Currently, one cannot legally use encryption on GMRS, FRS, MURS, or HAM frequencies. This has posed a problem from people interested in spooky larping activities. And, something like ATAK with a range extender / mesh network can only get you so far.
Enter ground-to-satellite direct smartphone communications. Numerous companies are working on it, the most publicized one of late being SpaceX/Starlink+T-Mobile. It should be entering operation in a year or so, and uses standard mid-band PCS. Any regular T-mobile plan will include it, and any regular smartphone can be used. Other players are AST SpaceMobile, and Lynk Global, but in my opinion they're never going to be serious contenders.
Sure it will be limited to texts and low-quality voice calls, but you can get a LOT of data to your larping friends with the right software and the ~5kbps data rate the V2 Starlink sats will permit. Plus, now pesky FCC regs are a thing of the past, you can send whatever messages you want to whoever, literally anywhere in the US—as encrypted as you want.
What do you think? Is 'direct-to-cell' the tactical comm dream we've all been waiting for?
Yes. A smartphone and a solar powerpack is now a full battlefield comms/nav suite if you prefetch your maps and have a wifi LAN on base.
>smartphone
Enjoy your adversary knowing your location all the time.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1499976967105433600 relevant Musk tweet if people are concerned that he'll 'sell out'. Sure you should still be assuming the gov is trying to listen in, but with the right data sanitation it will be a bomb-proof comms method for larping etc
what are burners?
> Musk
Into the trash it goes. He'll sell you out.
The most bombproof comms method is a signal phone call if you want direct privacy. For radio an SDR and an audio device of your choosing will be more than enough
Starlink isn't selling this as a standalone service. You need a recent phone and an account with a partner carrier to make it work.
It's not going to be enabled for burners or MVNOs.
Is it easy to get a t-m plan w/o ID verification?
That would be burner MVNO phones, so not eligible.
It'll be regular ass GSM/GPRS.
I thought postpaid just requires ID.
>GPRS
yes that's true, I was overthinking it.
Well, it's going to be like 2 years before average Joe and not first responders will be able to use this, so lots of time to figure it all out.
Sounds like we need to figure out what the ukes are doing with starlink and jailbreak domestic shit to copy them, if we can.
I'll admit this is a blind spot for me, so I might be throwing out simple solutions to complex problems, but is it feasible and where would we start?
Ukrainians have normal Starlink terminals, only difference is the 'account' is probably set up in a way to avoid having to log in, just plug in and use. Priority is probably higher too.
You can't use starlink unless the network recognizes your hardware ID and that it is tied to an account which has paid the monthly fee
Elon is donating preconfigured terminals. They just power up, point south, and plug in Ethernet.
>one cannot legally use encryption on GMRS, FRS, MURS, or HAM frequencies
As a moron who doesn't know what those are, why?2vh24
they're for "public use", read part 97 of FCC regs, basically all comms have to be un-obscured formats
Those are radio frequency bands. It's illegal because the government can't listen in and it makes terrible sounding traffic when broadcast. Not like morse code is any better but thats legal.
Why would they care tho.
It made more sense before the Internet. Now you can send gigabytes of encrypted data out of the country with a cheap laptop and a seat at Starbucks to use their wifi anonymously for an hour.
Because any radio frequency has fundamental limits on the volume of traffic it can deal with.
These channels are for reserved public uses, you can't reasonably tell the difference between encrypted broadcast and noise broadcasts trying to degrade the function - ergo encrypted comes become barred by default to make enforcement of no jamming rules easier
>Not like morse code is any better but thats legal.
Morse code is infinitely easier on the ears than listing to FM digital voice on an analog receiver.
wonder how well modified SSTV or equivalent will be able to go over it. I am certain they'll be using special sauce compression for voice streams...
> cannot legally use encryption on MURS
Do digital voice packets count as data? The FCC thinks so for the internet. Because encryption of digital data packets are legal over MURS.
They'll probably change it as more and more digital encodings take over for FM, but for now, the law says what the law says.
lol I've even seen some HAM boomers be afraid to transmit ASCII art because "it's a method of encoding data hurrmrmrhrhruhrhrhr"
t. bought into Facebook memes
Well I ain't a ham boomer. Although I'm still trying to find an old head that remembers which of the motorolas used to do FHSS over the 900MHz bands, for reasons.
not that, but if you want a neat bit of old tech read up on the TST-7698
80s signal tech is simultaneously outdated yet so God damn aesthetic it's ridiculous.
80s to mid 90s electronics were like that in general. This was a Japanese 8 bit home computer.
>t. Is a moron
Elon is not your friend moron. Starlink is no safer than ViaSat
So what situation are you LARPing where you need encryption to avoid someone listening in, but whoever is listening in has no other SIGINT/EW capabilities whatsoever, and you're still going to have access to infrastructure based comms?
that's the thing, there is no infrastructure needed on the ground, local. As-is it's superior for small-scale activities. The types of DF possible by adversities completely changes and becomes much more 'higher level'
>there is no infrastructure needed on the ground
That's not how satellite based communication works. It goes up to the satellite, then gets sent back down. If the person on the other end is also using a satellite, then it still gets routed over surface based infrastructure before being beamed up to that satellite rather than being beamed satellite to satellite.
>The types of DF possible by adversities completely changes and becomes much more 'higher level'
You have no idea what you're fricking talking about.
>If the person on the other end is also using a satellite, then it still gets routed over surface based infrastructure before being beamed up to that satellite rather than being beamed satellite to satellite.
not sure what you're trying to explain here. That isn't a point of debate.
I think he meant YOU don't need infrastructure on the ground. Just a phone. Plus, if a local Starlink ground staton goes, the network will have laser inter-sat capabilities for V2 network anyways
Starlink v2, upon which this feature depends, does in fact use laser links to route data between satellites. You need ZERO ground infrastructure in theater beyond a cell phone and some solar panels or a generator.
>Starlink v2, upon which this feature depends, does in fact use laser links to route data between satellites
I'll believe it when they're in orbit and operational. Otherwise it's as real as Tesla's """"self driving"""" feature.
September 2020 they launched the first laser link prototypes fwiw
NASA is also using laser comms for Artemis.
cool thread about starlink in Ukraine. twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1523828159296286721
one tweet of note: "In addition, one of the lesser known features of SpaceX's Starlink internet service, point to point email service for Starlink users encrypted and not using any ground infrastructure whatsoever, has aided Ukrainian military units behind Russian lines to communicate"
V1.5 sats ALL have laser links, once that shell it done it should 'turn on'.
https://starlink.sx/ shows these specific sats' crosslinks in blue,
What's to stop them from working with glowies to intercept your shit via their encrypted keys since I assume they own the keys, unless they are doing something actually end to end encrypted where they remove/delete the keys and such. Like WhatsApp vs. Signal.
doesn't even matter with modern TLS and such. SpaceX has said it is encrypted but hasn't elaborated. They were at a recent hacker convention handing out bounties if you found exploits which was neat
>doesn't even matter with modern TLS and such
yeah
if you aren't wrapping your data in extra encryption at the point of being sent, regardless of the 'pipe's' encryption, you aren't doing it right anon
So you're saying you can use modern encryption with these since they are digital? I am just curious because I know absolutely nothing about radio encryption or satellite comms.
Yes this is a digital system of data transfer. Like a regular GEO commsat for internet but instead it's 30,000 LEO sats. With current Starlink dishes, you pay the monthly fee and plug a router in and boom you're talking to the WWW off of a static IP.
My parents use normal internet Starlink, it's pretty great
... to add to this, data is data. It doesn't need to be ''the internet'' going through it. The Japanese military, Ukraine of course, and every branch in the US has been testing it out. Air Force has been using it in F-35s for testing, also in AC-130s and KC-135 back in 2020, plus boats. Lots of contracts being thrown about. google starlink military testing and you'll see some articles
You can have perfect glow immune encryption with anyone who 1) you can meet in person 2) can keep their private keys private.
Intelligence agencies can't rely on torture for *passive* surveillance.
"Not your keys not you crypto" applies to more than bitcoins. You don't trust infrastructure to encrypt shit for you. You do your own end to end crypto and manage your own keys. Always has been like that but normies want muh convenience.
Le smiley with the caret nose specifically was about tapping the internal Google lines that had no encryption though. That said, the weakness of TLS as it's used is the certificate authority. By default, you're basically trusting bunch of companies and government organizations you never heard of. Just like said above, you need to manage your own keys. If you're schizo about quantum computers than it needs to be symmetric encryption and no asymmetric.
I will just be happy to ditch my PLB subscription for camping tbh
field phones and preplanning anon. That never get's outdated.
pro tip you can use a river as the ground return for a field phone, like 7km with the right conditions. The earth itself can be a fine ground return line over a few km
it doesint sound like a "peaceful nature sounds for sleeping" video? how does one do this?
there’s a an army TM out there about it k think
just stick a stake in the river on both ends
Funnily enough the Brits were still using earth return on their sets in WW1, the Germans got good at listening in with their Moritz stations. Everyone else uses 2-wire.
> mmmmmm data.. oohhh data... oh yeah mmm mmm data mmm ohhhh data mmmm yeah baby data ohhh thats right mmm data right there dont stop data
you addicts have jacked off to internet porn so much that you can't even war without data.
War without information is just waiting to die.
Nice dubs, however the future is now old man.
>NODs
>Thermal
>IR
>Data, more data
>Encrypted Comms
>HUD displays ground units via Drones
>Drone warfare
also
>electric ATV & solar panels at your hidey hole
any good electric atvs out there?
>one cannot legally use encryption on GMRS, FRS, MURS, or HAM frequencies. This has posed a problem from
Use a data frequency and transmit encrypted data in the clear.
no
the glowies have already compromised telcom companies and have integrated surveillance units plus they have compromised chip manufacturing and build in backdoors during fabrication.
Also a frick huge amount of crypto software is compromised or outright created by glow cutouts for sting operations like the recent ANOM busts.
again, doesn’t really matter since you can layer on your own encryption. Unless you’re one of those schizos who thinks the NSA has broken all encryption already?
You're still using a middleman from what I understand. I thought the holy grail was to have something decentralized
both philosophies have their advantages