I think Chuck has made some rather relevant comments on topic without getting into all the emotional issues of what one thinks is or isn't in the Rules. I think he has a firm grip on the topic.
I too personally feel that we need to address these issues especially with the capabilities of our D-STAR Technology. Having an ID-1 with internet connectivity could easily compromise an operator if a hyperlink routes to an HTTPS: site. Or what if we set up an amateur radio backup link for local hospitals and an e-mail is sent via OUTLOOK with a .zip attachment or someone request us to relay a file that is password protected. Does that not contain encrypted information somewhere in the message even if the general message content is readable. Yes these are grey areas left to interpretation and I feel much like Chuck that we need to address these What if's before they are needed during actual emergencies. I think the FCC respondent was in his own fantasy world when he said you simply need to grab a commercial / public safety radio to complete the communications. I think Chuck is well aware many of these systems go down during actual emergencies so they aren't available. Evidently this FCC Representative has never been in a disaster area. If you haven't worked emergency communications then you have never really seen the need Chuck is addressing. The last NDMS Exercise we held here in Colorado had a lot of amateur radio participation. A local hospital here in Denver suffered an actual loss of their internet connectivity during the day of the exercise and was unable to enter patient data from incoming casualty patients because they couldn't access the States https: database. If they had had access to an ID-1 and internet connectivity they still couldn't perform their mission directly with amateur radio as a back up with the system accessing an https: internet site since that would be using Encryption on amateur Frequencies. Yes information was passed after the fact but had this been an actually incident with mass casualties having the ability to use amateur radio would have ideally completed the data link during the emergency. Just as a further note, there has been difficulties with other exercises because the participants are not familiar with the operation of the States 800MHz system so it has never worked as anticipated during the exercises and the always fall back on the amateurs to relay their information. There are also area communities which operate on non compatible systems like EDACS and DTRS so they often have trouble linking the systems to communicate between the two. This is the real world! Barry KA0BBQ From: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com [mailto:dstar_digi...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Charles Scott Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 1:43 PM To: dstar_digital@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] Re: Encryption on Amateur Frequencies Chuck - N8DNX [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
