Star Ham Radio Mode Is Illegal
gyrogeerloose writes "Citing 'national security concerns,' the French Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes (ARCEP, France's equivalent of the US's FCC) has ruled that D-Star, an amateur radio digital signal mode used world-wide, is illegal because it could allow operators to connect to the Internet.The ARCEP also cites alleged concerns regarding cryptography and national security as well as the use of a proprietary codec. While it's true that the D-Star codec is proprietary, its owner has openly licensed it (for a fee, of course) to any manufacturer who wants to build it into their equipment. Any licensed amateur radio operator who lives within the EU can sign an online petition protesting this decision."
It's France, so what did you expect?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
But the ways of kleptocracies are there for all to see.
I leave it to the reader to decide which France is.
I'd be interested to see how the "minutemen" and other anti-brown-people groups would react to knowing that their ability to have untrackable phones is owed to those same targets of their rage...
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt