Baofeng's, Baofengs everywhere.<p>Of all the images I have seen of the attempted coup, I have only seen baofeng radios. These are very cheap ($20'ish) radios that work very poorly (they splatter all over the bands) even when equipped with decent antennas. They barely work when equipped with the stock rubber-duck antennas.<p>It's easy to be a snob about the type of radios that they are using, but that's not even the point.<p>These people are idiots. Bringing their cellphones, recording video of themselves committing felonies and then posting them online. There is already plenty of rules regarding what can/can not be said using amateur radios. There is however no requirement to provide identification before you purchase an amateur radio.<p>Anybody can buy them, and it's based on the honour system to use them according to the law. It's already against the law to use them in a manner that is against the law.<p>Id' like to see this used as a punitive measure against everybody who was using them during the coup. Maximum FCC fine for all of them.
> The Bureau has become aware of discussions on social media platforms suggesting that certain radio services regulated by the Commission may be an alternative to social media platforms for groups to communicate and coordinate future activities.<p>“Stop discussing plans for a revolution on amateur radio bands like if we aren’t listening to them, we are, stop believing everything they say on Facebook. I mean, we do encourage civil discussions, but if you’re going to collude on terrorism over the radio we will hold you responsible for that”
I'm sure I'll get a lot of hate for this, but honestly FCC regulation of ham radio is at best antiquated cold war bullshit (ie, crypto bans) and at worst gatekeeping for a bunch of old men who can dox themselves in order to get exclusive access to some bands.<p>Every single person here uses high powered encrypted communication without a license, it's a cell phone.
Speculation: we're just about to see a bunch of secondary offense charges come down for the Capitol riots, or at the very least forfeiture of the equipment.<p>I wonder if the executive order signed the other day might be relevant to this (preventative in its effect rather than complementary)? <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-protecting-americans-overcriminalization-regulatory-reform/" rel="nofollow">https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...</a>
“messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning.”<p>The language is troubling, but the laws on the books in US are already ridiculously broad and overbearing. Usually, the question is more along the lines of what stick you want to use. Just in case you never had a chance, "Three felonies a day" gives will give you an idea where US is now.
> The Bureau has become aware of discussions on social media platforms suggesting that certain radio services regulated by the Commission may be an alternative to social media platforms [...] Amateur and Personal Radio Services, however, may not be used to commit or facilitate crimes.<p>The <i>sequitur</i> between "social media platforms" and "commit or facilitate crimes" is quite interesting.
Related: Mexican drug cartels using radios:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21109605" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21109605</a><p>A lot of that is probably to reach areas the cartels need to operate that don't have other reliable communication, or have little enough that it would be easily surveiled. Not sure if it applies to urban criminal activity, which is what the ARRL is worried about.
What is the practical implication? I guess they are saying: "don't involve radios in your crime, or else the feds will be after you, too".
This might be a dumb question, but is there any information out there about how much official monitoring goes on for amateur bands (and other bands, for that matter)? Are there strategically placed logging stations that allow triangulation of signal origin based on RSSI etc? I guess this stuff is super commonplace in SIGINT, I just don't know much about it.
People who are intending to use radios to commit crimes aren't going to read this and go... "Darn."<p>As a HAM, to the other HAMs who are worried the FCC will use this as justification to curtail your privilges -- they will, and they'll tell you it's necessary for your own safety.<p>Will it make us any safer? Of course not. So where does the real problem lie? The people using radios to commit crimes, or the government using that as justification to restrict freedoms?<p>The answer is: yes.
I remember someone told me at Defcon one year, "Getting your FCC license acknowledges the rules and regulations". Therefor if you ever do anything stupid, they can nail you extra hard for violating that agreement. Its better to not have a license because the first few violations will result in warnings.
>WARNING: AMATEUR AND PERSONAL RADIO SERVICES LICENSEES AND OPERATORS MAY NOT USE RADIO EQUIPMENT TO COMMIT OR FACILITATE CRIMINAL ACTS<p>But if one licenses spectrum, then it is not an offense, in its own right, to facilitate criminal acts? (Though the acts themselves of course still are...)
Were those who used ham bands while storming capitol even licensed? Right message, but maybe addressed to the wrong audience.<p>I’ll bet most of these people use Baofengs purchased on Amazon. It’d be great if Amazon could echo this warning on the relevant product page(s).
discussion from two days ago:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25817320" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25817320</a>
I'm wondering if this was specifically posted wrt the "deplatforming" as of late. In other words, has there been murmurs of people using radio to coordinate actions now that social media is unavailable to them?
Meanwhile, over on the amateur radio boards, the old dudes are saying this is all a conspiracy theory to take hams off the air, in preparation for... something. Something nefarious the Biden administration is planning.<p>And they wonder why the kids aren't going into amateur radio.
tl;dr : How to turn a local or state crime into a federal one.<p>It isn't particularly shocking that this is a statute. I wonder if ham radio was used in the capitol riot.