Is Encryption Possible on a Baofeng Radio?

What if there is no rule of law? Would encryption technically be possible on a Baofeng radio?
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#TheTechPrepper #Baofeng #Encryption

[@Sparkfly88]

Much more simple than I thought it was going to be. Getting information out there is legal and covered under our rights. ( what little rights we have left )

[@TheTechPrepper]

That's was the point. Inexpensive, simple and practical. Thanks for the support. Cheers!

[@MountainMan7.62x39]

Amen, brother.

[@cmerton]

"Preppers" are a bunch of lunatics.

[@Charlie-Bee]

This would theoretically work in other applications where a payload of txt can be sent as long as the format characters is supported by the mode.

[@Ian-jt2kl]

AndFLmsg is a great way to communicate with cheap handhelds. If you're in an active warzone it might not be the best. One thing everyone should be aware of is that even small messages take a while to send. This gives your adversary the opportunity to find you. Use it if you have to then move. Use directional antennas. Only use the minimum power necessary.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Excellent points. Acoustic coupling works in a pinch, but an audio interface cable would be ideal in a hostile environment. It's always good to have options.

[@LightInnDmountain]

Not legal in USA. But good to know for emergencies. Key word : emergency. Great job, short and simple great video. Thank you .

[@TheTechPrepper]

It's always nice to have a technique like this in your back pocket.

[@justkelly6992]

Holy Cow, you answered my questions and made it so simple. Our group has been looking for an effective and portable system to do just this. Great Job!!

[@TheTechPrepper]

Glad to hear you found your answer. This is about as low tech as you can get on the cheap for encrypted comms.

[@KD8TTE]

Good coverage without getting down into rabbit holes. A fun little test to show how resilient MT-63 is, I copied the digital transmission on a computer (not the one I was watching the video with) running FLDIGI, despite the low audio.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Thank you. This one is for the people. At some point, I'll go deeper into the FCC rules (Part 90, 95 and 97). I'm a fan of K.I.S.S. I hope this helps a certain group of people across the pond. I was going to suggest that people launch the app while my fldigi traffic audio is playing in the video, but I forgot.

[@gwaits1193]

So another option for people that watch you don't get an amateur license. Get a land mobile license. And you can have any kind of level encryption that you want just like I have.

[@daviddickey9832]

For military applications they might need to send large amounts of data. One way that you might do this is to use 7zip to compress then encrypt the file then send it over the air with flarq. Because these units maybe geographically separated with no way to reliably reach each other they should have access to some over the air re-keying scheme. I'd recommend ECIES (Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme). Elliptic curve cryptography is more suited for slow AFSK digital modes because the keys are much shorter than RSA keys for the same level of protection. Also for whatever symmetric block cipher you choose, e.g., AES-256, make sure you don't use a feedback mode like "electronic codebook (ECB)" especially if you're sending image data. Also, using windows in a tactical environment is not a good idea, you probably want to run OpenBSD or Fedora, but there you will have to use different tools for encryption and compression. Make sure to first compress then encrypt.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Great tips. Thanks for sharing. My EmComm Tools software project runs on top of Linux and supports various encryption capabilities that use the a number ham radio modems as the transport. At the moment, only my local group has this software. I have not decided yet when or how to make it public.

[@blue_gunfox]

Haha yeah I use fedora 38, It is quite nice. I have a dell rugged 5414 as my prepping/day to day comms laptop.

[@daviddickey9832]

@@TheTechPrepper one thing I forgot to mention you also need to consider is doing this in something with managed memory when reading data over the radio, the reason being that some hostile radio could attempt something like in the EW world called a "Suter" in this case some buffer overflow attack that would allow the remote hostile transmission to execute commands on your machine. OpenBSD is more protected against such attacks.

[@user-bk3ls2pm3u]

​@daviddickey9832 anyway you can point me in the right direction for some more info on what you would recommend running? Seems you are well versed on the topic. Some help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[@daviddickey9832]

@@user-bk3ls2pm3u I tried posting a response earlier and it looks like it didnt succeed. It depends on how paranoid you want to be, but probably the easiest thing to throw together is 2 hackRF's so you can run full duplex and then use filters and power amplifiers for whatever (bands) frequency ranges you intend on using. I'd interface with them using GNURadio and python. Python also has strong NLP support so you can catalogue natural speech that you hear and then maybe do some analysis on it later. Also in a tactical environment those HackRF's can be useful if your adversary (e.g., Ukraine war) is using cell phones.

[@BackwoodsLaw]

Just ran across this today. I get that you were trying to do it technology based, there is another way that we used in the military (at least when I was in 30 years ago) to send an encrypted message in the clear without encryption that was technology based. The Comms NCO's would create a message grid on a sheet of grid paper, leaving an open set of blocks along the top of the page and down the left side of the page. They would then put each letter into one of the boxes and that was blank and and a number starting from any random place in the other open boxes. It is basically a replacement cypher that only a person with the corresponding sheet of paper can decode. We did that at the platoon level, so every squad and team leader had a copy and we could decode a message from the Platoon leader and/or Platoon Sgt. Drove the range officers crazy in the Box, because even though they had our fills for our encrypted radios, we were conducting operations in the clear (no encryption) and they could never figure out what we were saying to each other. I am sure they ended up out lawing that at some point, but it was super effective. All you would hear in the clear was something like "Stinger 1; Alpha 27. Out." It meant nothing to any computer or person without one of our code cards. Very low tech, and you would have to create several different sets to guard against a set being compromised, but it worked and was highly effective. used date/time codes for the cards to know which one to use, and would reset the cards every morning at 0400. If a set was compromised all we would hear on the net was "Crazy Weasel" followed by the new date/time card to use so "92-0400" We would all swap out to the card titled date time 92-0400. Several different ways to achieve this, but they all work in a similar manner... Let the butthurt flow from the HAM Cops. lol 😂 😂

[@presw2pw123]

See now this is what the beer-swilling camo-wearing 2A crowd thinks they're resisting.

[@Oscar_delta13]

Very interesting. The process you described is a One Time Pad. The grid and blocks make me think of LC4 Cipher.

[@BackwoodsLaw]

@@Oscar_delta13 Yeah I can see the similarities. It was really just born of the LT asking me to create a 'one time pad' we could use for comms in the box; while we were there for a month or two at a time as the entire brigades' combat arms teams would rotate through. That is probably one reason I was able to come up with this in short order.

[@owlcricker-k7ulm]

Always be prepared Bro! Big Brother can decrypt most anything but your creative problem solving has provided a starting point for sure.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Yep, that's how I roll. The solution came to me while decompressing on a trail run. Take care.

[@pauliemccoy8997]

If they spend the computing resources to throw at it. RSA-4096 or the type of encryption used for ssh keys would be nice.

[@kerbalairforce8802]

If everyone is encrypted, listeners have to spend time decrypting every single message.

[@insboswiz]

Having some experience with the acoustic coupler technology in the early days of computers, the main concern I would have (aside from the whole legal thing) would be that when using acoustic tones over the air rather than transmitting through a cable is that the chances of the tones not being accurately copied goes up significantly. This might be a little less of a problem if transmitting in clear text - if one or two words get slightly garbled, the gist of the message is likely to still be understandable, but if you take a corrupted transmission in cyphertext and feed it through the decrypter, the plain text you get might be complete nonsense. This is why modems always had parity bits and other means to ensure that the data received matched the data transmitted and had error detecting and a re-transmit protocol defined to catch and correct errors. I don't see any of that infrastructure here. I would be interesting in seeing the results of this process tested a number of times to see whether this is something that one could really rely upon, but of course, can't test this under normal circumstances in the US at least and trying to validate it when the SHTF is probably not ideal either.

[@TheTechPrepper]

We have elected to use the MT63-2KL modem which is very resilient to high noise and environments. Personally, our group does not use this technique (acoustic coupling) very often. We all wire our audio connections using the DigiRig Mobile, SignaLink USB, etc.. Secondly, we all have switched to using flmsg as it gives us a data checksum. We are just using fldigi as the transport. In terms of modes, our primary is 8PSK-1000F due to speed and if needed we fallback to the more robust MT63-2KL. We rarely need to fallback as 8PSK-1000F works 99% of the time. We are conducting weekly training exercise in the field and at home over simplex, through repeaters and even through linked repeaters with great success. All those experiments are in the clear. Here is one of early field tests: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4bUpISwbZVnb8U Here is a more recent test: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mIOwgqiPZ82JsNE

[@Indigenous_Patriot_1175]

@@TheTechPrepper❤

[@Combat_Pyro]

You can legally test it using MURS bands. It’s in the 2M frequency and would perform very similarly to amateur bands. Only catch would be you would have to use a MURS fcc part licensed radio to legally transmit in that band.

[@DanielFarrell]

s/might be completely nonsense/is guaranteed to be completely nonsense

[@richardkennedy815]

I reviewed this again after almost a year. Your vids are great references... They have helped me sort out the newer technology to help enter the HAM world of today vs 20 years ago...which for me was a mix of tube/hybrid and transistorized Yaesu's/Kenwoods. Carry on Shalom

[@TheTechPrepper]

Glad to see you come back. This is still a great low tech solution. I appreciate the support.

[@richardkennedy815]

@@TheTechPrepper Yes, it is. I currently have been setting up LoRa's for us here, but have what I need for both so reviewed this again and ...well, two is one and one is none as the adage goes. Right now I'm just really behind on my prepping projects and trying to catch up. Have multiple projects on both the firearms bench and the electronics bench so a bit overwhelmed [down side to multiple interests/talents]. Oh well, I'm more closely prepared than most...

[@TheTechPrepper]

@@richardkennedy815 Glad to hear that you're making progress in your preps. Spoiler, I have a different view on Meshtastic. This is coming later this year.

[@cringeyidiotterry]

Good sir, we cannot thank you enough for your heroic deed for sharing this information, but you've made yourself a marked man to the powers that be

[@cmerton]

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! CRINGEY IDIOT IS THE RIGHT SCREEN NAME!

[@presw2pw123]

The powers that be are laughing

[@yungsmile7546]

Very useful and simple. Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. Thanks.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Exactly!

[@ogebogi]

Love it! My guess is we'll need this information at some point. Just not yet.

[@The_Privateer]

Good stuff man! I liked your novel way of demonstration by using acoustic coupling - cool stuff 🙂 Packet radio is where things get interesting. It's staggering how similar packet radio frames are to TCP/IP. I mean, it makes perfect sense - they both came from the same DARPA research. Packet radio was the original internet, and wireless to boot. Just add wires (or optical fiber, or radio channels that allow encryption) and bump up the speed and you have today's modern internet. Everything you can do over the internet today was originally done over RF before the internet existed. Is amateur radio HAMstrung? Heh - sorry, couldn't resist. Keep up the good work man!

[@TheTechPrepper]

Thanks. People have become too reliant on the Internet and have forgotten how powerful packet networks were in the 80's and 90's. I'm a huge fan of bringing back old tech and applying a modern twist that has value for off grid use cases.

[@ThomasWeeks]

This is not a coincidence.. This is because TCP/IP (1974) was based on a wireless MAC (medium access control) protocol used in the Hawaiian islands for inter-island wireless data comms called the ALOHA protocol developed in the late in 1960s - 1973[2]. We studied this in my telecomm engineering classes in the 90s.. I'm surprised it's not called out specifically in the wikipedia articles below. I may need to dig up my references in this and include this important piece of Internet history. [1] - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_network#History [2] - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALOHAnet#ALOHA_protocol

[@W3OY-RAY]

Fantastic video… there is nothing wrong with academic exercises… it’s how we grow. I want to know as much info as I can fit into my head. Never know what the future may hold. 3 years ago if someone predicted the state of the world today, EVERYONE would have thought they were crazy.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Thanks. Other than the global elites, I doubt anyone could have predicted the state of things. Learn as much as you can. Cheers.

[@IonorRea]

@@TheTechPrepper - Geopolitics KZbin channels like Caspian Report headed by an ex-government employee predicted Russian involvement a long time ago, many thought that war will start previous winter Olympics in 2018 as Putin tends to engage in such activities when there is some kind of public distraction going on but Trump was likely too wild card even for Putin while they got pretty good relationship anyway but Biden's handling of retreat from Afghanistan, bad relationship with Putin together with the West weakened by the pandemic could give Putin wrong impressions. - Bill Gates made a talk on TED about the dangers of the pandemic over a decade ago, as virus outbreaks reoccurring on regular basis due to poor food industry practices (Swine Flu in the US, Mad Cows in the UK) Covid19 like event was likely inevitable in the long run. - Economics in terms of national debt going down ever since Bush Junior took the office and neither the smarts of Obama nor the economic experience of Trump was able to change that. Every time someone proposes higher taxes on the majority of the population is ridiculed while higher taxes on corporations will likely be avoided through various loopholes already in the system or added through lobbying. There were legitimate worries that higher taxes on population will reduce purchasing power sufficiently to introduce recession while if a large portion of corporations will be unable to avoid paying higher taxes to pass this burden on consumers thus both recession and inflation occur. The US leadership will need all help it can get to get it through unharmed, and looking at the handling of Covid-19, I have my doubts about the government's ability to radically change this downhill trend, perhaps they can press brakes and slow it little at least. Being aware of what's going on in the world will give you a head start to take countermeasures long before panicking crowds take over the streets. Take some time each day to look around at what is happening, it will save you a lot of financial troubles in the long run. Only people who aren't really looking still think that everything will be fine, and because of these people that did not take any preventive measures living from paycheck to paycheck without any backups, politicians will be lying through their teeth in order to prevent the blind unaware majority from panicking every time when there will be such possibility.

[@michaelsanderson7328]

Every bit of information is money in the bank! Thanks for sharing.

[@TheTechPrepper]

My pleasure. File it away for later. ;-)

[@CaptainHat12]

MURS is great for testing out digital modes if you don't have a ham license since sending data is allowed. I've had success sending data with the faster modes from 1-1.5 miles away with a baofeng and decent antenna.

[@ChrisMyers2000]

I’m sure someone may have mentioned it already but I think it’s important to know…just realize that encryption alone is not going to make you “secure” in a war. Your message may be secure, but every time to transmit, your location could be compromised. It’s very easy to radio direction find even for a moderately equipped amateur. Stay safe

[@realtyrocks1969]

On TX when absolutely necessary. If you only tx and then shut up for a while it gets harder to find. They need a little constant tx to hone in.

[@Wolfspaine7N6]

Can you explain how finding a analog radio transmission location works?

[@ChrisMyers2000]

@@Wolfspaine7N6​​⁠there are many ways you can do this. The simplest and maybe crudest technique is to use a directional antenna and move around while watching the signal strength. As you move you can slowly close in on the transmitter, getting closer and closer. This is usually referred to as “fox hunting”. There are more sophisticated methods using multiple antennas that compare the phase shift of the signal to determine direction. With multiple receivers of this nature you can determine the approximate location of a transmitter without having much transmitter-on time needed. You can simply record the signals and analyze them later. There are of course even more sophisticated systems that use phased-array antennas on satellites in orbit….all you have to do is google this stuff if you want to learn more.

[@michaelarbach]

Really impressed with your content - subscribed and looking forward to more 👍

[@TheTechPrepper]

Welcome to the channel. More content coming your way. Cheers!

[@damiengirvan5020]

Great video man.... Nice to see it all put together....

[@henryslab]

I've watched a bunch of videos and all of yours are very informative and valuable. Thank you so much for sharing this educational piece. Continued success

[@TheTechPrepper]

You're very welcome!

[@ohiorivervalleyhomestead]

Well done. Technology has come to some amazing breakthroughs. Your KISS method is easy to learn and understand. I'm reminded recently when Elon Musk described how easy it is to make a drone with off the shelf Technology that could hunt a specific person. Education is the key to all of this. Knowing how and pushing the limits is how we grow.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Glad to hear it came across simple and clear. Some folks are already missing the point and bitching about the Baofeng. It's not my personal gear of choice, but it's the most prolific.

[@Blue-Collar-Radio]

You walked the line perfectly. Great info Gaston!

[@TheTechPrepper]

Thanks, Rob. I wasn't sure how this topic would be received.

[@Blue-Collar-Radio]

@@TheTechPrepper I always call these types of things hypotheticals. As long as you're only talking about what *could* be done, it's all good. I have a lot of hypothetical conversations with people 🤣

[@TheTechPrepper]

Always good to have a hypothetical conversations people. We're both people, so wink, wink.

[@NZKAdventures]

Very simple to do this. Nice work on showing this to us!

[@TheTechPrepper]

Complexity is the enemy of simple. Glad to share.

[@W4TRI]

Try the Baofeng APRS cable. All it is doing is connecting the phones audio both ways to the radio and using VOX. What you put through it from the phone to the radio at that point is on you! :)

[@TheTechPrepper]

Great call out. I showed the APRS-K1 cable earlier in the series. The goal was for anyone to traffic data with just a radio and an Android device. I was trying to demonstrate that this approach works with no additional hardware and every radio.

[@W4TRI]

@@TheTechPrepper Just found the channel so that's why.

[@TheTechPrepper]

@@W4TRI Welcome to the channel. Those APRS-K1 cables are nice. My only complaint is that you have to use the VOX on the Baofeng. The TX tail is too long on those radios for some digital work--namely, packet.

[@W4TRI]

@@TheTechPrepper Ever tried adjusting it in the menu? You know they do work or they would not still sell so many of them.

[@TheTechPrepper]

I have, but if I recall they don't adjust small enough. I was hoping for 100ms as the tail cutoff. My Ailunce HD1 will go as low as 500ms, but that's still a bit high for some packet modes.

[@sodalines]

not legal but not really monitored either. In the years to come this is going to be huge in our own country. great video

[@TheTechPrepper]

Bingo. And, bingo.

[@ebikeengineer]

Good video! I'm surprised you didn't bring up using a cable to connect the mic/speakers of the Phone with the radio.

[@joedominguez7882]

Wow, what a great tool for the kit. Thanks for the information!

[@TheTechPrepper]

You're welcome!

[@davidh3566]

We're about to embark on our 6th humanitarian mission to Ukraine. Handy info you've shared. Thanks!

[@vd89198]

Awesome video! Have a good weekend Gaston!

[@TheTechPrepper]

You, too!

[@zingodingo2816]

I'm brand new to this (and a lot of other technology). Does the phone/app need or use any cell service or any connection to the internet. My three reasons for asking: 1) If a person is in a remote location with no cell service but can hit a (ham) repeater or function with simplex; 2) Anything that goes through cell/online is grabbed and or filtered; 3) In difficult times there may be no cell/internet service. I'm assuming the app is independent. It's the password situation that needs to be well planned, eh? Very helpful vid, and legal in many uses.

[@notsure7874]

The Anytone 878 and 578 are capable of encrypted DMR. It's more costly than a baofeng, but theres a cost involved with cobbling together encryption for a feng too.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Great call out. I have had both of the radios since the end of 2022 and have been meaning to talk about the use of AES-256 bit encryption with these rigs.

[@dacodemonk]

Very cool. This would probably work well in a lot of situations, but an active warzone might be too noisy of an environment.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Yes, you are right. This is the poor man's technique. The other videos in the series talk about connecting various radios to a computer or phone using cables. No issues with noise.

[@justkelly6992]

I'm building a slot coupler for the phone to slide into to shield from extraneous noise similar to the cradles of old. Easy to build and cheap. $5.00

[@N9IWJ]

Yes I'm a ham And yes we're trying to figure out how to do secure voice when there is no law, shtf,stuff Never realized it was so easy as this thank you very very much excellent idea

[@Subgunman]

Utilizing encryption is legal in the business bands, private carrier repeater systems and radio common carrier systems.

[@MountainMan7.62x39]

Academically, that was a great video

[@runescape2random]

as someone who lives in south america... thank you very much lol

[@TheTechPrepper]

You are very welcome. Cheers from the US.

[@bruehlt]

Damn good video and best bang for the buck. Encrypted DMR is available via firmware hacks, but that costs a lot more money. I'm sure the zedheads heads are exploding over this video now, lol.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Thanks. This is the most basic setup I could think of. Technically this works with the BTech APRS-K1 cable for the Baofeng if you enable VOX on the Baofeng. But, I did not want to introduce another component. Hopefully, this will get the wheels turning for folks.

[@ThaVoodoo1]

TYT MD-380 & TYT MD-390 have 128 bit/32 digit hexadecimal key encryption, easy to program, analogue/digital all in a handheld rugged built radio & costs under $200 USD.

[@Subgunman]

Love it Zed Heads😅😅😅

[@MhP163]

Hello Gaston. One of the options to go further will be to set the squelch to 0 in case the transmission does not have enough power to open this "filter". Based on this, and because obviously this way we are going to have a lot of noise, what will be the mode to choose for you in the modem, which is more "resistant" to this noise? Thanks in advance for the reply. Hug. 🙏

[@carlthomas5481]

omg.. you can pass mt63 in the noise floor where you can't even hear the noise floor change :) open squelch! wb9ybi 1990s

[@John_Prophet]

Someone come up with a way for a hard wired cell to encrypt voice comms, and on the receiving end with the proper key also decrypt comms. Bonus points if you can including mapping data as well. Make the android phone be the brains of the communication.

[@SnowLynxPreparedness]

Hi. If you will use attenuation and limit the power to the limit where the licence or permissions are not required and within the regulation - then it might be possible legally practice encrypted coms - subject to carefully checked regulations. The MT63 is not designed to be operated on FM - is designed to be operated on SSB. There are specially designed or most suitable modes for FM like 8PSK and VARA-FM. There are articles on the subject - info on that can be found in Fldigi manual dedicated to digital modes - 8PSK works well with VOX and acoustic coupling and AndFlmsg. It is recommended to not use government recommended encryption - like National Institute For Science and Technology publish recommendations for encryption. It is advised to not use encryption recommended by government - it is recommended to use one of Bruce Schneier algorithms. RSA encryption is most known for easiness to be decoded by special units - for them it is transparent. There are HT with encryption or frequency hopping - most of Chinese DPMR radios for $50 have encryption as standard - like RECENT RS309D. Alinco has HT with AES-256 encryption - DJ-MD5T Having encrypted comms or even possibility of encrypted comms gives lots of fan. All the best - 73

[@TheTechPrepper]

All great points. Thanks for sharing.

[@garylanders1470]

Thank you kindly 4 sharing

[@zerobow9413]

Nice one, Our friends OS must put their phone in "air-o-plane" mode, and turn off WIFI and bluetooth as well. As your only using the phone as a computer. Dont want any SIGINT guys DFing you.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Good point and tip.

[@PatrickKQ4HBD]

If I understand correctly, airplane mode isn't truly airplane mode. Many phones will secretly turn on Wi-Fi in the background. It's not like a physical Hardware switch.

[@TheTechPrepper]

@@PatrickKQ4HBD It's actually worse than that, there's actually a second low-level operating system and chip that is used by nearly every phone on the planet. You're best bet is to find a phone that has a removable battery and remove the battery.

[@damiengirvan5020]

Ham cops ham cops.... What ya gunna do.... What ya gunna do when you come for me....

[@s3bastiannaumann1996]

Great educational video 😂

[@ivanmendoza2704]

This is awesome stuff.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Right? Poorman's secure comms.

[@jacquesbezuidenhout3375]

Thanks I'm going to try it.....from South Africa zs5bt

[@iamsemjaza]

Nice toughbook!

[@TheTechPrepper]

Thanks!

[@luna.celestia8590]

I have the Btech 6X2 Pro and it uses encryption, Bluetooth among other capabilities.

[@richardkennedy815]

Hmm! Interesting. Very interesting. Now if I could figure out how to copy your video's from ---Tube to mem stick [others will likely need this information. You consistently have very good information. Sometimes more than I have time to work on with everything else. Thank you very much.

[@TheTechPrepper]

You're very welcome. I know that you can download them with the paid version of KZbin. I plan to cover full AES voice encryption in the next few months when I have time to explore the Anytone 878 and 578. Have a good one.

[@JohnnySmith-on8oe]

Tell your (our) friends to invest in the Anytone AT-D878 II Plus. It does ARC4 and AES voice encryption

[@David0lyle]

If you separate out text encryption isn’t much of an obstacle. Other people’s encryption is of course an option but it’s actually not all that difficult to write your own. Sending text is the really valuable step.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Correct on all accounts. Cheers!

[@David0lyle]

@@TheTechPrepper thanks! These days no one talks about “unbreakable” codes. Instead they talk about “leakage rates” or how long it takes to break a code. 🤔 Well, if a code only has to resist being broken for 30 min or so, code word cyphers aren’t completely out of the game. (Well, maybe, there are newspapers that publish them like crossword puzzles so people can break them for fun. 🤷 If your opposition has a champion player ….. but then if they don’t have a bunch of people who know your language well it might take time to dig up the resources.)

[@dwightdelight7775]

great idea to be honest

[@ivanmendoza2704]

excellent content :)

[@TheTechPrepper]

Thanks. I'm exploring a few other topics related to secure comms. Stay tuned.

[@lone22000]

I didn’t know that was against the law. Good to know thanks

[@xephael3485]

Could you update this video? I'm seeing ones for sale that say they have voice encryption natively.

[@wildweasel6898]

Dude why are you telling people how to have private conversations. Thats almost like a second chance on the fourth amendment. 😂

[@TheTechPrepper]

Power to the people!

[@evgeshka00]

Hey. So, taking legality aside (or let's imagine we're outside of the US legal realm), there's a way to replace OSI's layer 2 with AX.25 and then use TLS authentication over layer 7. There's a paper on the internet, where the authors were able to do it. In addition, they were also able to throw GPG into the mix. GPG is pretty cool, since you can' encrypt/decrypt with a per-shared key, just like in your example. I think security aspect is important in HAM. How are you going to protect yourself against call sign spoofing? Can the data be change in transit? Is there a way to appy CIA triad to the comm over AX.25?

[@evgeshka00]

Just another thought here...instead of encrypting, one can encode the text, like text to base64 or HEX. This isn't encryption and could be decoded by anyone, but good luck guessing the encoder (security through obscurity).

[@TheTechPrepper]

I would classify the approach I discussed as the poorman's method. It would work well unless a nation-state is set on deciphering your traffic. Switching the OSI network stack is interesting, but throughput and bandwidth will be the limiting factor over RF. I'll have to read the paper when I have time. Thanks for sharing. Since we're talking about a theoretical scenario where there is no rule of law, callsigns will not matter. But, if you are referring to using the call sign as the method for identifying the other party, that could be an issue. If the password key is secure and not known to others it would likely be safe to assume that you are likely communicating with the intended party. The goal for this video was not to have the perfect secure comms solution, but to have something that is simple, effective and more secure than plain voice or digital to mitigate eavesdropping.

[@EwanMarshall]

yeah, that is where one wants to start adding a hmac to the message as a verification.

[@VA7LFD]

Great video. Just curious Im a ham up here in British Columbia and do lots of horseback riding. How do you like your ULEFone? My Samsung has taken a few rides to the ground while riding and its not in good shape. So many ULEFONE models too.....

[@xsweetxvampirousx]

Really like stuff like this and would be curious what it might look like to prying eyes (or ears)

[@kevinc9416]

Great series keep up the good work. Can you cover a small business license to be legal for encrypted radios? I work at an airport and would like encryption. Explain the process please and budget radio options for this to include a repeater.

[@blue_gunfox]

Afiak I was just researching this and you can only use encrypted radio traffic legally in the US if you are a government organization and the info must be secret.

[@markfowler6200]

Business FCC licensees canuse encryption in the US. KZbin Notarubicon.

[@ambertracks]

what i dont understand is what are the backend requirements, , , ? ? internet ? cell phone carrier ? bluetooth ? etc

[@TheTechPrepper]

The example is just radio to radio RF. You just need line of sight between both operators. There is no Bluetooth, WiFi, cell or Internet required.

[@potato98427]

Do you have any knowledge on AES 256-bit key generators or how to "program" a group's phones with a key once it has been generated? It's certainly possible to manually type it in but time consuming and leaves room for error. Thanks in advance and keep up the great work!

[@palehorse7377]

thats radio software dependent. DMR software generally has a keyloader for that.

[@javiermijares]

What are the advantages of using AndFlmsg vs APRSDroid?

[@TheTechPrepper]

APRS restricts the size of the data to 67 characters. You will not be able to send the full data blob.

[@omercelebi2012]

Basically, use it without encryption. Thanks man

[@chrissewell1608]

Big words for a phone modem! Those should be availabe for a dime a dozen, with an old pc at the junk stores! Old tech, but it still works!

[@atranimecs]

if money is no object, a motorola xts 2500 and a KVL3000+ would be military level legit. LORA can work well for short distances.

[@TheTechPrepper]

I've had my eye on the Motorola XTS 2500 line for a while. It's still on the list. It's not so much the money that is keep me back, but getting the correct firmware, CPS software and learning how to program them. It's more of a time issue than anything else. LMR radios are the way to go. I have my eye on some EF Johnson models too if cost becomes an issue.

[@patrickhill6567]

Good stuff. Very interesting. What about cross platform. Android to apple or vise versa?

[@Reaperr61]

Great information and video. Any alternatives apps for Iphone to replace FLMSG?

[@thewheelchairprepper8070]

WELL DONE...73 TNX

[@BillRize]

Uv-13 pro with GPS has an encryption setting. No clue how it works but I just enabled it and could hear nothing through a channel with a tone set up. Checked and it's Frequency Hopping.

[@tomdonahoe3539]

@TheTechPrepper You appear to be running some version of Ubuntu. Can you suggest a version of LINUX that's best suited to Ham radio 📻 applications? 73!

[@TheTechPrepper]

I use Ubuntu, but DragonOS was designed around SDR support, so that could be a good option.

[@kevinhooper4553]

Evan Dixon sent me.

[@_RadioMadeEasy]

Smart guy

[@TheTechPrepper]

Some times all you need is simple. A $25 radio and your phone.

[@michaelarbach]

Does anyone know why encryption over radio is illegal in the first place??? Is it a state or federal law? Thanks in advance

[@TheTechPrepper]

Encryption is not permitted for amateur radio (Part 97) as you're not allowed to obscure the meaning of a transmission on the amateur radio bands. It's federal law that is governed by the FCC. Encryption is allowed for commercial use with a business license (Part 90). There's also Part 95 which covers MURS, FRS, GMRS, and CB. I tried to unpack whether or not encryption was allowed under MURS, but it turned out to be rats nest when I started to look at each allowed emission type. This is part of the reason why I'm going to explore a business license and find an inexpensive business radio (EF Johnson or Hytera). I'm no expert here, so I'm happy for others to jump in.

[@michaelarbach]

@@TheTechPrepper It does bother me somewhat that if voice/data networks are disrupted then we have no means of secure comms with family/resources. Perhaps I haven't seen your content on this topic yet, but I would love to learn your emergency (without licence) protocols, including any viable tactics for detection prevention (outside of mobility). I would never cross fed law yet I highly value knowledge and contingencies. I'm feeling very inspired! thank you!!

[@PatrickKQ4HBD]

@@TheTechPrepper I so appreciate your hard work that you're putting into this channel. You restated the FCC rule about amateur radio, but there's still no explanation of "why" our messages are required to be plaintext aside from public codecs like Morse or JS8Call.

[@TheTechPrepper]

@@PatrickKQ4HBD I am no expert in the exact legal matters, so I avoid the conversation. Other channels cover the legal issues. My goal is just to point out that it is not legal and it's up to the viewer to make their own determination on how they want to use the technique and research the laws on their own.

[@daviddickey9832]

Allegedly, this is to prevent companies from abusing ham radio and using it to do business because with encryption its impossible to prove in court what the content of the message was if all you have is ciphertexts.

[@03bullseye]

I know this question isn’t exactly related but I’m in the market for a laptop. What make/model would you Recomend as a general purpose that also is good for radio comm?

[@hbryant1971]

I would suggest AES 256 level encryption....currently available on the latest Anytone 878 and Alinco's latest DJ MD5 DMR radios

[@TheTechPrepper]

I've had an AnyTone 578 (manpack) and 878 video series planned for awhile. It's a good route to go if you need AES-256 encryption.

[@elliotalderson2479]

So if the government misses out on remote communications it’s “illegal”

[@cunjoz]

aside from just being personal opinions backed and enforced by monopoly and threat of violence (when those in power decide to do so), laws themselves have no causal relation to the real world as they're just letters on paper. they're not objective facts of the universe. laws themselves haven't ever stopped anyone from doing something evil. don't let them stop you from doing something good either.

[@p4rsec]

tbh i don’t understand why people want to be pedantic about this. i know why the FCC limits encryption for amateurs, the idea of the free and public airwaves. but it’s still extremely cool to play with the technology and see what it can do, should you need to use it that way. as a software engineer i love the idea of all the neat things i could do with some radios given the ability to use encryption

[@xephael3485]

Free and public unless you're government.

[@mstrickk1]

"In the absence of rule of law" That's basically where we are now.

[@HarryHamsterChannel]

Ham cops? Listen, Mister, we have rules for a reason. You want spurious emissions all over the place? Huh? Do you? ;-) Relax. It's not Jurassic Park. You're pointing out that digitized information still has to be within the audio spectrum in order to be transmitted over the radio. It's a concept rarely mentioned in the specifications. Bill Nye would have liked this.

[@joetittiger7194]

Can not get the mt63 protocols to work.....what gives??

[@paulrotledge9276]

Question, do you know of any way to do the same or similar operation just on a PC (Is there a Message Encryptor for PC). And by the way this is awesome.

[@ireilly2000]

Great idea! Rattlegram could also be a great platform. Seems like they're building towards an ios app as well.

[@richardkennedy815]

Very interested in putting together a "in the field" data/digital link on Baofeng UV-82's and UV-9R Pro's [not unlike the mil KDU concept] for team comms. By then crossbanding such communications into vehicle radio [already have this part] I have more than adequate comms for my area. The data or digital part of the puzzle is where I am still stumped. Can you direct me on this?

[@user-pm8je4fo7e]

Somebody from "certain eastern european country" asked you for help with modem, ahah! This is amusing.

[@blue_gunfox]

Hey a couple of quick questions, as this video seems semi relavent to the subject. Are there any two way handheld FRS frequency radios that can you can control audio in/out via a laptop? Basically I want to get a couple cheap low range FRS frequency radios for sending plain text and/or low res images by sending them as sub 300 baud rate (so it is legal) via this command line tool that I found called ```minimodem```. Essentially I would just need to be able to plug the audio jack into the pc, and it would also need to have an audio out auxillary. Both users would be operating with linux laptops. Anyway, thank you from a fellow Arizonan prepper!

[@presw2pw123]

Data and digital are illegal on FRS/GMRS regardless of speed

[@Jacob-mm8xq]

so static might break up that sound coming over the air and you would get a different thing on the other end, no?

[@davidmaclennan6874]

Encryption is a ok on business frequencies in the USA .

[@radioxdeath]

Code Words for certain books: The Last of the Mohicans (Codename 1757) Chapter: Intro Paragraph: 6 Line: 4 Word: 6 "enemy" You could plain talk this as "MESSAGE 1757 CPLW SEQUENCE AS FOLLOWS I646...", then XXXX for the next word so and so forth. You and only the other person you are talking to have the scheme memorized. Code book hidden in plain site on a book shelf. Now YT and Spaghettio Gang knows....whoops.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Excellent suggestion. I was chatting to my Elmer about this topic the other day.

[@valthalin7613]

Would there be a way to only have US military assets hear you in a SHTF situation? Like an enemy force was around and you were maybe not in America? I don't know anything about radios at this time. But was curious if your boned if you need to talk with allies without baddies finding/hearing you. Thanks so much for the vid it was super cool.

[@adamdyment9732]

witchcraft... do you know how to use atak? its my understanding you can integrate comms into that.

[@TheTechPrepper]

Yes. I know how to use ATAK. In fact, I am planning on writing a commercial plugin for it next year for some offgrid comms work. It's a nice platform.

[@richardkennedy815]

Should you put your video's together on single memory device and make available let me know. Would consider purchase.

[@philxskillz]

can you use those apps on the phone and computer without wifi or a phone signal?

[@TheTechPrepper]

Yes. No cell or WiFi required. In general, all the applications that I discuss on the channel are 100% offline. I am not a fan of the Internet, cell network or any grid tie. Good question!

[@philxskillz]

@@TheTechPrepper did you do a video on how far it will reach or how it works that way? Seems like a great alternative to communications with voice.

[@TheTechPrepper]

@@philxskillz The distance is subject to radio line of site. Your distance can improve based on location, antenna system, environment and power. I did a field exercise where we tested the acoustic coupling. Here's a direct link. I was about 1.5 miles out, but only running 0.5 watts. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fqWwYZeor6llodk

[@Nathan-dk6is]

My desert friend. 😎

[@MhP163]

Hi Gaston. Hope everything is well with you. Maybe you didn't see my message, upper, so I'm commenting here again. Thank you very much. Hug.

[@TheTechPrepper]

I did not see the message. Thanks for reposting another one. Have a good one.

[@MhP163]

Calm down Gaston, no problem. The issue was related to the fact that we will probably have to have the squelch open to receive weaker transmissions, and this leads to a lot of noise mixed in, obviously. From what I've been researching, I believe that the best way to send a message under these conditions will be in -MT63 1000 LG-. Now, I would like to know your opinion on this. Am I correct? ...it will really be the best mode and adjustment so that the transmission has the best chance of being passed? Thanks again for your patience. Hug.

[@TheTechPrepper]

@@MhP163 You are right, that opening the squelch and using MT631000 LG will likely work better over 2000L. Our group's standard is MT632000L and have really good success. We did a field video is your search for "NBEMS" on my channel page. Take care.

[@MhP163]

@@TheTechPrepper Thank you for the answer, and sorry for the delay, but I have hours left in the day, for all my interests... 😎 NBEMS... here i go... 🙂

[@Combat_Pyro]

Is this also possible on Mac? And it IS legal in the US on MURS band.

[@markfowler6200]

Why do you say it’s not legal in the US? It’s a text message.

[@darrellcollins877]

Oh hell yeah !

[@TheTechPrepper]

You haven't seen anything yet. I have a prototype planned to include encryption directly into EmComm Tools. The operator will need to have a business license and operate on their prescribed frequencies.