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Anonymous' Airchat Aim: Communication Without Need For Phone Or Internet
concertina226 (2447056) writes "Online hacktivist collective Anonymous has announced that it is working on a new tool called Airchat which could allow people to communicate without the need for a phone or an internet connection — using radio waves instead. Anonymous, the amorphous group best known for attacking high profile targets like Sony and the CIA in recent years, said on the project's Github page: 'Airchat is a free communication tool [that] doesn't need internet infrastructure [or] a cell phone network. Instead it relies on any available radio link or device capable of transmitting audio.' Despite the Airchat system being highly involved and too complex for most people in its current form, Anonymous says it has so far used it to play interactive chess games with people at 180 miles away; share pictures and even established encrypted low bandwidth digital voice chats. In order to get Airchat to work, you will need to have a handheld radio transceiver, a laptop running either Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, and be able to install and run several pieces of complex software." And to cleanse yourself of the ads with autoplaying sound, you can visit the GitHub page itself.
They're anonymous, so they don't need to respect your frequency assignments.
... revolutionary. sigh.
This is almost certainly illegal in the UK. Encrypyted comms over citizen/public radio bands is not allowed. Steganography would be required to carry an encrypted payload without being caught, but you'd still be breaking the law.
Maybe he should call it "Talking".
So the NSA couldn't necessarily snoop your data - but the FCC could (and if you pissed the NSA or FBI off, probable WOULD) come after you for these types of violations. They couldn't get your by IP address - but if your were operating this from a fixed-base - they could find you.
Try doing this on the HAM bands and you'll have a bunch of Radio Amateurs tracking your location and reporting you in to ACMA/FCC/Whatever the UK has.
Encryption is explicitly excluded in the regs. Doing so will actually have people tracking your location and gathering logs on what they find.
10-4, good buddy!
Hmmmm... might have to dig out my 150W linear amplifier I used to use to drown out obnoxious truckers with, when they needed a smackdown.
I'm here sending out propaganda with this supa sekrit radio transmitter. Betch'a can't find me .. nyah nyah nyah
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Uh, amateur radio, anyone?
We call it Ham radio. If you communicate, do so with a name.
Packet radio is done every single day on HF on up. With APRS, you can get messages from one coast to the other and back again without any internet or phone connection.
If you DO have an Internet connection, http://www.aprs.fi/ even shows you where all of the beacons, digipeaters, and stations are at a given time, and allows you to see all of the packets that are sent.
"...a laptop running either Windows, Mac OS X or Linux" Aw crap, I guess my DOSbook is out :(
Maybe he should call it "Talking".
Or waving flags if you can use signal flags. I hear smoke signals can work too..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Yup, i was thinking the same thing as well as "I hope they are not using HAM frequencies". Go pick someone elses band to screw with like GMRS or FRS :)
Obama = Socialism.
Why use this when I can get some cheap ham radio gear, or even a CB radio setup?
It looks like a solution in search of a problem.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
It's a great idea, I'll accept that, it's also not new - this has existed in some commercial form one way or the other (various calculators could communicate images & chat freely via the airwaves, Nintendo DS could also seek players within a certain range to do some picto-chatting or game with each other). Radio Amateurs have done this since the 80s, me too... I did it with a Commodore 64 + a home made 1-transistor modem and a walkie talkie, worked like a charm, but hey...it's good to see the kids of today doing something else than chatting on the internet.
1). You may want to check with the laws of your country, transmitting on most bands are illegal and could potentially disturb or disrupt ambulance communication, police or other important communications. Becoming a licensed Radio Amateur the legal way, is a good step in the right direction.
2). There are existing options you can use to chat & send files via radio today, Ham Radio enthusiasts knows all about this, visit your local (ARRL or equal ham-radio club in your neck of the woods).
3). If you want to chat worldwide, you could get a shortwave radio - or satellite antenna with the appropriate transceiver and a packet modem, with this - you can chat digitally, send pictures, send files as long as you have a radio amateur license to do so. Basically you need this to operate on the bands, in most countries you can listen in on radio amateurs communicating via packet-radio without a license, but you DO NEED A LICENSE TO TRANSMIT.
There are many more things you can do, there are a lot of commercially available radios, digital radios and much more. And none of them require the internet.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Spooks have been using radio waves 'forever'. Still, consumer progress moves onward. In effect, though, anyone with WiFi is using a shortrange version RF comm.
Even more so than anonymous's LOIC which didn't even bounce the attacks, this will give your position away. It is trivial to triangulate a radio signal like this, and if you interrupt legally protected radio frequencies they will hunt you down. Please be careful if you intend on using this.
US Army vehicles pass IP traffic over 2 way radios to provide tactical situational awareness and status reporting
Pigeons?
I'm sure they're probably using Baofengs like everyone else who likes to freeband.
We've had it for a long time, it's called Ham Radio. Sure you have to get a license but it's trivial nowadays.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
If you have to worry about crap like this, you need to install better ad blockers and script blockers.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And with encryption allowed.
The reason the ham service cannot innovate like this is that to be a worldwide service it has to operate by rules that are a lowest common denominator of all the rule sets imposed by all the countries in which it operates.
and corporations are people, too, right?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Anonymous, the amorphous group best known for attacking high profile targets like Sony and the CIA in recent years
I thought they were best known for making grandiose claims that never came to fruition? Remember how they were going to destroy facebook?
Let's get on this while it's "hot Hot HOT!!!" Be sure to sell them on CL and eBay as a "radio frequency modulating device that does not require a common infrastructure" or something amazing like that. GO! GO! GO!
I love the idea of sending a jpeg by semaphore. Can't see it working for smoke signals, though.
"Is the Chief Priest an Offlian? Do dragons explode in the wood?"
encrypted smoke signals. the hard part is keeping the decoy fires going
You mean the ham bands where you're not allowed to discuss anything political, not allowed to swear or basically have an opinion on anything even slightly controversial except who's going to win best tomatoes at this years vegetable growers competition?
Yeah, who needs CB eh?
No offence , but the ham bands are for old men with nothing to talk about except their radios and gardens. CB back in the day was far more vibrant.
I'm sure this proposal was floated by some FBI agent provocateur.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage. And hams can be quite nerdly.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
See, when I was a kid, we had this thing called the postal service. It was great. If you had a piece of paper, a writing implement, and a stamp, you could communicate without even needing a computer, let alone a phone or internet. It was even possible to encrypt your communication using a variety of methods so that even if intercepted it wouldn't be obvious that it was some form of secure communication, let alone actually be read by the man in the middle. There were even good methods of detecting if communication had been intercepted, which this new-fangled method lacks. And yeah, there were even people who played chess via this method.
If these kids are gonna reinvent the wheel, they should at least make it work as well as the old wheel.
Easy Online Role Playing Campaign Management
Implying Slashdot isn't equally guilty of the same damn charge. About a week ago, while indulging myself in my daily fix while on my cellphone, I'll be damned if an ad on this very site (Slashdot) not only showed a video ad but the damn thing even autoplayed. I was not logged in at that moment so I can't confirm if it would have affected me while logged in.
This kind of behaviour is not only damn annoying but also use my precious (expensive and limited) 3G limit.
Damn Slashdot, for sure that's not the way to monetize the site. Mobile users surely get abused these days, and then when someone figures how to make an effective and pervasise ad blocker for all mobile OS the industry will come crying "we have no way to monetize the site now".
Behave now or suffer later.
the downside of SDR. Just wait until BladeRF and HackRF and others really get spun up. No frequency will be safe.
In an actual "Sh*t Hits the Fan" emergency, technology like this isn't a bad thing to have on tap. The fun part is managing it day-to-day.
... that they seem to be painfully unaware of any technology from before they were born. Which for most of them was probably the year 2000.
I love the idea of sending a jpeg by semaphore. Can't see it working for smoke signals, though.
Why not? Long/short pulses of smoke could correspond to 0's and 1's, respectively.
Now granted, it might take 2 weeks and a helluva lot of timber to send the file header...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
...I mean, good luck with that. That's pretty old-school, not sure it'll catch on, even in places where in really should. But hey, friends have iphones that need more charging than my startac did, and that was in the days when phone chargers could charge a phone and a second battery concurrently. So what do I know?
So,,,Sounds that travel over the air without the use of a phone or internet connexion,,,,I call it dialogue face to face but HEY,,,always new ways to re-invent the wheel
These guys are talking about communication when the government is the adversary. FCC is the least of their worries.
However, this is still possible given the state of the technology. They just need to slow down the bitrate and go below the noise level. They mention Fldigi, so I guess the bitrates are in 30..3000bit/s range (because of the modulation types Fldigi supports). Relatively high power is needed, very easy to detect even at great distances.
Look into JT65 and WSPR digital modes, guys. The bitrates are below 1bit/s, but it provides greatly improved stealth because of the very low power needed. These modes are still narrowband and are easily detected when the black van is close enough.
The next step would be to develop a digital mode that uses the full 3kHz bandwidth of a low power transceiver, but the signal is indistinguishable from the noise and the bitrate is low, much less than 3kbit/s. Currently the amateurs are not interested in such modes, so nothing like this is available. This is where the development effort should be applied.
FYI, It probably doesn't appear if logged in. If you use the disable ads button it removes ALL the right hand sidebar (ads or not) which seems to include the noisy ones. HOWEVER it still left 2 animated ads and a damn popup....not my idea of disabled.
Looking up ad blockers now. I hadn't even used the disable ads button before that autoplay crap. You are NOT gaining much ground.
This idea has been around for a very long time:
http://servv89pn0aj.sn.sourced...
Green Bay Professional Packet Radio - probably has done the most work in this area.
http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/
Amateur Radio packet radio has been around since the late 80s. There's a new approach being tested as a wireless WAN on HF.
http://uspacket.org/network/in...
Yes, you do need a license, but encryption is not allowed on any amateur frequencies - unless it's the control channel for a ham satellite. ARRL tried to get an exception for ARES to transmit HIPAA data via packet encrypted, but FCC denied the petition. Anyone with a receiver and the Fldigi software can listen in.
Worse, I've seen intermittent pop-up-like ads starting to show up at the bottom of the main slashdot page. Slashdot has been one of the few sites where I enable the display of ads because I want to support the site, and until recently the ads haven't been too obnoxious, but I draw the line at pop-up ads. They're blocked in the browser, but slashdot is obviously using some other rendering trick to make it display anyway. In most cases they aren't even different ads from the ones that I do see embedded in the page at top and sides. They're redundant and annoying.
mesh networks and bitcoins. problems solved.
n/t
"The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
See, when I was a kid, we had this thing called the postal service. It was great. If you had a piece of paper.
What is this "paper" of which you speak?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Hi folks! It seems we have a new listener tonight: Mr Watts of the F.C.C! Hi Arthur, thanks for coming out."
First off, in a war zone where there is anarchy, "everything is legal" unless the local warlord or the country or entity firing bombs in your direction says otherwise.
Second, during times of disaster many communication rules are waived, particularly on frequencies that don't cross national boundaries and which don't cause harm to other emergency or government services.
Third, there are unlicensed frequencies that can be used for ad-hoc metro-area connections if you have good directional antenna. CB radio works tens of miles, maybe over 100, with a good directional antenna and that's without "skywave." Highly directional WiFi antennas can give you tens-of-miles communication over "no special license required" frequencies. If you can go above RF and use visible light or near-infrared, you can either use pulses or if you are really sophisticated and the distances aren't too long, you can use lasers to do "fiber optics without the fiber." As far as I know, there are no radio authorities that regulate the use of visible light, but you may run into safety-related laws if you use laser beams.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Most posters here seem not to have read the details on the Github page, and are missing the point.
This is a way to have encrypted point-to-point communication or (in some cases) network using any radio (or other) transmission equipment that will transmit/receive audio signals and allow you to tap-into the analog audio circuit of the transmitter and receiver. You could use it with:
- telephones (landline kind)
- mobile phones
- radio transceivers (legal or illegal - the protocol doesn't *require* that you break the law!)
- optical communication equipment - free air/fibre
- etc. etc. etc.
It just defines a common protocol and means of modulation/demodulation.
They take a whole lot of words to say this, and throw in a lot of revolutionary rhetoric.
And yes, it's very similar to amateur packet radio, except encrypted. So, lots of existing code to draw from.
It's well within the capability of any PC or smartphone today. Although I let my ham license lapse many years ago, I do have a couple of receivers squirreled away somewhere, and a few years ago I experimented with listening-in on amateur packet radio. You just run the output from your receiver into the input of a Soundblaster card (I SAID this was a few years ago...) and the application handles the decoding.
An interesting side-note: If you're near an airport, you can use similar software to decode VHF ACARS transmissions. (The kind that hasn't helped much in locating MH370). Just install some open-source software, hook your scanner up to your PC, tune to the right frequency, and it turns the squawks into somewhat-readable messages.
It's biggest drawback is it's biggest strength, IMO. It DOESN'T define a common frequency, some complex frequency-hopping or spread-spectrum scheme, or even common transmission media. It would be extremely hard for it to gain critical mass. On the other hand, it means there are an awful lot of places one would have to look to find it. It's up to whatever group that wants to communicate to settle on a transmission media and (if applicable) frequency.
...how many of you think that The Law is a deterrent when Liberty is at stake.
Correction, scary.
Didn't L0pht already try this back in the 90's?
Me and my group of peers have been experimenting with this for a long while. We were on IRC via telnet over packet radio and drop to the max distance to our setups. Fluid chat was impossible as the massive delay and data transfer rate was vastly sub par. I was complementing doing a project using a transceiver modal in the 433mhz range with a LNA (Low noise amplifier) and a custom designed directional antenna or a 2.4ghz transceiver using the nrf24l01. This would be controlled via a AVR micro controller to handle the interfaces wither it be tactile buttons and a small LCD screen, or USB interface into a computer. There are drawbacks to each, distance vs data transfer rate. If this was purely for sending text messages to people the first would be the better option.
The thing is though? The truth is typically someplace roughly in the middle.... EG. In Bundy's case, the truth is somewhere between his idea that federal land ownership is "unjust", and the idea that federal govt. should buy up huge swaths of land and just sit on them (for over 100 years at a time, in this instance, and probably many others) -- and then selectively enforce rules with an iron fist, when they suddenly deem it worthwhile.
So the "anarchy" brings attention to the initial problem, and *hopefully* brings about an end result of some modification to existing regulations, to improve things in the future for everyone.
It's pretty well documented in historical records that when the United States fought for freedom from England and the Revolutionary War began, there was a lot of this "over the top" behavior involved too. British soldiers, ordered to simply stand guard in certain areas, were spit on, had beer bottles thrown at them from nearby taverns, etc. -- in an attempt to provoke one of them to give in and fire a weapon. Bottom line? You can't really create effective change if you just sit quietly by and follow all the rules. The protesting/anarchy isn't usually 100% right, but it serves as a catalyst for change.
I understand why people are pushing ham, but licensing, required identification, etc. are incompatible with the goals of this project and will never fly with those interested. As such, we should focus on education, etiquette and convention.
HAM radio has long irritated me -- because while I completely see the value in people forming clubs to learn to use it, and value in cooperation so the bands can be used constructively? I think getting federal govt. involved in it was a HUGE mistake.
I don't care how "easy" the licensing has become. The idea I should have to earn (and pay for) a license before I have the privilege of transmitting over the airwaves disgusts me. I was always very interested in the hobby, even purchasing a hand-held HAM radio receiver at one time to play around with. But ultimately, I got into CB radio and sold the HAM gear, because it's more true to how I think it should all work.
When I used to listen to the "regulars" on the HAM bands, chatting, it struck me as largely a crowd of entitled, older men who felt self-important that they had this govt. issued call-sign to flaunt around.
I'm sure many others simply take HAM radio as a serious responsibility (ability to get communications through in major emergencies, etc.) -- and that's great. But I'd rather see CB radio expanded to be far more useful by turning over a bigger chunk of these licensed HAM bands for the general public. Even on existing CB, I've seen channel 9 monitored very efficiently by volunteers at local radio stations who path you through to emergency services if needed. No govt. licensing necessary to make that function.
Well put. Mod parent up.
In this case I lean toward "redneck dick", but each case deserves to be looked at on it's own merits.
I refuse to sign
Don't forget that we *know* that the government lies to the courts, withholds evidence, and even destroys evidence. So it's not a big stretch to imagine that Bundy was railroaded. The BLM lied to the court about important issues in the case, and Bundy has the moral high ground.
So the way things stand, the government gets no benefit of the doubt and Bundy does. Therefore, he looks more like an American Patriot fighting an out of control government agency than a nut-job (not that the two are mutually exclusive.)
So, while I don't support violence, I applaud Bundy for standing up and I hope eventually the whole truth comes out.
"I'll be damned if an ad on this very site (Slashdot) not only showed a video ad but the damn thing even autoplayed"
Not to defend the crappy code (it's been crappy from day one and unlikely to improve) the other point of failure here is your browser. You should be able to configure it to pass on any website suggestions that involve executing "active content" without your explicit approval. Which is necessary for a large and growing portion of the web, I am afraid, certainly not just slashdot.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
"and then selectively enforce rules with an iron fist, when they suddenly deem it worthwhile."
10 years and a million dollars in fines? Suddenly?
Dude even if you do not think the that government should own the land it sure as shooting did not belong to that rancher!
And I would like that rancher to please pay his back rent and lower the deficit by a million dollars!.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
There's something like this already working: SailMail. This is email for sailors, using a network of small radio stations around the world that talk to boats and to each other. It's very slow by modern standards; it makes dial-up look fast. It's strictly email, being a store and forward system. But it's a cheap, effective way to get a message to or from a small sailboat in the middle of an ocean. Coverage is worldwide. People have sailed around the globe without losing connectivity.
The guy who set it up is into yacht racing; he won the transatlantic sailing speed record in 2001.
Actually when I first read the synopsis I thought is said "communicate using AUDIO frequencies" and it was in fact some kind of parody of geeks learning to actually use sound waves in air to communicate with each other...
HAM radio has long irritated me -- because while I completely see the value in people forming clubs to learn to use it, and value in cooperation so the bands can be used constructively? I think getting federal govt. involved in it was a HUGE mistake.
So you don't think the federal government has any right to regulate the use of radio spectrum? I think you are gravely mistaken. Radio spectrum space is a national resource that needs to be managed at the federal level or chaos would be the result. Literally nothing would work like it does now. Your cell phone, your GPS receiver, your WiFi router, the radio in your car and a whole host of things would be hit or miss, if they worked at all. The FCC is necessary. In fact, it was the FCC that created CB, and at least initially they required a license if you where using it. So, like it or not, even on CB you are subject to FCC regulations about the equipment you use and how you use it. Not that they enforce them very well.
I don't care how "easy" the licensing has become. The idea I should have to earn (and pay for) a license before I have the privilege of transmitting over the airwaves disgusts me.
You do realize that the fees you are charged for taking the test are NOT collected for the FCC's coffers right? The FCC doesn't get a dime of the $15 test fees, but it goes to the VE organizations that print, distribute, mail, administer and file the paperwork related to the testing. It doesn't even go the guys/gals standing their monitoring you when you take the test, who grade the test and fill out the paperwork, they are all volunteers who do this for free. Which is what the Armature radio service is all about.
Plus, there is a *point* to what you need to learn here. RF is dangerous stuff at power levels legal for hams to use. You can harm yourself, your family and those that live around you if you don't know what you are doing. Proving you have at least SOME knowledge about what you are doing is a good idea. Also, spectrum is a finite resource, and if you don't know how to tune your radios and antennas or know what modulation techniques are suitable you are going to waste a whole lot of that resource.
But I think you totally ignore the *purpose* of ham radio,
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.
(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art.
(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
(e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to enhance international goodwill.
(from 47 CFR Part 97, Paragraph 1 "Basis and Purpose")
I was always very interested in the hobby, even purchasing a hand-held HAM radio receiver at one time to play around with. But ultimately, I got into CB radio and sold the HAM gear, because it's more true to how I think it should all work.
When I used to listen to the "regulars" on the HAM bands, chatting, it struck me as largely a crowd of entitled, older men who felt self-important that they had this govt. issued call-sign to flaunt around.
I'm sure many others simply take HAM radio as a serious responsibility (ability to get communications through in major emergencies, etc.) -- and that's great. But I'd rather see CB radio expanded to be far more useful by turning over a bigger chunk of these licensed HAM bands for the general public. Even on existing CB, I've seen channel 9 monitored very efficiently by volunteers at local radio stations who path you through to emergency services if neede
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The idea I should have to earn (and pay for) a license before I have the privilege of transmitting over the airwaves disgusts me.
I feel the same way about it. I can understand wanting to license people who want to build their own transceivers, and maybe even those who want to develop their own modulation schemes and data protocols, but the fact that a HAM can't design and build some nice little ARPS transceivers for his friends and neighbors and allow them to use the devices without having their own license doesn't make any sense to me. Especially if the device were to transmit his call sign when in use so that people know who to talk to if the device or its user misbehaves. The radio spectrum is a natural resource, so I don't understand why less than 1% of it belongs to the public. There's no reason why we should all be paying monthly fees to cell phone companies when ARPS shows us that volunteers are more than capable of running a public text messaging system for free.
When I looked into HAM radio, I just couldn't see anything that appealed to me. I'm not the kind of person who cares to try to see how far away I can communicate with the least amount of power just for shits and giggles. I'd want to build digital devices, using my own data protocols, and maybe experiment with new modulation schemes, but the FCC dictates what you're allowed to transmit and what modulation schemes you're allowed to use. I don't even know how they ended up with ARPS since, from what I saw when I looked into HAM radio, no one would have been allowed to start the project because, by virtue of being new, it wouldn't have been on the list of things that people are permitted to do.
Anyway, I eventually lost interest, but if I still cared I'd probably either use CB or FRS and just ignore the fact that what I was doing with those frequencies was illegal since it's unlikely anyone who heard the transmissions would give a shit anyway. Around here, both bands are rather vacant, so it's unlikely anyone would even notice what I was doing, never mind anyone caring about it.
This comes in useful when you are close to the transmitter. I had no trouble tracking a signal to almost the exact spot with a simple directional antenna, but had trouble when the signal was so strong I couldn't get it to null out no matter what direction I faced.
Sounds like packet radio.
...because they're too greedy. Let's go down the list of what I've read here so far:
1a. CB radio: this band, 11 meters, was formerly an amateur radio band and was taken away to make the CB band. It became the total morass it is now when they stopped licensing it.
1b. This also shows what happens to a band in the absence of regulation and licensing. You can get away with this in the ISM portions of the microwave bands due to the massive propagation losses; this was originally the thought for using 11 meters for the CB band, but they didn't factor in amps. giant antennas, and especially ionospheric propagation: hence the need for "CB" bands up in the UHF range (aka GMRS/FRS/etc).
2. You "free band" too much and start interfering with people who actually care, and you'll find out how fast they come after you. This largely depends on what country you are in and what band. As an example, ask the Brazilian guy who was on US military frequencies in NYC, or the people regularly busted for jamming or at least operating on police frequencies.
3. As pointed out repeatedly, this has already been invented both by hams and commercially.
4. Encryption on amateur radio bands is explicitly banned in most countries including the USA and Canada; strangely, this doesn't seem to exist in the ITU regs. I'm sure the thought on this is that Amateur Radio must not be used for business or as a replacement for other communications except in emergencies; also Amateurs regularly communicate with foreign countries, so everyone wants to be able to listen to them. If you look at the preamble of the relevant section of the law, the part about "fostering goodwill" would be inherently violated with encryption. Remember, everyone getting so gung-ho with EMCOMM is a relatively recent phenomena, and the primary purposes have always been experimentation such. It's sad that newer people to the hobby and even the national organizations like ARRL/CRRL/JARL/RSGB/etc seem to have forgotten this.
5. All nations' regulations follow (more or less) the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) regulations as a guideline, though every nation usually makes changes. As long as these changes don't impact other countries, it doesn't matter much. I believe this is part of the reason the world is organized into 3 regions: Europe, Africa, and the old USSR and its satellites are Region 1, the New World including Greenland is Region 2, and the rest of Asia and Oceania is Region 3.
Oh, and just to drive home the interference point, I had to jump on ARRL's web site and these were on the front page:
http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/O...
http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-c...
From what you say, the fault is with the crappy domestic equipment. Most domestic electronics equipment in USA has very poor "Immunity" specifications. Any nearby RF will cause interference.
BTW, interference to non-radio equipment (eg a landline) can never be the fault of the transmitter.
And your claim that "boosting it's power" will "fuck up it's channel separation" shows that you haven't a clue.
No matter how badly a Transmitter is tuned, it cannot be the cause of interference to land-lines and other non-radio equipment.
The cause can ONLY be crappy design of the domestic equipment.
If you go to https://github.com/lulzlabs/Ai... you can access the original.
It seems they are using the Amateur Radio Fldigi software to support their Lulzpacket protocol.
All rather sad and overrated really.
Odd things resonate when near very high power transmitters. I used to hear my father's linear on the toaster upstairs.
How far could you receive and transmit?
Latency, even lots of latency may be a good thing and require low bandwidth and time to broadcast. I remember getting e-mail and USENET over 56KB phone lines with UUCP. The needs of a mesh or ad hoc network using packet switched radio for text and images and sound, needn't be that demanding if people adjusted to latent communication. If you goal was to have discussion free of commercial pressures, you could get by with delays, short transmission times, store and forward technology and ad hoc communication away from the Internet and the mobile network. If you didn't require voice or video, you could get text and images for much less resource, even if you had to pirate from allocated bands to do it. Maybe you do the opposite of cell-phone comm, you do narrow bandwidth very directional short burst comm even in allocated bands. If people are patient, you do this in a low demand way and it is difficult to prevent; all the better if your use of bandwidth is super efficient and you disrupt no one.
Nevada ceded administration of their state land to the Fed originally because the new state had no infrastructure to tend the land or secure it. The Nevada constitution provides explicitly for grazing on this land. It is supposed to be pubic land, not private land held by the Fed or BLM. There is a constitutional prohibition against the Fed owning land as a squatter.
The idea was that at some future time the Fed would relinquish the land to the state of Nevada. Fat chance of that.
Around 1993 BLM insisted on a contract that required ranchers to give up their water and grazing rights forever, except where the BLM doled them out for a fee. All but a few ranchers quit the range. Bundy refused to sign and got stubborn.
Twenty years later, 200 armed BLM thugs showed up with snipers and SWAT teams to collect the grazing fees.....the rest is history. By coincidence, that grazing land is now set aside to mitigate tortoises for a solar power plant about 35 miles away. By coincidence, Harry Reid's son is an executive for that power plant project. By coincidence, the head of the BLM was Reid's former staffer. By coincidence, nothing was done for 20 years until those people suddenly needed Bundy gone.
Personally, I don't think we should declare a free for all on spectrum like King_TJ apparently does, but I would like to see more spectrum opened for unlicensed use much as the ISM band was. The rate of advance there has been startling the last few years. Adding space at 5GHz was good, but it might be interesting to allocate at least some space in a band with a better reach (still at a reasonably low power).
This should not come out of the ham bands, they've been compressed enough.
Just to clarify.... I don't think I ever suggested the entire RF spectrum should be made a total free-for-all. I think, clearly, the people who paid to purchase portions of it for commercial activities are entitled to use those parts of the spectrum without disruption. (And yes, unfortunately, that means we've probably got keep another initialed government agency around to manage that -- hence the FCC.)
My main point was that I think the spectrum, by and large, should be made available for the general public's free use. Many of the complaints of illegal and disruptive use of CB radio has very little to do with the idea that its users are "untrained" (like they supposedly would be, by contrast, earning HAM radio licenses). It has FAR more to do with it lacking in usefulness with the limits on power output levels the FCC placed on it. When you're only allowed to broadcast with 4 watts of power, maximum, and the predominant use is to talk between moving vehicles -- you just don't get enough range not to frustrate users. That, in turn, leads to people slapping in all sorts of poorly designed and leaky power amplifiers of questionable origin, and broadcasting garbage all over the spectrum.
And as I believe I said in my original message? I'm fine with HAM existing for those wishing to broadcast on the frequencies most useful for transmitting very long distances. That's a niche case though, compared to all the people who just want a free alternative to using a cellphone or some commercial walkie-talkie, for general/casual conversations and to enhance safety when on the road. These people should at least be able to use something more like what's available currently with a 2 meter HAM radio, without need of a govt. issued callsign.