DMR Repeaters

[zippy]

OK, this is a theoretical question, please don't flame me with legal and moral stuff, just theory.

A local DMR repeater is used by a business, they own the repeater and the licence to use it is in their name, they are the sole users, it's not a community repeater.

They work from 7am - 6pm, no traffic whatsoever after 6pm, if two people with cheapo MD380s were to access this repeater when the owner doesn't use it, and use encryption, would there be any record of the traffic these two people generated anywhere on the repeater?

I'm guessing that a TETRA repeater would generate and store a 'log' of traffic, but what about DMR?

Again, THEORY, not real.

[BK]

I imagine the repeater does keep a log, others on here will know for sure. However another question would be does the local business (which probably knows nothing about radios) ever look at the log or even have access to it? Incidentally, encryption makes no difference, all the information that would be stored in a log such as Call ID is in the clear anyway, although anyone actually doing this for real might want to use encryption to help disguise their identity.

[radiosification]

Unless there is some software set up to record traffic on the repeater, they would probably never find out. I don't know if repeaters keep logs, but I doubt they would ever check the log if there was one.
You can get "solutions" that record all traffic on a repeater or on individual talkgroups for accountability or in cases of misconduct or something like that. I think it really depends on whether or not they run one of these solutions.

[LeakyFeeder]

I think its fair to say if they rumble you then Ofclod might well get involved

[radiosification]

I think its fair to say if they rumble you then Ofclod might well get involved

I take it you didn't read this part of the original post?

OK, this is a theoretical question, please don't flame me with legal and moral stuff, just theory.

[LeakyFeeder]

Yes i did read it.... And my comments still stand...

I didnt 'flame' the op with either legal or moral 'stuff'.....jus my opinion on summat that is potentially rather dodgy

[zippy]

Thanks for the replies guys, it was whether or not a computer was part of the repeater setup and logged traffic.

Plus it would be encrypted so there would be no way to listen to the traffic, I just wondered if theire repeater would make a record of the throughput activity.

By the way, the DMR repeaters work very well, this one according to WTR has the antenna at 20m and output of just 5w, it gets out a good 20 miles, probably a lot more.

[zippy]

I think its fair to say if they rumble you then Ofclod might well get involved

nothing to rumble mate, it's theory. I don't engage in or encourage radio piracy. I know the ham dmr repeaters have computers because they are hooked up to the internet, so I figure that they can log the traffic in an admin text file, but I'm wondering if this business setup is just a couple of motorolas on a shelf and a twig on the roof.

I'm not a ham so I'm guessing from reading papers on the internet that encryption is against the rules on the ham network.

[Repeaters]

I'll add my bit!
Quality radio dealers will secure their networks as much as is possible with what they have to use within the limitations of the kit and soft/hardware iteslf.
Radio dealers/infrastructure builders will have their own take and methods of security, the multi regional/national networks do.

There will be repeaters out there that are just programmed by the box shifters, where everything is default, yes they do exist!
Have a sniff around with what soft you have or can get, it hurts not to listen!

[zippy]

I'll add my bit!
Quality radio dealers will secure their networks as much as is possible with what they have to use within the limitations of the kit and soft/hardware iteslf.
Radio dealers/infrastructure builders will have their own take and methods of security, the multi regional/national networks do.

There will be repeaters out there that are just programmed by the box shifters, where everything is default, yes they do exist!
Have a sniff around with what soft you have or can get, it hurts not to listen!

It looks like they have almost default settings, TG100 and just one timeslot and CC10, at least two of their handsets have the same RID in them, so looks like the poor old IT guy might of got the job of installing it, or it was done on the cheap, but it works very well.

[radiosification]

Almost all of the systems I know are not secured at all. They don't have RAS and very few use encryption. Even ones that do use encryption don't use RAS as I've programmed them into my radio before and can still listen to the garbled noise of encryption if I set my radio up correctly.

I conclude from this that quality radio dealers will only secure a system well if there is a need to. I.e. if there are unauthorised users on it. Otherwise setting up ras and encryption on DMR systems is not really necessary. Some users may ask for encryption but most of them don't bother with it judging by the systems I've listened to. I think the only people who bother listening in are radio enthusiasts like us anyway, and we won't do much harm with the information from listening in.

[zippy]

absolutely radiosification, this isn't a nudge-nudge, wink-wink thread, I really am not going to use their repeater after hours,we do okay on simplex for now. I am just starting to build up my radio collection again and don't fancy the Ofcom goons kicking my door in and taking it all away, I'm being patient and waiting to get my ham licence so I can play with dmr-marc on the local repeaters.
I might not be that far from you if your in north London, maybe hook up on dmr446?

[Repeaters]

Yes radiosatisfaction, there have been instances in the Liverpool area I was told about and also in London, but I am sure it goes on where people have the desire to.

In the days of community repeaters or CBS, people did use unused but active tones.

Quality radio dealers will be the ones who use all the security features from day one of installation of said repeater(s)/network.

Again, it depends on what prices the kit is, if everyone is quoting on a big job, the best price may win, but not always.
So that may dictate lower tier/basic radios with minimal (easily figured out) basic privacy on Mot radios.

Those who don't setup security features give, at least something to listen to.

[kr0ne]

Do they typically allow end to end encryption though? When the repeater is set up with encryption, is that not keyed on the repeater itself?

I'm probably talking b0llox but if I was setting up a system I would not permit end to end encryption unless there was a very good reason to, for the simple reason that it would prevent me from investigating if the repeater was hijacked.

Encyption between the repeater and the endpoints would seem perfectly adequate to secure any communication channels between normal users from prying ears and scanner geeks. End to end encryption would only be required if you needed to secure that communication from whoever operates and maintains the repeater...

Or am I missing something?

[radiosification]

All encryption is end to end on DMR as far as I know. At least on tier 2 it is. Repeaters don't even have a field to input the key if you wanted to. Motorola repeaters do have a field to select if you want to pass enhanced or basic encryption but I believe it would work anyway without that and just have more signal problems. I was reading on another forum where someone was using privacy and had signal problems and eventually realised they hadn't set the repeater to pass encryption. It worked anyway but just not as well as it should have.