The first paragraph is great advice.
The second one is such utter hogwash on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start.
-
Police that are intending to disrupt a protest are planning and organizing in person, not over the radios. That’s just stupid.
-
Regular police radios are frequently encrypted now. You can be damn sure DHS has been encrypting their radio traffic for decades. I can say, from personal experience, that my small hometown police started encrypting some of their radio traffic at least 40+ years ago.
-
Even if it wasn’t encrypted, you have to know what frequencies they’re using. Scanners only check one frequency at a time for traffic, so it can take several seconds to get through all of them if you have a lot of candidates. This means that you will frequently miss the first part of a transmission, and occasionally miss the entire thing if it’s short. Once it detects something on one frequency, it stops there to monitor that frequency for as long as the conversation is going on. This means that you’re missing everything happening on all of the other frequencies you have.
-
Lastly, RADIO SCANNERS DO NOT TRANSMIT! PERIOD. They are receivers, like the radio in your car that you listen to
musiclocal advertisements on.
It’s fairly obvious that the person that wrote that has never in their life used a radio scanner and has no idea how they actually work.
There’s also truncing, but some scanners support that. I imagine the op was referring to baofengs from Amazon or something which opens another can of worms
Tell me about that can; I have some of those baofengs.
FYI: There are apps that convert a string of text to sounds that can be played over a radio then you use the same app on the other end to decode it. RATTLEGRAM is open source and available on both iOS and Android (F-Droid also have it). You can encrypt the text before copy pasting it over to RATTLEGRAM. Secure Space Encryptor is an open source app that does text encryption (also known as “Paranoia Text Encryption” on iOS), just gotta share a secret password beforehand shared via a secure channel.
So (1) type text (2) encrypt it (3) copy paste the ciphertext to rattlegram, max the volume, play that sound over the radio (4) the person at the other end also use RATTLEGRAM to decode the message and get the ciphertext (5) use the same text encryption app to decrypt the ciphertext… Voila, ez encrypted radio communications over cheap baofengs (assuming your phone isn’t compromised, but you can load those apps on an airgapped android phone)
Legal Disclaimer: FCC Regulations does not allow encryption over Amateur Radio frequencies. This is for informational purposes only.
Legal trouble with the FCC (which I believe is a federal level crime) as another poster mentioned.
Also, transmitting is exactly what they want you to do. Triangulation of a signal source is trivial. It makes it sound like this was written by someone that wants you to get arrested.
Regular police radios are frequently encrypted now. You can be damn sure DHS has been encrypting their radio traffic for decades. I can say, from personal experience, that my small hometown police started encrypting some of their radio traffic at least 40+ years ago
yeah, my small hometown (i don’t even have fiber internet small oh your gods i’m going to go on a psychotic break over this later this week aren’t i) has their encrypted channel and their unencrypted channel because they know all us dorks are and have been listening for decades. when the town almost burned down a few years back, the unencrypted channel was how the last minute volunteer emergency services got a shitton of extra fire breaks mowed across the county fuck your property lines style and kept most of the town intact
Even regular private companies encrypt radio traffic, partially just to avoid getting someone else’s shit crossover.
All true, but there’re fairly inexpensive radios on AliExpress and the like that do transmit as well.
It’s technically illegal, at least on my neck of the woods, to transmit on reserved frequencies, but one could.
The whole text is smug and dumb (traffic cones? the kind with no holes in the top???) so I’m not surprised to hear it has all these inaccuracies.
Police that are intending to disrupt a protest are planning and organizing in person, not over the radios. That’s just stupid.
They do need some kind of telecommunication. At a certain size, a protest sprawls many blocks and it will ebb and flow and shift around. You know you’re making an impact when they bring in a helicopter to spot. Obviously the copter is radioing the ground. But yeah also probably not in an easily-overheard way.
deleted by creator
-
Police radio is largely encrypted these days.
Listening is legal, and in may areas they use digital modes(P25) without encryption. However, transmitting on any frequency you are not allowed to will get you in big trouble, and they will probably get help from local amateurs that routinely practice foxhunting.
Amateurs will help, not because they’re cops, but because with a flick of of the pen , rules can be chaged to restrict their favorite hobby. Or worse — https://lemmy.world/post/41898188
Most police departments are using encrypted signals now so you can’t listen to their radio.
Which wouldn’t prevent a denial of service attack by flooding the frequency with whote noise as the post suggests
That being said, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Police aren’t ICE, and in many cases police are the only ones that have been able to stop ICE from escalating further
Also. If you’re broadcasting (white noise) they can track your broadcast location fairly easily
And, if all the actions listed in the OP, it’s the only one that’s illegal. It has always been illegal to broadcast in regulated frequencies since licensure became a thing.
Was gonna say. Although i used to marine radio that let me talk on their frequencies.
Does this change if you have multiple radios on at a time?
It can make it more difficult and time consuming to locate them all. But it’s still easy to find single broadcasters. I think moving them constantly would be more likely to succeed.
Also, scanners don’t “send as well as receive.”
Damn. My local PD and our state police and Fire/ ems all livestream their live scanners from the web, incase someone doesnt have a scanner.
I have been thinking about water balloon based defenses. If you fill them with paint and throw them at someone wearing helmets with clear visors or gas masks they would have to remove them or not be able to see. If you miss there’d still be paint on a person wearing a uniform without any identifying information so it gets easier tracking and identifying who they are on video later.
Just make sure its not lead based. I heard that can make people… less intelligent.
Oh, so it won’t harm ICE then
They’re going to consider that assault on a police officer, and might either shoot back, or at a minimum arrest you and make sure you see prison time.
Be aware that in a few states, including Minnesota, the use of a police scanner during a crime, or to evade law enforcement, can be a crime itself. If they arrest you for committing some crime, then having a scanner will get you another charge.
How to Survive Anti-Police Protests by Shane Burley is an appropriate primer for demo beginner.
The Black Flag Catalyst Revolt Guide by Black Flag Catalyst is a more detailed guide on protest tactics.
If you are interested in studying crowd control tactics in demo. Here are the resources: The Master’s Tools and Warrior Crowd Control & Riot Manual
CrimethInc also have extensive resources on demonstration guides:
https://crimethinc.com/2020/09/01/a-demonstrators-guide-to-helmets-everything-you-need-to-know
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/crimethinc-affinity-groups
Indigenous Anarchist Federation also have some extensive guides on PPE and comm
https://iaf-fai.org/2020/08/31/skills-for-revolutionary-survival-1-trauma-medical-gear/
Riot Medicine
This is an outstanding list of resources. Thanks so much for posting. I wish more people would engage with stuff like this instead of clutching their liberal pearls. The Nepalese showed how to actually protest a corrupt government. All power to the people.
Riot Medicine is an incredible resource and even I could make sense of it as a full-time idiot. Crimethinc are the poets of a generation who few people seem to know about despite being around for many years, and of course the Anarchist Library is one of the great online resources. Shout out to Serafinski.
it was my understanding that a lot of police agencies moved over to digital/encrypted radio systems precisely because they wanted to avoid scanners.
Step one would be for Americans to grow balls
Since it would be a shame, I’ll make sure not to do any of that, thanks!
