pactor banned from the usa?

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by N8OHU

Good evening folks. I'm one of the guys that was involved in the development of ARDOP, and have been using Winlink on land off and on for a while. What the rulemaking proposal boils down to is that some folks are too lazy to write the decoder themselves, using already publicly available source code, and want the Winlink Development Team to do it for them.

Thanks for joining and giving your insights. Welcome to CF.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by N8OHU

Good evening folks. I'm one of the guys that was involved in the development of ARDOP, and have been using Winlink on land off and on for a while. What the rulemaking proposal boils down to is that some folks are too lazy to write the decoder themselves, using already publicly available source code, and want the Winlink Development Team to do it for them.

Is it as simple as that? My experience of the opensource community is that they'll write all sorts of software at the drop of a hat when the spec or other source is available... and they'll reverse-engineer it if it isn't .

Examples - Signal K, OpenCPN (and chart formats) etc.

But if I understand correctly (and please correct me if I'm wrong), even if open-source code is freely available, the radio communications using it are still virtually encrypted because of how it works. A 3rd party couldn't decode it even with the software. This would certainly be a sticking point.

From here, quoting prof Rappaport:

The debate around whether the FCC should address violations of the use of private messaging in amateur radio has heated up following an ex parte filing from wireless expert Theodore Rappaport last year.
The filing, supported by a late December filing from Ron Kolarik, said national security is at risk by allowing encrypted messages in the ham bands.
MissionCritical Communications has received numerous online comments to the story. Rappaport’s critics say the FCC can decode any mode presently used today on ham radio, including Pactor 1, 2, 3, 4. Rappaport disagreed.
In an email to MissionCritical Communications, Rappaport said only Pactor 1, the original specified, documented open source Pactor that stemmed from Amtor, is decodable by others. The proprietary SCS Pactor versions 2,3,4 cannot be intercepted for meaning.


“Others in government and ham radio have admitted to me privately that the Winlink transmissions supported and developed by ARSFI (Amateur Radio Safety Foundation Inc.) are cyphered and not readable in ARQ mode over the shortwave bands,” Rappaport said. “This is a desired feature for commercial Sailmail and Airmail systems (also run by ARSFI/Winlink associates/donors/partners) but illegal for amateur radio, since the FCC only allows such unspecified codes above 50 MHz. The Winlink/ARSFI user community is clearly double dipping by running a nonprofit boating email security system on marine frequencies, while illegally using the amateur radio bands for its constituency of users.”

[N8OHU]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Is it as simple as that? My experience of the opensource community is that they'll write all sorts of software at the drop of a hat when the spec or other source is available... and they'll reverse-engineer it if it isn't .

Examples - Signal K, OpenCPN (and chart formats) etc.

But if I understand correctly (and please correct me if I'm wrong), even if open-source code is freely available, the radio communications using it are still virtually encrypted because of how it works. A 3rd party couldn't decode it even with the software. This would certainly be a sticking point.

From here, quoting prof Rappaport:

Dr. Rappaport has ulterior motives, as he's been involved in the development of the 5G cellular network stuff, plus he and others have firm view that data of the sort sent via Winlink during Emergency Communication events should be done at VHF and above, which tends to be less than reliable. Those with actual disasters communication experience know better.


As for the rest, used Pactor modems can be found, as can software decoders, and really smart folks can take what they know about digital modulation techniques and what information SCS has published on P2 and later versions of Pactor and write their own. There has to be a real desire to do it, that hasn't existed to my knowledge, since it hasn't happened yet.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by N8OHU

Dr. Rappaport has ulterior motives, as he's been involved in the development of the 5G cellular network stuff, plus he and others have firm view that data of the sort sent via Winlink during Emergency Communication events should be done at VHF and above, which tends to be less than reliable. Those with actual disasters communication experience know better.


As for the rest, used Pactor modems can be found, as can software decoders, and really smart folks can take what they know about digital modulation techniques and what information SCS has published on P2 and later versions of Pactor and write their own. There has to be a real desire to do it, that hasn't existed to my knowledge, since it hasn't happened yet.

Everyone has an ulterior motive even if they themselves don’t know what it is. Motives only affect our opinions but what matters most are facts which can’t be affected by anyone’s motives.

Since you have some experience I have a few questions if you can answer it would be helpful i think.

Can anyone purchase a listen only system that will produce the plain text of all RTTY messages sent via all ham radio flavors of PACTOR? If so, how much does it cost assuming I have a suitable HF radio?

If such a system cannot be purchased why doesn’t the PACTOR developer produce such a product? Presumably they are in a position to do it for the least effort and thus most profit.

Is it a fact that the nature of higher order PACTOR or any other digital system used by hams prevents eavesdropping by the public even if they have a compatible decoding system? This question is pretty important as it has been suggested that there are some modes used by hams that cannot be decoded at all because the coding system is designed, perhaps unintentionally, to disallow third party listeners. It is fairly easy to design a data transmission system that makes it hard or impossible for third party eavesdropping. Cell systems were originally “hard” to eavesdrop which prompted the development of the Stingray and similar devices so third parties could eavesdrop.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by N8OHU

Good evening folks. I'm one of the guys that was involved in the development of ARDOP, and have been using Winlink on land off and on for a while. What the rulemaking proposal boils down to is that some folks are too lazy to write the decoder themselves, using already publicly available source code, and want the Winlink Development Team to do it for them.

Obviously true for the ARDOP case where you guys have published all the necessary details, but what about the newer versions of PACTOR? My understanding is that PACTOR is still essentially proprietary.

Mind you, I think the proposal is misinformed and damaging to ham radio development, but we need to figure out if public-domain disclosure of coding, modulation, link establishment, etc, is a requirement for use in the ham service. Nice to have, certainly, but mandatory?

And some of the arguments strike well beyond the "open source" issue. Even with ARDOP, the claim is that an average bozo should be able to decode both ends of a communication off the air, and that the ACK/NAK /retransmit/etc protocol makes this essentially impossible. I doubt that, but if true and this is a requirement, then that's a big deal.

And then there is the "can't use ham radio when a commercial alternative is available" argument. This one troubles me, and I don't like the way some interpret the rules. At this point of technological development, with cellular and satphones so available a strict interpretation threatens to stop virtually all ham activity. Including getting WX info at sea.

I hope the obvious flaws in the current rulemaking proposal get it rejected outright, but there are some issues raised (and not for the first time) that IMO deserve a clarification of at least the intent of the rules.

[transmitterdan]

Paul,

I don’t see the problem that you seem to see. Ham radio is not going away because of mobiles and satellite systems. There are plenty enough legitimate uses for ham radio.

But using ham radio purely to avoid paying for another service has never been a legitimate use of ham radio.

If you list all the things ham radio can do that other services cannot it’s a long list. One of the best things about ham radio is it is almost completely unaffected by other system outages such as GPS or cell networks. So it should always have a valuable place in the communications arsenal.

But I think cookie cutter purchased solutions that don’t teach the user anything are not what ham radio is supposed to be about. That’s one reason I like the idea of making modulation systems for hams open source. It promotes learning and experimenting.

The rules on encryption need to be revisited IMO. There are legitimate uses for encryption in the ham bands. For example, many repeaters are rendered useless because almost anyone can interfere with them. There are other examples where hams need to have access to security protocols to protect against anarchist hackers.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

But using ham radio purely to avoid paying for another service has never been a legitimate use of ham radio.

"purely"? Say I'm using ham radio because I enjoy it. Or because I have a ham rig on my boat, but don't already have a marine SSB or satphone. Should I be required to buy a satphone, install it, and pay for the satellite service if I want to send email or get WX info? Or install a marine SSB etc?

Forget PACTOR and proprietary systems for a moment. Forget the supposed need for third-party monitoring. Let's say I'm using open-source ARDOP and Winlink with my existing ham rig. Should I be prohibited from using this because there are other alternatives that I can purchase?

And by the way, satphones work on land, too, as do cellphones. They can do most everything Winlink can do. Where and how do you draw the line?

FWIW, none of this personally affects me much. On my boat I generally use Iridium for all this, and occasionally use PACTOR/Sailmail with my Icom 710 marine radio. At sea, so far I've only used Winlink a few times, just to make sure I could if it became necessary.

[N8OHU]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

Obviously true for the ARDOP case where you guys have published all the necessary details, but what about the newer versions of PACTOR? My understanding is that PACTOR is still essentially proprietary.

Mind you, I think the proposal is misinformed and damaging to ham radio development, but we need to figure out if public-domain disclosure of coding, modulation, link establishment, etc, is a requirement for use in the ham service. Nice to have, certainly, but mandatory?

And some of the arguments strike well beyond the "open source" issue. Even with ARDOP, the claim is that an average bozo should be able to decode both ends of a communication off the air, and that the ACK/NAK /retransmit/etc protocol makes this essentially impossible. I doubt that, but if true and this is a requirement, then that's a big deal.

And then there is the "can't use ham radio when a commercial alternative is available" argument. This one troubles me, and I don't like the way some interpret the rules. At this point of technological development, with cellular and satphones so available a strict interpretation threatens to stop virtually all ham activity. Including getting WX info at sea.

I hope the obvious flaws in the current rulemaking proposal get it rejected outright, but there are some issues raised (and not for the first time) that IMO deserve a clarification of at least the intent of the rules.

In my opinion, what SCS is doing isn't really all the different than what KN6KB Rick did with Winmor or with ARDOP, insofar as what they used for the modulation methods. Where the biggest part of the work was was in finding out how to get the most data through with the fewest errors that would need corrected by the Forward Error Correction employed by the modem. ARQ simply acts as a way for a receiving station to say "hey, I didn't decode that packet; can you resend it?"



And I do agree that the rules, if they are strictly interpreted as written, pretty much would end ham radio as most folks use it, and the FCC really should clarify the meaning of some passages in a more modern context.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

But I think cookie cutter purchased solutions that don’t teach the user anything are not what ham radio is supposed to be about.

This is a wonderful goal, but wouldn't you agree that in practice the vast majority of hams are indeed using "cookie cutter purchased systems"? How many hams even have a soldering iron, or do programming? If this is the standard you would like to see it's sure going to shut down a lot of appliance operators.

BTW, I agree with you on the need for encryption, or at least authentication.

If you are curious, I am an active ham radio experimenter. Here's a link to a presentation I gave to my ham club today: A JS8 Receive-only Gateway | WB6CXC

[N8OHU]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

This is a wonderful goal, but wouldn't you agree that in practice the vast majority of hams are indeed using "cookie cutter purchased systems"? How many hams even have a soldering iron, or do programming? If this is the standard you would like to see it's sure going to shut down a lot of appliance operators.

BTW, I agree with you on the need for encryption, or at least authentication.

If you are curious, I am an active ham radio experimenter. Here's a link to a presentation I gave to my ham club today: A JS8 Receive-only Gateway | WB6CXC

It would be nice if more hams took experimentation seriously, but if they aren't interested in it, so be it. And add me to the list of people that understand the need for useful authentication to keep folks from locking us out of systems we should be in control of.

[Paul Elliott]

Authentication is being used, or at least worked on in some ham networks (mainly VHF APRS, but not limited to that). The authentication is based on published standards. I haven't studied it in any detail though.

[Pitchondesign]

"But I think cookie cutter purchased solutions that don’t teach the user anything are not what ham radio is supposed to be about."

I guess that means we should be building our own radios instead of those cookie cutter radios we have been getting from Icom, Kenwood, etal. Let's bring back those Heath Kits. (Yes, I built one). But apparently, I'm not what Ham is supposed to be because I use a cookie cutter radio today.

Apparently, I'm also a freeloader because I use Ham to get Grib files at sea. Did I mention that I have satellite capability and get Gribs via Iridium as well. I thought ham was supposed to be fun. This proposal feels more like radio religious doctrine.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

This is a wonderful goal, but wouldn't you agree that in practice the vast majority of hams are indeed using "cookie cutter purchased systems"? How many hams even have a soldering iron, or do programming? If this is the standard you would like to see it's sure going to shut down a lot of appliance operators.



BTW, I agree with you on the need for encryption, or at least authentication.



If you are curious, I am an active ham radio experimenter. Here's a link to a presentation I gave to my ham club today: A JS8 Receive-only Gateway | WB6CXC

Paul,

Nice project and well presented!

I might have an idea about how to avoid the anti-alias filter problem. Will think about it.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

Paul,

Nice project and well presented!

I might have an idea about how to avoid the anti-alias filter problem. Will think about it.

Thanks, I appreciate that! The club has a regular mix of ragchewers, emergency services folks, and hardware/software techies, so I try to not get overly technical in my presentations. Some of the discussion got reasonably deep though.

I definitely look forward to your thoughts on the aliasing. It's a pretty fundamental problem...

Back to the thread topic, Yesterday I read all 104 pages(!) of that QRZ.com discussion of the FCC filing. (https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?thr...m-11831.652589) Wow! There were some vague mentions of cruisers using Winlink, abusing their ham licenses, and generally creating problems. Others asked for details but none were provided. Has anyone here heard of similar complaints? I sure wasn't aware of even a minor problem, at least not more than the usual cases found everywhere in ham radio. As far as I can tell, as a group cruisers may be better than average operators.

[El Pinguino]

I see that the Rappaport push is quite vocal on at least two levels in this issue.
One is that the security and very existance of the US is threatened by Winlink.
Rappaport1 PDF here....https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/120566997404
'and pose a legitimate national security threat by enabling secret cross-border communications over shortwave (High Frequency) that cannot be readily monitored by other amateur operators or the FCC.'

Well it would appear that Pactor can be readily monitered by those who care.... using Sorcerer... indeed I am sure that those tasked with looking after US security are already doing this on a daily basis.
Some bloke in the Australian bush finds it easy enough..
https://umarca.blogspot.com/2013/06/...-pactor-3.html

On the other hand
https://www.everythingrf.com/News/de...f-NYU-WIRELESS

He says....
'Rappaport sincerely hopes that by being able to listen in, youngsters will become fascinated with the magic of radio, just like he and thousands of others did before they finished high school.'

Listen in? Precious little out there these days that you can simply 'listen in' to that youngsters would be interested in..... old men discussing their prostate problems maybe?

I wonder what Rappaport's real agenda is.