So… I found out a way to send encrypted messages using amateur radio.
There is an app called Rattlegram that lets you convert a string of text into soundwaves that plays though your phone’s speaker. If I just use an app like Secure Space Encryptor (SSE) to encrypt a text, then copy-paste it to the Rattlegram app, then transmit that over radio, then using the same app to record the sound and reverse the process on the other end. Voila! Encrypted long(ish) range communications without a centralized server!
But I looked it up and apparantly its illegal to encrypt communications over the amateur radio bands. What are the odds of actually getting in trouble? 🤔
(To the FCC agents reading this: this is just a hypothetical, a thought experiment, I’m totally not gonna do this 😉)
Yep, Usually people dont care until you start blasting away legit services. Then a lot of people start showing up at your door. Theres triangulation devices on https://www.tindie.com/ for amateurs that are very cheap and the pros have MUCH better equipment.
Meshtastic ( [email protected] ) is in a small range/spectrum and consolidated in LoRa. Its very unlikely to cause issues so its tolerated. Its very much a legal way to get text to a friend or community…if your local community is big enough.