[ScanIndiana] Scanner Listners are Thugs

[David L Norris]

On Sat, 2002-06-29 at 21:33, Rob Dale wrote:
> It's been the opposite for me ;> I guess that would depend on the amount of
> $$$ paid for the radios up front -- maybe it's a model thing?

Most likely.  Vertex, Uniden, etc.  Things which rural agencies can
afford to buy.  ;-)  And, it's been several years.  But, I'm sure none
of those radios have been touched since.  They only stored a couple of
keys at a time.  Rotating keys was a matter of hitting a button.

> Correct -- the ones I know of who do use this do it weekly regardless.

Federal agents around here talk like it's a big deal to have their keys
updated.  They (well everyone but FBI ;-) tend to be very spartan about
using encryption, also.  That leads me to believe they have to take the
radio to the shop to have the keys updated.  Which is my experience. 
But, these aren't big trunking systems with gazillion dollar budgets. 
These are conventional simplex and repeater users.

> The point is though, that the "common criminal" who uses scanners for his
> work (about as many as use scanners in cars up here in Michigan ;> ) will
> never hear encrypted.

Yes, well, that's probably great in some ways.  But, I would seriously
worry if _everything_ is encrypted.  From a disclosure standpoint, it's
just not right for a government/publicly funded agency to encrypt/hide
everything.  I think encryption should be used precisely when it's
warranted and no more often.  I think there are plenty of cases where
it's warranted.  And, if nothing else it might help to protect the
encryption keys.  With proper hardware it takes only hours to discover a
DES key.

-- 
 David Norris
  Dave's Web - http://www.webaugur.com/dave/
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