I disagree. Lack of encryption, imo, is going to kill HAM.
People now aren't enticed by being able to talk to anyone anywhere. There are substantially easier and cheaper methods to do this with the internet and will connect you to more groups with more relevant interests.
As a guy in his late 20's I don't really care much to talk to people on ham. But what got me in was a satellite project during my undergrad (everyone my age or under that I know with a licence has it for similar reasons). Being able to control systems is enticing though. I can't do that with the internet. But playing with iot devices, controlling robots, etc, THAT IS COOL! You aren't going to be about to do this with the internet and you can't get the range (I've never done this, but it is interesting, I just don't have time since I'm in grad school). There's also plenty of ideas I'd like to try that would require encryption (like making a server accessible over HAM frequencies).
I talk to older HAMs and they are confused why the younger generation isn't interested. Well frankly times have changed. Hackers/Makers still exist (this site is proof!), we just aren't enticed just by being able to speak to others around the world. We've been doing that trivially since a young age.
So I think it's silly to say that we don't need encryption. Without users HAM bands will go away. So let's start asking why the younger generation don't want to get in instead of saying "business as usual" when it is clear the business is dying (and dying fast).
Edit: I also disagree with the premise that encrypted == closed. We access tons of https websites and we don't consider those closed.
> Without users HAM bands will go away. So let's start asking why the younger generation don't want to get in instead of saying "business as usual" when it is clear the business is dying (and dying fast).
This is simply not true. There are more hams now than there ever has been, and it's growing every year. [1]
You don't need encryption to make a secure amateur device control system, you need MACs. Those are fine, so it seems to me like you don't actually have a problem.
With encryption you cannot validate that a transmission is truly an amateur transmission, or one from a commercial, government, or military entity. If anything, proliferation of encryption would kill it.
Leave encryption to the ISM bands, where it belongs.
You are ignoring the bandwidth differential of RF v Fiber-based transmission systems. We don't care if some random unknown crypto session happens on the internet - there is near infinite bandwidth - and someone is paying a bill (on both ends).
With amateur RF it is different - it is a shared, finite resource (in a given area/radius).
Not allowing enciphered communications is a fairly easy way to be able to audit what is taking up the spectrum. If it all goes enciphered, you have no idea what is occurring, for what purposes.
There's definitely not infinite bandwidth. If there was then we wouldn't have dos attacks. Can we not treat radio in the same way? I mean if we can knock on someone's door that left their mic on why can't we knock on someone's door that is abusing bandwidth? I'm not sure what message content has to do with this abuse. It seems original to me.
It's many, many, many orders of magnitude difference.
I haven't done the math but my hunch is you could fit the entire ham allocation from VHF down in a single 10mbit pipe. VHF is usually 1200bps per channel and gets slower as you get lower in bandwidth.
People now aren't enticed by being able to talk to anyone anywhere. There are substantially easier and cheaper methods to do this with the internet and will connect you to more groups with more relevant interests.
As a guy in his late 20's I don't really care much to talk to people on ham. But what got me in was a satellite project during my undergrad (everyone my age or under that I know with a licence has it for similar reasons). Being able to control systems is enticing though. I can't do that with the internet. But playing with iot devices, controlling robots, etc, THAT IS COOL! You aren't going to be about to do this with the internet and you can't get the range (I've never done this, but it is interesting, I just don't have time since I'm in grad school). There's also plenty of ideas I'd like to try that would require encryption (like making a server accessible over HAM frequencies).
I talk to older HAMs and they are confused why the younger generation isn't interested. Well frankly times have changed. Hackers/Makers still exist (this site is proof!), we just aren't enticed just by being able to speak to others around the world. We've been doing that trivially since a young age.
So I think it's silly to say that we don't need encryption. Without users HAM bands will go away. So let's start asking why the younger generation don't want to get in instead of saying "business as usual" when it is clear the business is dying (and dying fast).
Edit: I also disagree with the premise that encrypted == closed. We access tons of https websites and we don't consider those closed.