Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site harvard.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!winkler From: winkler@harvard.ARPA (Dan Winkler) Newsgroups: net.ham-radio Subject: Ham Radio and Computer Networking Message-ID: <312@harvard.ARPA> Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 23:26:29 EDT Article-I.D.: harvard.312 Posted: Mon Aug 19 23:26:29 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 15:21:34 EDT Distribution: net Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard Lines: 44 Hello Hams, I'm a complete novice to amateur radio who is currently totally amazed and enthralled by the high level of expertise and knowledge I see among hams. I'm sure glad you guys are out there and if I can find out how to get started I hope to become a ham too. I'm not a novice with computers though and I can see that packet radio would be a great replacement for some of the expensive phone links used by usenet. It can cover great distances for almost no cost. (Right?) But in order for that to be responsive under heavy network traffic, it would have to operate automatically so messages could be forwared at least every day and prefereably more frequently than that. A computer would have to be able to contact and communicate with another computer on its own, with no human supervision. I don't believe we'll ever get good throughput at a low cost if we need humans to show up and spend time for every transfer. Is such automated communication possible? It would also be great to allow remote login over the airwaves. This would definitely provide some security problems. Anything private can of course be encrypted (if there aren't laws against that -- are there?). Sending a login password can even be made secure using digital signatures -- the host sends you a random string or the current date and you reply with a digitally signed message containing that time or string. The idea is that since the same time or string will never be used again, noone can enter your account by playing back a previously recorded login. Public key encryption also seems to offer interesting possibilities for private communciations with strangers in distant countries. You send them a public encrypting key over the open airwaves and they can then send you encrypted messages that only you can decrypt. Noone else can decrypt the message even if they know the public encrypting key and they cannot derive the decrypting key even if they know both the clear text and the encrypting key. You are thus able to establish secure communications without ever having a secure channel. However, from the very small amount I know about ham radio, I can tell this is not in keeping with the spirit of the hobby and would probably be interpreted as an incredibly anti-social thing to do. But regardles of whether anyone wants these services, I'm asking if they're possible. Can the airwaves serve as a cheap, fast, secure, computer network? Dan.