
Cypherpunks Tapping Bitcoin via Ham Radio - xd1936
https://www.wired.com/story/cypherpunks-bitcoin-ham-radio/
======
Stratoscope
Much of the article is about Brian Goss's setup. Goss is not using ham radio.
He is receiving satellite broadcasts and re-transmitting them with a goTenna
device into the goTenna mesh network.

goTenna is a Part 15 (unlicensed) device, like a Wi-Fi router or Bluetooth
device. It does not transmit on Amateur Radio frequencies. Unless I missed
something, there is no connection with ham radio here.

The article also mentions how Elaine Ou sent a Lightning payment over the 40
meter amateur radio band. This may have been a violation of the Part 97
Amateur Radio regulations, as noted by other commenters.

~~~
kayfox
It may be a violation if it involved a business transaction that was not
related to ham radio equipment. Buying, selling and trading equipment related
to ham radio is the only exception to the rule against business transactions
that I am aware of.

~~~
Stratoscope
The exception you're referring to is this one in Part 97.113 (3), which is
part of a list of prohibited communications:

 _(3) Communications in which the station licensee or control operator has a
pecuniary interest, including communications on behalf of an employer. Amateur
operators may, however, notify other amateur operators of the availability for
sale or trade of apparatus normally used in an amateur station, provided that
such activity is not conducted on a regular basis._

[https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2002-title47-vol5/pd...](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2002-title47-vol5/pdf/CFR-2002-title47-vol5-sec97-113.pdf)

It appears that the exception is limitied to _notifying_ other amateurs of
equipment for sale or trade, not making the actual payment over the air. For
example, if I got a one-time virtual credit card number and read it over the
air to another amateur to pay for equipment, I don't believe that would fall
under this exception, so it would be prohibited.

~~~
jimktrains2
Especially if it was a low value transaction or a transaction between two
accounts held by the same person, they could argue it falls under
experimentation, I guess?

------
ihuman
I don't think this is allowed under USA Amateur radio rules.

> §97.113 Prohibited transmissions.

> (b) An amateur station shall not engage in any form of broadcasting, _nor
> may an amateur station transmit one-way communications except as
> specifically provided in these rules_ ; nor shall an amateur station engage
> in any activity related to program production or news gathering for
> broadcasting purposes, except that communications directly related to the
> immediate safety of human life or the protection of property may be provided
> by amateur stations to broadcasters for dissemination to the public where no
> other means of communication is reasonably available before or at the time
> of the event.

[https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-
idx?SID=3fe986fb082211e728...](https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-
idx?SID=3fe986fb082211e7284fe51ba0367f0a&node=47:5.0.1.1.6&rgn=div5)

~~~
tuxxy
Why are hams the closest thing to the equivalent of tech tattle-tales?

Any time I see someone doing something neat and legally grey on radio, some
ham operator has to come in, quote their understanding of the law, and
chastise everyone. What's the point? Do they get to feel some sense of
authority and privilege that the rest of the nerd world don't for a few
minutes?

Just let people do cool stuff and don't snitch.

~~~
throw20102010
Hams are continuously fighting to keep their spectrum (and slowly losing it to
commercial interests). It is a commonly held belief that unlicensed hackers or
hams breaking the law hurts the community’s arguments for keeping their
spectrum.

So it’s not viewed in the ham community as tattling, but rather self policing.
Because if they don’t do it themselves then papa FCC is just going to take
away everyone’s toys. Responsible and lawful use of radios is the name of the
game.

Source: I’m a general class licensed ham.

~~~
someguydave
I’m an extra class and I’ve heard this argument my entire life. I think it’s
bunk. If Congress wants to take away anything they don’t need a reason.

You know what will make ham radio lose its spectrum? Have zero constituency,
which will happen once we have run off anyone who wants to experiment on the
edge of what is possible with ham radio.

~~~
logfromblammo
No users means no one left to object when the band is taken away and given to
someone else.

I have zero interest in unencrypted over-the-air communications. The Internet
can already trivially reach stations all the way out to the antipode of the
planet, at any time of day or night, with my choice of public or private
messaging. I can't wait until the spectrum-protectionist people die off and
yield the bandwidth to the SDR robot builders that can use it for a digital
transport layer.

Once the technical capabilities surpass the administrative permissions, the
fun of hacking anything dies, for exactly the reason mentioned. Rather than
the hardware saying "you can't do that", it's some old-guard buttinsky, and
when the hacker says "wanna bet?", rather than slowly yielding to relentless
experimentation, they make a call or two and then the hacker gets fined or
their equipment is seized.

When every interesting application I can think of for ham radio has a
regulation explicitly saying "no, that's not allowed", people just find
another hobby to get into.

------
moreentropy
Private messages, relaying for 3rd parties and encryption are prohibited in
Ham Radio, so thinking about (international) transactions over ham radio is
just plain bullshit. This is the first thing every licensed Ham learns.

What you're looking at here are licensed commercial radio services.

~~~
ignaloidas
Bitcoin transaction is basically a broadcast, which you can analyze freely. No
decryption, just encoding and signing.

~~~
sciurus
Broadcasts are prohibited in ham radio.

For the US, see [https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-
idx?SID=1a361a6eb3d1594e6a...](https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-
idx?SID=1a361a6eb3d1594e6a347ce0e363b533&mc=true&node=pt47.5.97&rgn=div5#se47.5.97_1113)

> (b) An amateur station shall not engage in any form of broadcasting, nor may
> an amateur station transmit one-way communications except as specifically
> provided in these rules;

~~~
ignaloidas
>>>Private messages (...) are prohibited in Ham Radio

> Broadcasts are also prohibited in ham radio.

Wait what? Isn't any message either broadcast or private?

~~~
sciurus
No, it's either one-way or two-way. One-way is usually prohibited except in a
few case, two-way is usually fine unless it violates one of the prohibitions
like encryption. Your two-way communications using ham radio are public, not
private.

~~~
jkoberg
"Broadcast" is defined as "transmissions for the consumption by the general
public", at least in the US. Not one-way vs two-way.

------
nvk
I was the one who made the first transmission mentioned on the article. AMA

[https://twitter.com/nvk/status/1101518677910810624](https://twitter.com/nvk/status/1101518677910810624)
(and this one precedes that one
[https://twitter.com/nvk/status/1095354354289135617](https://twitter.com/nvk/status/1095354354289135617))

~~~
zrobotics
Ok, I'll bite: mind addressing the legality issues many of the other commenter
have brought up? Because this looks like a great way to get a FCC fine.

~~~
nvk
1\. I'm not in the USA and i'm licensed. You could say the ITU may take issue.

2\. The spirit of the law is in regards to actual financial interest, this
were meaningless amounts and also testnet.

3\. Transactions were not actually done over Ham, the transaction data was
relayed over ham and broadcasted via internet. (long history of HAM 3rd party
message relay).

4\. No encrypted messages were transmitted. (and encryption is allowed as long
as the cypher is public)

5\. The spirit of ham is technical experimentation.

6\. These tests were intended for use in countries where the laws don't matter
and or in emergencies. In case of emergency it would be allowed to make
financial transactions and/or send encrypted messages.

I feel like most rhetoric around that is usual internet-lawyering. If Wired
care to contact for comment there would have been some context added.

~~~
jkoberg
> "in countries where the laws don't matter"

Race-to-the-bottom thinking, poor ethical reasoning, and just an excuse to
engage in behavior frowned upon by the community.

> "In case of emergency it would be allowed to make financial transactions
> and/or send encrypted messages."

HAHAH no. "Emergency" is clearly defined and doesn't mean "can't reach my
ATM". Executing your bitcoin transaction does not save life or limb.

~~~
RandallBrown
He's saying that executing a bitcoin transaction _could_ save life or limb,
which justifies bending/breaking the rules to develop the technology to do it.

------
upofadown
There are some claims here that encryption is illegal over amateur radio. That
is not true in general. For example, this is what the FCC prohibits in their
rules:

>messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning

... which can be read here:

* [http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/March%208,%202018....](http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/March%208,%202018.pdf)

So ultimate intent is what matters. A test bitcoin transaction is probably
legal even if it were somehow incidentally encrypted.

------
jtms
Interesting article, but I think Wired has to be one of my least favorite
places to read something on the web. The performance is bad, there is
popping/jarring of the viewport as content shifts around, intrusive pop ups,
and just a generally high amount of bloat. I’m starting to feel like the old
man shaking his fist at the clouds, but can we just go back to more simple
pages without all this cruft?

~~~
glenneroo
I don't have any of the issues you are experiencing. I'm using Firefox,
AdBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and containers and I don't see any ads, the
page is plenty fast, no popping/jarring content.

~~~
jtms
On desktop or mobile?

~~~
glenneroo
Desktop. Where are you having problems?

~~~
jtms
Mobile (iOS). It’s a nightmare experience. If they had built their page
correctly it would be consistent across both.

------
_rrnv
I find it funny that so often so many commenters on "Hacker" News are
terrified of breaking the rules... Also, there's plenty of world outside of
USA.

~~~
arnoooooo
While I agree with your first comment, most ham radio rules are international.

~~~
jtms
I know next to nothing about ham radio, but I’m curious... who would enforce
the rules at an international level?

~~~
robear
The International Telecommunication Union
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunicatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union\)is)
the body that governs these things at the international level.

Individual countries implement decisions taken at the ITU through laws and
policy. Individual countries take care of enforcement. For instance, in the
USA, that would be the FCC.

------
djbelieny
Funny thing, out of the blue I decided to take practice tests for a ham
license last night. Took the practice test about 12 times and got passing
score 7 times. Opened HN today and this is one of the top articles...
Interesting coincidence.

~~~
JudgeWapner
don't do it. my roommate has an HF rig and looks boring af. couple grand worth
of gear so they can key down, say "K2185B6 broadcasting from $LOCATION_1", 5
seconds later someone else says "hi K2185B6, lound and clear. This is K8407W4
from $LOCATION_2". rinse, repeat

~~~
ryanmercer
Basically this. I was all like "yeah man I want to get a license" then I
studied some, decided I couldn't afford the gear. Couple years later, oh hey
man I'm gonna do this this time, money is better now and stuff, started
studying agian and bought a cheap baofeng just to listen.

Spent about 15 minutes listening to a repeater.

"Jesus, these people are abrasive as best, all they are doing is saying their
call over and over and complaining"

Stopped studying, couple weeks later was at a friend's house and near a
different repeater, same stuff different people. Now I just keep the battery
maintained and it tuned to a weather broadcast in the event I lose power
during a storm.

I mean, in the event of a natural disaster it's pretty cool and you can help
replay information and be of use to your community but ehhhh it's an awfully
expensive hobby for that unless you want to just buy a cheap handheld and have
no range whatsoever since you have an antenna the size of a drinking straw a
few inches away from your body.

