Police Secure Radio Network.......

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sbiddle

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# 248789 19-Aug-2009 20:44

theyetti:
The NZ fire service have no digital networks curently. They have only agreed to go to p-25 digital radio in time. Probbly when they next overhaul there radio system. At the moment they use vhf frequncies for dispatching (uhf in Auckland) and seperate simplex vhf channels for there "incident ground channels" which they use on scene to communicate with each other.

Portables are all moving to UHF with the new UHF radios all being P25 capable Simoco's.

theyetti

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# 248790 19-Aug-2009 20:47

johnr:
sbiddle:
kiwitrc: APCO 25

It's an APCO P25 network - this is the digital radio network technology. P25 networks don't have any encryption by default, they are merely digital.

The NZ Police however (as is the case with most P25 deployments) have chosen to add a layer of encryption on top of this.

I believe the NZ Police opted for 256 bit AES for their deployment. P25 itself supports 56 bit DES or 256 bit AES.

If you're even thinking about a way to listen in you can forget it..

bet my $125 scanner from dick smith with a $3 mod chip will tune in and play copied play station games as well

Yea the new tait radios that the nz police have brought support DES, AES an FIPS 140-2(a highly secure military spec encyrption code) so yea Imagen it would very much be AES 256bit.

The whole thing is that tait has developed an over-the-air rekeying system (OTAR) so that, from the comfort of the comms centre the police can change all the encryption codes of all the radios registered on that channel remotely with out disrupting communications (well thats what they say).
So looks rather grim for scanning enthusists.

theyetti

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# 248794 19-Aug-2009 20:54

sbiddle:
theyetti:
The NZ fire service have no digital networks curently. They have only agreed to go to p-25 digital radio in time. Probbly when they next overhaul there radio system. At the moment they use vhf frequncies for dispatching (uhf in Auckland) and seperate simplex vhf channels for there "incident ground channels" which they use on scene to communicate with each other.

Portables are all moving to UHF with the new UHF radios all being P25 capable Simoco's.

Interesting. Many firefighters have said they wanted uhf portables especialy in cities because of its better coverage in built up areas and in large buildings.
Any word on when the portable change over starts?

sbiddle

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# 248798 19-Aug-2009 20:59

theyetti:
sbiddle:
theyetti:
The NZ fire service have no digital networks curently. They have only agreed to go to p-25 digital radio in time. Probbly when they next overhaul there radio system. At the moment they use vhf frequncies for dispatching (uhf in Auckland) and seperate simplex vhf channels for there "incident ground channels" which they use on scene to communicate with each other.

Portables are all moving to UHF with the new UHF radios all being P25 capable Simoco's.

Interesting. Many firefighters have said they wanted uhf portables especialy in cities because of its better coverage in built up areas and in large buildings.
Any word on when the portable change over starts?

Auckland never actually moved off UHF portables when fire moved to ESB. Brigades on the outskirts of Auckland had both UHF and VHF portables on their trucks.

The Wellington region moved about 3 weeks ago to the new UHF portables.

theyetti

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# 248800 19-Aug-2009 21:04

sbiddle:
theyetti:
sbiddle:
theyetti:
The NZ fire service have no digital networks curently. They have only agreed to go to p-25 digital radio in time. Probbly when they next overhaul there radio system. At the moment they use vhf frequncies for dispatching (uhf in Auckland) and seperate simplex vhf channels for there "incident ground channels" which they use on scene to communicate with each other.

Portables are all moving to UHF with the new UHF radios all being P25 capable Simoco's.

Interesting. Many firefighters have said they wanted uhf portables especialy in cities because of its better coverage in built up areas and in large buildings.
Any word on when the portable change over starts?

Auckland never actually moved off UHF portables when fire moved to ESB. Brigades on the outskirts of Auckland had both UHF and VHF portables on their trucks.

The Wellington region moved about 3 weeks ago to the new UHF portables.

Sweet. Thanks for the info

tritex

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# 248806 19-Aug-2009 21:24

Also i have heard Wellington Ambulance will be accessing the police digital network to trial the technology by year end.

theyetti

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# 248813 19-Aug-2009 21:35

tritex: Also i have heard Wellington Ambulance will be accessing the police digital network to trial the technology by year end.

Wouldn't suprise me. Thats if the police solve there problems with the p-25 system at the moment.eg. having to wait 5 seconds to transmit after you press the talk button and limited coverage in hilly areas. lol

sbiddle

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# 248818 19-Aug-2009 21:41

theyetti:
tritex: Also i have heard Wellington Ambulance will be accessing the police digital network to trial the technology by year end.

Wouldn't suprise me. Thats if the police solve there problems with the p-25 system at the moment.eg. having to wait 5 seconds to transmit after you press the talk button and limited coverage in hilly areas. lol

Don't believe everything the media says.

Call setup times are a reality of any trunked network.

theyetti

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# 248822 19-Aug-2009 21:50

sbiddle:
theyetti:
tritex: Also i have heard Wellington Ambulance will be accessing the police digital network to trial the technology by year end.

Wouldn't suprise me. Thats if the police solve there problems with the p-25 system at the moment.eg. having to wait 5 seconds to transmit after you press the talk button and limited coverage in hilly areas. lol

Don't believe everything the media says.

yea. I find the 5 sec delay a little over stretched. But it's widely known from overseas systems that digital radio doesnt like hills or rural areas as much as the anolouge systems do. Thats not so bad. But then again; its wellington so hills everywhere. But then again I haven't seen and can't hear the system. So who knows.

BlakJak

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# 248851 19-Aug-2009 23:10

It could be argued that Digital anything doesn't like hills or rural areas as much as analogue systems do.
Analogue radio, the noise floor moves upward - i.e. you get hiss and carry on, when the signal is weak. Digital will simply fail, as it'll lose chunks of data, force retry until the loss is so great it gives up.

Your cellphone is digital, eh? So digital RF isnt actually that far fetched. They just have to improve repeater coverage and such like. Worked when they turned off the 025 mobile network...

No signature to see here, move along...

scottjpalmer

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# 373175 26-Aug-2010 15:57

Is anyone here in possession of one of the Uniden 396 or 996 (or any other scanner that can) P25 capable scanners?

kyhwana2

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# 373199 26-Aug-2010 16:25

Filterer: AES256 will be brute forceable in at some point in the future. Just like md5 is now just barely bruteforceable.

If you get captures now, you should be able to decrypt them in 50-100 years - the info might be a little out of date by then though

You'll never be able to bruteforce AES256 unless someone finds a weakness in the (full strength! reduced rounds don't count) algorithm. (With current computers, if someone invents a magical quantum computer, that'd be different)

scottjpalmer

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# 373208 26-Aug-2010 16:46

c71931f: If you were wanting to buy one..

Thanks, I have purchased from BT Products in the past and they were great. I just got a quote for the Uniden 396XT from them.

Tempted . . .

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