winkler@harvard.ARPA (Dan Winkler) (08/20/85)
Hello Hams, I'm a complete novice to amateur radio who is currently totally amazed and enthralled by the high level of expertise and knowledge I see among hams. I'm sure glad you guys are out there and if I can find out how to get started I hope to become a ham too. I'm not a novice with computers though and I can see that packet radio would be a great replacement for some of the expensive phone links used by usenet. It can cover great distances for almost no cost. (Right?) But in order for that to be responsive under heavy network traffic, it would have to operate automatically so messages could be forwared at least every day and prefereably more frequently than that. A computer would have to be able to contact and communicate with another computer on its own, with no human supervision. I don't believe we'll ever get good throughput at a low cost if we need humans to show up and spend time for every transfer. Is such automated communication possible? It would also be great to allow remote login over the airwaves. This would definitely provide some security problems. Anything private can of course be encrypted (if there aren't laws against that -- are there?). Sending a login password can even be made secure using digital signatures -- the host sends you a random string or the current date and you reply with a digitally signed message containing that time or string. The idea is that since the same time or string will never be used again, noone can enter your account by playing back a previously recorded login. Public key encryption also seems to offer interesting possibilities for private communciations with strangers in distant countries. You send them a public encrypting key over the open airwaves and they can then send you encrypted messages that only you can decrypt. Noone else can decrypt the message even if they know the public encrypting key and they cannot derive the decrypting key even if they know both the clear text and the encrypting key. You are thus able to establish secure communications without ever having a secure channel. However, from the very small amount I know about ham radio, I can tell this is not in keeping with the spirit of the hobby and would probably be interpreted as an incredibly anti-social thing to do. But regardles of whether anyone wants these services, I'm asking if they're possible. Can the airwaves serve as a cheap, fast, secure, computer network? Dan.
carpenter@nbs-vms (08/20/85)
Hello Dan, Welcome.... The real hitch in all the great ideas of using Ham Radio for networking is that Ham Radio must be REALLY noncomercial. You can't use it to conduct business, talk TO your business, etc., etc. Thus, putting an amateur link in something like THIS network would be next to impossible. Sorry, but that is how I understand the rules (and practice) to be. 73, Bob W3OTC ------
epm0@bunny.UUCP (Erik Mintz) (08/21/85)
> > It would also be great to allow remote login over the airwaves. This > would definitely provide some security problems. Anything private can > of course be encrypted (if there aren't laws against that -- are there?). I am new to ham radio also. However, as I study the regulations for my exam, I notice part 97.117 of the FCC regulations governing amateur radio: "The transmission by radio of messages in codes or ciphers in domestic and international communications to or between amateur stations is prohibited. All communications regardless of type of emissions employed shall be in plain language except that generally recongnized abreviations established by regulation or custom and usage are permissible as are any other abreviations or signals where the intent is not to obscure the meaning but only to facilitate communications." -- Erik Mintz ARPA or CSnet : epm0%gte-labs.csnet@csnet-relay UUCP: ...harvard!bunny!epm0
ptb@Mitre-Bedford (08/21/85)
Not only must it be noncommercial, but NO ENCRYPTION is allowed. 97.117 states "The transmission by radio of messages in codes or ciphers in domestic and international communications to or between amateur stations is prohibited...." We have been trying to figure out how to allow a kind of remote-login facility here, wrestling with things like security requirements and the FCC rules. We have come up with some partial solutions in regards to "hooking it up" (over a LAN) to one host only, and warning people that it must only be used for educational purposes. (This seems to be the one purpose that both the FCC and my work place will allow.) The capability is not currently operational. Some of our solutions deal with one-way BIUs, extra security on the "host", and a one-time numeric password idea that I would rather not put over the net to everyone. If you want, give me a call, and we could discuss what we have been doing here. Are you at Harvard University? That is within a reasonable distance to get together and have an "eyeball". One should also note that the amateur bulletin boards of the W0RLI vintage DO ALLOW remote "login", however, they are public access systems. They rely on the requirement for stations to ID themselves, not use false callsigns, etc. to figure out who they are talking to. As far as secrecy of messages goes, I would say "forget it" when you are dealing with amateur radio. The TAPR boards have readily available a "listen and type out everything you hear" mode, and the law does not help at all either (Amateur radio is one of two services that does not have the secrecy of communications protection of the Communications Act of 1934). 73, and good luck, Peter Baldwin (ptb@mitre-bedford) (617) 271 - 2886 (local call from the Boston area)
mojo@kepler.UUCP (Morris Jones) (08/22/85)
In article <312@harvard.ARPA> winkler@harvard.ARPA (Dan Winkler) writes: >[eager to use packet radio to network computers] > >But regardles of whether anyone wants these services, I'm asking if >they're possible. Can the airwaves serve as a cheap, fast, secure, >computer network? Yes they can. And they are, but under the normal restrictions of the Amateur Radio regulations, which might put a bit of a damper on your enthusiasm. Amateur Radio may not be used to conduct the normal business activities of any business -- profit or non-profit. And Amateur Radio transmissions must be in plain text, not encrypted, though any standard communications code may be used. (I'm sure if I'm not current on my regulations I'll be told.) That pretty much leaves out most of the USENET newsgroups, and a great deal of the UUCP mail traffic. Though USENET is probably closer to qualifying for distribution by Amateur Radio than anything else I've encountered. de Mojo aa4kb -- Mojo ... Morris Jones, MicroPro Product Development {dual,ptsfa,hplabs}!well!micropro!kepler!mojo
karn@petrus.UUCP (Phil R. Karn) (08/22/85)
> "The transmission by radio of messages in codes or ciphers in domestic > and international communications to or between amateur stations is > prohibited. All communications regardless of type of emissions employed > shall be in plain language except that generally recongnized > abreviations established by regulation or custom and usage are > permissible as are any other abreviations or signals where the intent is > not to obscure the meaning but only to facilitate communications." There has been considerable discussion on the topic of authentication vs encryption in the amateur service. So far, the consensus is that the FCC doesn't prohibit the use of codes as long as they are for the purpose of authenticating the sender and not for the purposes of hiding what he's saying. A precedent: touch tone codes for repeater control and so forth. (There is a special exception that allows encryption on amateur satellite control links, but that doesn't apply here.) Paul Newland, AD7I, presented a paper suggesting several possible schemes in this year's ARRL Computer Networking Conference. The basic idea is to calculate some function over a packet, encrypt it and send it along with the packet (which would be in plain text). Any modification or forgery of the packet would likely cause the encrypted check number not to match. You might think of this as a "checksum" or "CRC" function whose intent is to protect against intentional corruption by an intelligent human instead of random corruption by natural processes like noise. Phil
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (08/22/85)
The ham bands have a number of very significant limitations as far as computer networking is concerned: 1) No traffic that is even a little bit commercial can be transmitted. Much Usenet traffic falls into the "somewhat commercial" area, including queries from people working for some company for some software or product, other people announcing software and products, etc. Job announcements, etc. also fall into this area. In general, there is a lot of content on Usenet that would be considered commercial under FCC rules. 2) Rules for content (no libelous, copyrighted, obscene, etc.) material are very strict. 3) No unscreened third-party traffic may be transmitted on the ham bands. Virtually all netnews materials, other than particular articles written by the person owning the radio him/herself, would fall into this category! A ham would have to sit there and screen every article before initial transmission into the ham bands, and would also in practice be taking responsiblity for the "legality" of those messages under points (1) and (2) above. A pretty risky situation. 4) Encryption for the purpose of obscuring message contents is absolutely forbidden on the ham bands. As you can see, the rules governing the ham bands are fairly strict and introduce a number of VERY significant limitations. --Lauren--