14G/ Amateur Radio and Identity
Amateur Radio and Identity
Wednesday 14G
Convener: Aaron Parecki
Notes-taker(s):
Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:
Constraints/properties:
- Anything you send on the radio can be heard by anyone nearby
- Messages can’t be obfuscated or encrypted
- Constrained payload sizes of messages
- No confirmation of messages received, nobody knows if you’re listening
Barriers to entry in the community:
- You need a special radio to send and receive messages
Identity is based on call sign, globally registered identifiers managed by local governments.
Communication on amateur radio is always identified by call sign, but there is no authentication of that message, it’s entirely the honor system. It is also mostly not a problem because of the barriers to entry and lack of incentive to cause trouble.
Encryption isn’t allowed, but signatures aren’t obfuscating a message so it would be okay to use cryptographic signatures when sending a message.
Pack your message into a string, sign it with some private key, then transmit the message and the signature. If the recipient knows your public key, they could verify the message.
https://w7apk.com/radio-authentication
Digital vs Analog? Could be done with voice but will need to be manually verified. Digital modes provide the opportunity for computers to verify signatures.
Why is this important? Use cases:
- Remote control of devices already allows encryption
- Wanting to know you are really talking to the person with this call sign
- Confirming someone’s identity before a trade
Lora - license-free radio on a few narrow bands for long range wireless signals
- https://revspace.nl/DecodingLora
