Danny, Very good points all. I had not thought about this in a situation like Katrina. Can you imagine the ARC, Salvation Army, each local EOC, and the state EOC all having different encryption keys? If hundreds of hams show up to a disaster like this, who is going to administer all the different keys and insure only the proper personnel get them? Is everyone going to use the same key? How quickly will some hacker "social engineer" the one and only key?
Besides the "self-policing" arguments, the ramificiations of administering encryption need to be discussed also. Otherwise, encryption won't be a viable solution to offer clients and customers in our amateur radio emergency business. Also, keep in mind that amateur allocations are under world-wide treaty. The FCC could reduce the allocations to just those where amateur radio is the primary user but they won't disappear entirely (think region 1 or 3 bands). On the other hand, widespread encryption could certainly give other countries a lever to remove amateur radio from entirely from the ITU allocations. Jim WA0LYK --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, "Danny Douglas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I am afraid many of them don't really care what you and I think > about it. In this atmosphere of fright, many think that if we DON'T > do as they are planning, we will loose our freqs totally. I think > if we do it, we indeed WILL loose our freqs. Thus it turns out to > be a catch-as-catch-can situation. WE have just got to convince the > powers that be, that this is NOT a viable path to the result they >want. > > Who will supply the key materials? Who will insure that this > material is kept under high security situations, both during > storage, and under use? This opens up a whole other problem. Are > all these hams going to have to have a security clearance? Who > would issue that? > > Frankly, if the government wants and needs (and they do) additional > radio/communications personnel for emergencies, and certain hams > wish to volunteer for the assignment, that is just fine. Please > just leave the rest of us out of it and don't force us to change our > ways, or loose our present capabilities, in order for them to do so. > Go ahead step up as hams, but only because hams are the semi-trained > communicators of the day. It is like WWII. Hams stepped forward > and taught CW, ran circuits, etc. But they used military equpment, > after they were trained by the military to do so. No > different than today. Step up with your knowledge, learn their way > of dong things, use their equipment, AND THEIR FREQS. > > > Danny Douglas N7DC > ex WN5QMX ET2US WA5UKR ET3USA > SV0WPP VS6DD N7DC/YV5 G5CTB all > DX 2-6 years each > . > QSL LOTW-buro- direct > As courtesy I upload to eQSL but if you > use that - also pls upload to LOTW > or hard card. >
