
You are listening to San Francisco - sndean
http://youarelistening.to/sanfrancisco
======
dziungles
Listen to live Wikipedia updates:
[http://listen.hatnote.com/](http://listen.hatnote.com/)

Listen to live Bitcoin transactions:
[http://btclisten.com/](http://btclisten.com/)

Listen to airports: [http://listentothe.cloud/](http://listentothe.cloud/)

Listen to train ride:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pVWfzsgLoQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pVWfzsgLoQ)

Listen to driving through NY:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kV4zowtJC8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kV4zowtJC8)

~~~
dyml
Oh! Happy to see Listen to the cloud posted here! It’s been a crazy ride since
I built it last November. I went viral in Russia and Kazakhstan And were
interviewed by a Spanish newspaper called El Mundo together with Eric (who
made youarelisteningto). The best outcome of it was receiving an email from a
developer who had a lot of problem with ADD and anxiety and he told me about
how listentotheclouds helped him focus while at work and expressing the
gratitude. It’s very humbling to hear that something you built just for fun
actually helps others in ways you had no idea it would.

~~~
freeflight
Thank you, this is really nice! Tho, one question: Why does the ISS Space
Station channel ask me to install Flash, while all the other channels seem to
work just fine?

~~~
dyml
I need to use a video stream which is embedded through flash :)

------
danielvf
"Why (special agent) Johnny (still) Can’t Encrypt"
[https://csrc.nist.gov/CSRC/media/Events/ISPAB-
OCTOBER-2012-M...](https://csrc.nist.gov/CSRC/media/Events/ISPAB-
OCTOBER-2012-MEETING/documents/ispab_oct2012_mblaze_p25-security-analysis.pdf)

(Warning, slightly terrifying paper)

P25 is very vulnerable to jamming, decrypting encrypted traffic, traffic
analysis, and geo tracking of individual radios.

-

Because of the design of P25, commonly used in America, if you enable
encryption, a tiny bit of noise in the signal makes it unusable. One problem
is that there are separate error correction codes for different parts of the
packet, and very few error correction bits were allocated for the important
encryption bits.

To get around this, sometimes just the dispatchers will have encryption on,
since those packets are traveling over fiber to the transmission towers, where
they are broadcast at high power levels. The other direction, personal radio
to repeater tower, is almost never encrypted because of the much lower power
of the personal radios.

P25 has some nice features - our local area has perhaps a hundred different
public safety organizations, all of which can talk to each other at any time,
and often coordinate for any major incident. But security is not one of them.

~~~
rsync
"P25 has some nice features ... but security is not one of them."

And that is just fine.

Police and firefighters/medics[1] are civilians and are in their role to serve
civilians at the pleasure of civilians. There is no need for secret comms and,
in fact, it is often quite valuable for the public at large to have visibility
into their operations in real time.

There is no need to encrypt public safety radio comms and you should be quite
suspicious of anyone who claims that there is.

Those radios _belong to you_. The frequencies belong to you. The people who
use them are your own servants.

[1] I am a firefighter/medic in the SFBA.

~~~
tbabb
Agree, it is probably good for police / fire / EMT etc. to be open.

However, the linked talk above notes that the researchers accidentally
discovered that some "sensitive tactical law enforcement operations" were
unwittingly operating in cleartext, and divulged to the open air "names and/or
identifying features of targets and confidential informants, their locations,
descriptions of undercover agents, [...] plans for forthcoming takedowns and
operations," and a few other things you probably don't want to widely
announce.

It also notes that radio locations could be easily discovered, even if they're
not communicating. Bad guys could therefore build a map of possibly-federal-
agents in the city, and learn things they're not supposed to know even if they
can't hear what's being discussed.

Again, PD/Fire/EMT are great to have open and mutually communicating. But
there are (life and death) reasons why you might really need a secure channel
in other cases.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>However, the linked talk above notes that the researchers accidentally
discovered that some "sensitive tactical law enforcement operations" were
unwittingly operating in cleartext, and divulged to the open air "names and/or
identifying features of targets and confidential informants, their locations,
descriptions of undercover agents, [...] plans for forthcoming takedowns and
operations," and a few other things you probably don't want to widely
announce.

We expect block headed 18yo infantrymen not to send sensitive information over
insecure channels. I don't think asking the same from our public servants is
unreasonable.

~~~
tbabb
Then we agree that secure channels should exist?

------
juicy-fruit
Can someone explain to me why police scanners are so popular? I recently came
across some guy
([https://www.reddit.com/user/regoapps](https://www.reddit.com/user/regoapps))
who made millions off of making a police scanner app. Is the demand really
that high? What's the appeal?

Edit: Why am I being downvoted? It's a genuine question... I see listening to
police scanners is a popular thing and I just want to understand why

~~~
grzm
I think the downvotes might be because it seems you haven't explored possible
motivations on your own and it comes off as dismissive. While it may not be
appealing to you, it pays to spend a bit of time thinking about what might be
appealing to others. That's not to say you haven't done this; sharing what you
had thought about may have staved off downvotes.

~~~
juicy-fruit
Okay I understand. I see from this thread and a thread from a couple of years
ago that some people are using this as a background noise. I tried doing this
but it's too sporadic and the talking is distracting for me to focus on
programming. It also makes me feel a little anxious for some reason.

I didn't mean to offend anyone's interest, I just wanted someone to maybe show
me a side I'm not seeing. I should word my questions with more thought and
empathy in the future.

~~~
GeorgeTirebiter
J-F, I would generally ignore the downvoters. Because you have to 'read the
tea leaves' to try to know why somebody downvoted you, and you can only 'make
stuff up' as to the potential reason. THAT means there is no objective
feedback mechanism to learn how to avoid downvoting; or, in particular, why
your specific contribution was downvoted.

In my world, posting a well-reasoned on-target opinion on a website is not
isomorphic with a video game, where I need to score XP or some other
adolescent incentive.

So, given the lack of specific feedback, I suggest you ignore the downvoters,
and do what I do, which is to imagine them as ignorant youngsters who actually
think anybody cares what they think. They lack power in their own lives, and
so they get the illusion of power over others with their downvote button. We
should feel sorry for such creatures.

Perhaps one could try Buddhism? ;-)

------
nimbius
As an amateur radio geek, the first thing that stood out in my home state was
the apparent massive disparity between LA and SF police radio traffic. SF
appears to still be analog, and still uses "10-4" as a code??

[http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=60](http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=60)
looks like motorola type II is still preferred, although AP25 is...available?

------
comboy
I thought that police is using encrypted channels in bigger cities practically
everywhere now? Is this live?

~~~
sandworm101
They have the gear but few implement encryption. Most police departments are
more worried about not beimg heard than of bad guys listening in. Normally
only drug squads use encryption.

~~~
iNate2000
Also: key management is difficult. Also: information sharing has benefits too

~~~
brokensegue
blasting out all internal communication is a bad way to share information
(with the public)

~~~
ogdoad
OTOH, censoring what info you let through is, well, censoring.

~~~
brokensegue
encrypting police radio would not be censoring.

------
johnchristopher
Are US police radio still broadcasting unencrypted on public frequencies ? I
know for a fact eavesdropping is forbidden in some european countries and the
broadcasts are encrypted in some.

~~~
closeparen
Yes, with some exceptions. We lean much more heavily towards open/public
records and “sunshine is the best disinfectant” than privacy. The ability of
an independent press to observe and audit police activity is considered by
many (myself included) to be foundational to liberal democracy.

~~~
cjrp
Unless they're broadcasting "just planting some drugs on this suspect, over",
having the transmissions unencrypted probably isn't a very useful way of
auditing police activity.

~~~
gozur88
On the contrary, there have been several high profile incidents where police
radio traffic was used to demonstrate ill intent. It's difficult to use a tool
day in, day out like that without getting complacent.

Open radio also makes it more likely the news media is there when the action
is still happening instead of giving cops time to paper over their mistakes.

------
filoeleven
Did anyone else immediately think that should read “you are listening to Los
Angeles” because of the Soul Coughing song? Nice to see that it’s an option on
the site.

~~~
pavel_lishin
And the man laughs...

------
dang
A thread from 2014:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8349655](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8349655).

~~~
mikestew
I revisited that thread, and upvoted a few comments from almost four years
ago. Good luck figuring out which comment got the upvote when your points
count goes up. :-)

Worth noting, though, are the SomaFM links to similar stuff over there. I’m a
big fan of Mission Control myself.

~~~
bhj
+1 for SomaFM:

Ambient music mixed with the sounds of San Francisco public safety radio
traffic: [http://somafm.com/sf1033/](http://somafm.com/sf1033/)

I also recommend their DEF CON channel, which has (usually humorous) snippets
from various talks between tracks:
[http://somafm.com/defcon/](http://somafm.com/defcon/)

------
app4soft
The Linux way - use "cat /dev/urandom"[0]

Also here is cool simple shell script - "noise.sh"[1]

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11238247](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11238247)

[1]
[https://gist.github.com/rsvp/1209835](https://gist.github.com/rsvp/1209835)

------
nealmueller
Related, does anyone know how to listen to maritime channel 16 vessel traffic
in any city, especially San Francisco?

------
joeblau
That background is an awesome pre Sales Force tower night shot.

------
matte_black
How reliable is the .to TLD?

~~~
mildavw
I've been serving up a [http://pimen.to](http://pimen.to) sandwich since the
late 90's.

~~~
artie_effim
OMG - second only to
[http://isabevigodadead.com/](http://isabevigodadead.com/)

------
ausjke
no clue what this is, anyone can explain? thanks

~~~
kyledrake
A police scanner with ambient background music. It's perfect.

~~~
rsync
soma.fm has a "mission control" station that has NASA mission chatter over the
ambient music - and I prefer it to the police scanner overlay channels:

[http://somafm.com/missioncontrol/](http://somafm.com/missioncontrol/)

------
jimmywanger
Is there anyway to turn of the music or switch channels? Ambient music is not
my cup of tea, I'd rather just have the scanner play without Yanni in the
background.

