Cracking a password is a bit different. You're not searching through the keyspace, you are searching through the password space. Left to themselves -- which is the norm -- people do not choose good really random passwords. There are patterns to the passwords. A password cracker exploits these vulnerabilities and can find a person created password much faster than finding a real random key.Originally Posted by Ven0mizer
I don't believe everyone is jumping on the encryption bandwagon so soon:
1. Most PDs (or rather municipal governments) just recently (relatively speaking) bought trunked systems. Upgrades like this aren't cheap. I believe mass encryption will have to wait until the next round of upgrading.
2. Interoperability with other departments, agencies, etc. is very important. Encryption complicates this.
3. Like I said above, I don't believe DES based systems are secure. In fact, I believe these systems are not truly DES, but a variant of it. I have not seen any mention of these variant algorithms in the literature, so they have not had the benefit of peer review. (Then again, maybe they had help from some three letter government agency?) And it has been shown (in the '80s) that almost anything you do to change DES will break it. My guess, is that any DES variant used is much weaker than "plain" DES. I would think that folks looking into these encrypted radios will say "Gee, I just don't see spending the money to keep the amateurs from listening to the cops if it doesn't also keep the real bad guys out." This is assuming they have any real expertise in the area.
4. For the few radio companies that make radios for LE, this is high stakes competition. If they can get into one municipality, say a county, chances are likely they could get into neighboring counties. While encryption would be a feature, it does complicate usage somewhat. I am thinking that anything that complicates the system (which is already complicated enough) would be a disadvantage to marketing. But, I don't really know.
5. Ven0mizer hasn't bought his digital scanner yet. :wink:
I've come to the conclusion that the only way to make sense of laws today is to "follow the money". These laws aren't made because they are right or even logical. They are made to help out big corporations (like the phone/cell/cable/internet/voip/etc. companies) who contribute big money to political campaigns or who roll over whenever the federal government asks them to do something for them. Prospect of a cushy job for a
"govie" after retirement probably plays a big part in this too. Laws aren't made to help you or me. They are made to help politicians and their friends. Lesson: don't try to make sense of the laws or you'll go crazy. :roll: Sorry to be so pessimistic.
Encryption is not another form of modulation. It is, basically, substitution of one element in the data, with a different element. Modulation is how the EM signal is varied to convey information. It's just that since digital modulation is available, encryption can work on the "bits" much easier than working on an analog signal so you always see encryption with digital type modulation.
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