scanSydney

The point that I think is being missed is that it isn't the possession of a correctly encrypted receiver that would be of concern but what the information obtained is being used for & to who it is being supplied. I don't know why anyone would want to open themselves up to potential Accesory charges just for the sake of quenching your curiosity. For example, I know that stolen radios are commonly used in a variety of crimes to alert them of police response. If caught with a radio like this I'd expect the Police to go over that person's life with a fine tooth comb. I sure hope they don't have anything else that the Police could go them for... Why any HONEST person would expose themselves to such "grief" has me baffled.

Cheers,

Richard

centralcoastscanman wrote:FYI it is actually illegal to decode paging systems... I'll see if i can dig out the document i acquired from the Police Prosecutors some time ago when did some work for them....

Some paging systems that are linked in with the public phone system would be illegal to monitor, but by no means all paging systems and certainly not because they are a data transmission.

ivahri wrote:The point that I think is being missed is that it isn't the possession of a correctly encrypted receiver that would be of concern but what the information obtained is being used for & to who it is being supplied.

I agree completely, but people assume that if a transmission is encrypted that it is 'illegal' to listen to - that is certainly not the case.

However being legally allowed to listen to the transmission, and actually having the tools/ability to listen to the transmission are two different things.

Yet Scotty...

The only reason I think is that it is not illegal is because those who drafted the law did not allow for this being possible. It would be very easy to make it illegal... and Police & emergency services have the clout to make that happen. Transmissions in the clear are fair game but if it is encrypted there is an expectation that it is "secure", no different to you or me having a yarn on our mobile phone. Time will tell if this ever becomes a real problem...

Cheers,

Richard

Richard, I'm sure you can understand the exception is for academic reasons such as what we have explored.. We have little to no interest at all in listening to the content of encryption transmissions - the goal was simply to explore the security of the system "for the greater good"

Absolutely! Security needs to be tested this way- so long as that is all that it is done for.

citabria wrote:"for the greater good"

Reminds me of a Clint Eastwood film!

Everybody in law enforcement and homeland security needs to be running AES encryption if I can see the greater good in this thread
Surely the federal government can squeeze a bit of money out for that purpose, given the amount they are wasting on the NBN and school halls.

Grant

PS Looking forward to Clint Eastwood's new "J.Edgar Hoover" movie - having read a 450 page biography on him, it is pretty clear his involvement with the mafia needs a lot more exposure. (Hint: For a man famed for having the dirt on US politicians and presidents, i was suprised to read that the mafia had the dirt on Hoover very early on - like 1928)

Theres a similar thread and arguement going on this forum as well - http://www.austech.info/communication-d ... ystem.html

matthewn1983 wrote:Theres a similar thread and arguement going on this forum as well - http://www.austech.info/communication-d ... ystem.html

I have to laugh when two people "know" two opposing "facts"!

There's also a claim over on that forum that AES256 has a "back-door" built in and I was wondering if Matt R has ever done simular work on AES? I suspect it's a case of "conspiracy theory" but there again, it wouldn't surprise me if the yanks wanted this to eavesdrop on the various secret squirrel agencies?

Andrew