At international level, encryption in ham bands is forbidden (at least).

The legal definition prohibiting encryption is in §97.113(4) and says that "messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning" are prohibited. This is generally accepted to be a blanket prohibition of "encryption" in the sense that SSH, SSL, TLS, VPN type traffic would be prohibited.

However, there are some interesting and positive nuances because the rule specifically doesn't ban "crypto". For instance, it is my belief that cryptography for the purpose of authentication or message signing/integrity checking is completely permissable. That is to say that you can even technologically allow things like TLS and HTTPS so long as you force a NULL cipher; so you get message integrity but no encryption so some observer could see all the traffic but not be able to interfere.

Now that we live in a world where my writing this message to you (and, in fact, to the world, publicly under my name) goes over an encrypted channel and it would be unthinkable if it didn't, and where my texts to my friends about where to get dinner happen over an end-to-end secure messenger, and where most competent cryptography is developed in public, it's not clear the rules make sense any more. But that's where they come from.

BTW, one ham has argued that encryption for the purpose of using a standard protocol like WPA/802.1x (or, probably, SSH or SSL) that is otherwise compliant with the intent of the amateur service is legal, because the purpose of the encryption is not obscuring their meaning, the obscured meaning just a side effect of other goals: http://www.n5dux.com/ham/files/pdf/Data%20Encryption%20is%20...

Encryption is illegal as you stated. However "Unique encodings of an analog or digital nature" are completely legal. You don't even need to tell the protocol.

We had this issue with D.star where it was an amateur radio digital protocol in which they didn't tell how to encode or decode. Brought up at an FCC hearing and deemed completely legal.

So call all encryption a "Unique encoding" and you're legally in the clear.

We had this issue with D.star where it was an amateur radio digital protocol in which they didn't tell how to encode or decode. Brought up at an FCC hearing and deemed completely legal.

This can't be right. IIRC you have to publish in a public place how your code works, and I believe the D-STAR specs are public; its just that any implementation is blocked because of copyright or whatever dumb crap.

Authentication without encryption isn't very useful, unless you sign every message.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/computer-network-ip-security-i...

specifically §97.309 (4) (b)

It looks like 433 MHz is unlicensed in Europe so IoT devices can use it at low power. In the US 900 MHz is used instead.

Can I speak a language only known by me and one other person over HAM radio?

If you happen to speak a language that's not commonly known in the area then that would likely be fine.

In short, if the traffic is encrypted, how would we know that, say, Verizon isn't off-loading traffic to amateur bands?

I want to see it adapted for the lower frequency ISM bands. I just got into ham and SDR this last year and I'm looking forward to making a super long distance super low speed link to my buddies on the other coast as a backup comm channel in case the primaries go down.

Many things have been prototyped in terms of communication modes. Just a few examples WSTJ, FT8, PSK31, MSK are all developed by hams for hams.

And there is along and continuing tradition of building your own radio.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/97.309

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/97.307#f

Provided you stay within the limits of your license you are welcome to experiment all you like.

Additionally, if you want to exceed the normal limits of your license then you can apply for an experimental license.

Is there also a ban on encryption in the countries where it exists, or is that an FCC-only thing?

I'm interested in this stuff because I just started playing with these: https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/a/a/0/b/5/DS_SX1276-7-8-9_W_...

They do spread spectrum on ISM bands with extremely low data rates for insane sensitivity. I want to see what kind of stable distance you can get with lower frequencies and possibly even lower bitrates.

What do you mean? This is running on 433MHz, which is within the 70cm amateur band (420-450mhz)

I haven’t researched the global commonalities, but I’d wager there’s more consistency in HF than the higher frequencies (VHF, UHF).

Interesting, can you provide any more information? How could you do radio that far? Googling shows it is at least 2,092 miles. What kind of radio can go that far?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_frequency

Also, I'll add a link to http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map . Essentially this shows the transmitter and receiver locations for low power beacons, which might give you a sense of what HF propogation looks like. It will vary according to the time of day and solar conditions.

And I wouldn't. Not trying to be an arse here... but more importantly, who cares? Someone has to discover whats happening and actually care that a rule is being violated. There really are not many hams that have the skill to figure out what is happening when they hear this on their precious 70cm band and THEN realize encryption is happening on top of the network layer. Sure, they exist, but they are also generally busy doing real things that matter rather than volunteering for the Amateur Auxiliary.

Queue: the relentless flood of pitch forks that "CRYPTION IS AGAINST THE RULE OF LAW ON MY HAM BANDS".

But to answer your question "who cares?", hams care, and I'd be surprised if people sending encrypted transmissions are not soon discovered - and if you knowingly violate the regulations, you run the risk of losing your ham license. If you're not licensed, (or even if you are for egregious or repeat violators), there are various enforcement actions the FCC can take including significant fines, equipment confiscation, and other criminal penalties.

In my experience, there absolutely are plenty of hams out there who will triangulate you and report you for violations. You'd probably get away with a warning at first, to be fair, but many hams (at least around these parts) are old retired dudes with nothing better to do.

If you think I'm wrong, just walk around any ham fest and ask for help setting up your Winlink node ;-).

That being said these bands are out there for the public to use, the government has set aside a pretty decent portion of the available usable frequencies for use of the public. In my opinion is just in poor taste to not follow the rules here.

In these days when you can get a Baofeng HT for $25, there are already all sorts of unlicensed people stomping all over others just to be jerks.