WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

IT was a $22 million encrypted radio system meant to keep police business secret from unwanted eavesdroppers.

But hi-tech hackers cracked the system within 12 months, selling off the technology to tow-truck drivers for up to $25,000 a time. In the past weeks police have changed the code after discovering the radios were also in the hands of criminals, particularly bikies.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/h ... 6119185214

Oops.

Also on a related note, were WA Police using a rolling code of some kind I remember hearing, so should this sort of thing not happen here?

yorky wrote: Also on a related note, were WA Police using a rolling code of some kind I remember hearing, so should this sort of thing not happen here?

From what I understood of that document I posted about the Motorola system that WA Police use, the key is static but designed to stay secure even if it is used for years.

This just goes to show that nothing in our world today is safe and that secure networks of all types are hackable

Holy smokes... how far will people go to listen to police activities?

I personally think they should just release a receive-only radio to the general public (For a high price and subject to stringent police checks and an agreement that it will not be used for commercial purposes and a GPS tracker and a usage tracker on the unit to detect any possible unauthorized/illegal usage) so that people won't have to go to such extremes. Isn't cracking that encryption an offense in itself anyway?

doggie015 wrote:Isn't cracking that encryption an offense in itself anyway?

Yeah it is, but Im not sure if theres anyway to find out if someone is eavesdropping on the police comms