Dave The Web Guy

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Latest Troubles.

Fist Bumping QSL.NET - Whoever That Guy Is

04/29/2023

Image of bad guy on porch.

For maybe 20 years now the site operator of QSL.NET has kept my "Calling All Citizens" and "Openness" campaign alive. 

Or at least the ghost of it. 

Occasionally when doing modern day searches on artifacts of my campaign I am inevitably led back to his early style website.

The website operator has preserved key content of the old openness.org website (the domain of which I sold to Intel a few years ago - because $$$).  The operator has done this outside the somewhat constrained overhead of its other archive as might be found on the wayback machine. 

I would add that he seems to have done so perfectly.  He seems to have filtered out a lot of my own nonsense of the day and targeted just the meat and potatoes of the matter.

Beyond all that content, the QSL's author appears to have a superior sense of and commitment to indexing.  The main landing page contains scores of links to many now-dead, but just as many still-alive, websites and blogs all related to public safety communication and other websites of the period, some of which are devoted to the merits of keeping police and fire calls in the clear. 

I don't know if he continues to add and curate his index today but his adherence to the principle of a flat noise-free web that simply provides information and indeed spreads it is just another point of admiration.  Even if done accidentally in this era of the commercialized web it's a sobering illustration of the open web's authentic utility.

The website's creator keeps his actual name off the site almost entirely.  The one reference to it (which I will not spell out here to respect his apparent sensitivity to being stamped online) is in the form of a picture of a certification he received with his name on it.  Aside from that it seems he wants a healthy porch between himself and the rest of the world.

It's long overdue and frankly, not by much in terms of dollars.  But whoever you are good sir, thank you for allowing my donation tip. 

Tap-Off Points



  By Dave for Personal Blog.

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The Night Chicago Encrypted

12/18/2022

ABC 7 Chicago Video Embed

The profit press is catching up to arguments against public safety radio encryption that I carried on about in the 90s.  I find that great though a bit late on their part.  Maybe paying attention "way back when" to this idiot blabbering online about being unable to listen in on police calls would have lent to a more cohesive response before firm anti-open-broadcasting policies had time to cement.

But anyway. 

I am still not entirely impressed.  While I can't lie, there is some feeling of "validation of the cause" when today I encounter polished mayonnaise news coverage about one or another agency going encrypted, and woah, what a real bad thing that is for our would-be "free" society.   

But there is a big problem with most of this coverage.  It's not honest, and if the outcome were as I imagine, it could actually be worse.

Take Chicago press's reaction to the Chicago police department's recent flipping the encrypt key.  They aren't actually arguing that society at large should be able to continue monitoring open police radio traffic.  They're arguing that they the accredited media, should.  Them - not you.

The point they make, of course, is that they are somehow more responsible than regular people when it comes to handling the information that a standard dump of radio scanner traffic affords.

Never mind that most of media is profit-driven. That, as a monied industry, it is prone to control information, manipulation, and to sensationalize what information it gleans.

I suspect that what "media coallations against police encryption" really want is the control and exclusivity of information access that, if they achieved that in the grand opportunity of becoming the exception to being tuned out, would combat the erosive effects that the internet, the world wide web, and social media, have all had on the relevance of their industry.

The CNNs of the world love the prospect of encryption, by effect.

It is tempting to enjoy the "media military armanent" working against the tide of police encryption, but it can be a perversed damnation of the open broadcasting principles if all that's really being talked about is a refshuffling of the stacked deck against regular people.

Linkage



  By Dave for for BuffScan.

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Judging Luzerne County's New Encryptable Radio System

09/11/2022

The Luzerne County digital and law-enforcement encrypted public safety radio system is poised to go live on September 28 and I, or, I as WBRAIL, remain intensely focused on this issue for a number of reasons.

First, I was among the first to pick up and loudly run with the controversy of encrypted public safety radio systems way back in the 90s, long before it was "cool" (for lack of a better word) for the topic to bubble up elsewhere, as it would inevitably have to.  The media and even local police department coverage of the Luzerne County conversion is a complete manifest of all my concerns and solutions, reincarnated in 2022.  

But that's not the only reason since, after all, since then lots of municipalities have gone on to encrypt their communications, or gone in the opposite direction and kept them open.  What makes this particular transition special to me is that Luzerne County is my birthplace, and so, naturally, I find it somewhat poetic that the county would embroil itself in the questions I put out there ages ago.  I feel bound to the controversy as it exists in my native locality.

Image of raw newspaper article from the mid-90s featuring me and my plight to continue listening in on police calls.

Mid-90s Tampa Tribune Article Featuring My Plight in Wake of New Radio System, Hillsborough County, Florida

Too, is the apparent veracity of people in Luzerne County actually listening to police scanners.   People in and around Wilkes-Barre have police scanners sitting atop their fridges running non-stop.   Knowing what the police are doing is a culture in and of itself in Luzerne County and it is deeply synthesized. With the mushroom event of social media over the past 15 years, they were quick to integrate what they heard with Facebook Groups, as a leading example. 

County Understood Unique Flammability

More than any other place I have experience with as "master of the cause" so to speak, Luzerne County stands out as particularly sensitive to the debate. 

Their public relation strategy seems to well acknowledge this sensitivity as is evident with their exceptional outreach ahead of the transistion.  While in actuality a rather obscure subject matter, Luzerne County took the time, registered a domain, and set up a web site.

In particular the Wilkes-Barre Township Police Department (not to be confused with Wilkes-Barre City proper) has become the populist de-facto public guide in the matter, taking the extraordinary, and I would add absolutely refreshing, step of actually polling the public via its Facebook Group about what type of outcome people would most appreciate, with regards to a compromise solution.

Screenshot of Facebook poll run by the Wilkes-Barre Township Police Department

The Wilkes-Barre Township Police waded, positively, into the question of best way to use encryption but keep a public presence.

Their poll showed that people were actually quite reasonable in accepting the compromise of generally open broadcasts with only those channels involving undercover or tactical actions actually encrypted.   

Screenshot of Facebook poll results as collected by the Wilkes-Barre Township Police Department

Most responders indicated, as depicted by the tabulated "crying face" icon,  agreed with some encryption, but generally open broadcasts otherwise.

Notably, the least popular course of action was to engage in some sort of "official assessment" of "verified news media outlets", and give just them access.  Which is to be expected in an era when people are driven to escape mainstream media's focus and narrative in all issues.  Rely on the Times Leader for my news?  No way.  (Sorry to use them as an example, I am still bristling over their capricious censorship.)

In between those two extremes were a number of mitigating ideas which were interesting and demonstrative of an impulse to adopt the new level of control while still feeding Luzerne County's appetite for real-time news.

What ultimately won out, though, was complete encryption of all law enforcement channels.  Whether for financial, logistical, or public-appeasing reasons (maybe all of the above), medical and fire broadcasts would remain open.  This was not a poll option in Wilkes-Barre Township Police's ask, but in my experience over these decades I find that this is the place many municipalities land naturally.

It's probably worth pointing out that previous reporting on this deployment has alluded that utilizing encryption would be optional among the 48 various police agencies within Luzerne County.  Most current reporting whether by factual point or by lack of attention to nuance, seems to suggest that all of them are opting for it.

In my ideal preference nothing is encrypted except what reasonably must be.  So, in the poll, I went with the majority.  It's an approach that has always been within the scope of my campaign's philosophy.  It's law enforcement after all and how could law enforcement even function if everything they said was "open".  Few of us could do our own jobs under that kind of broad transparency. 

A Huge Red Flag

My biggest suspicion however goes back to that thing about police giving access to "verified news outlets".  Despite the overt public stand that Luzerne County law enforcement might be encrypted, and that private citizens will not be allowed to listen in, it will be interesting over time to see if cracks develop and access to encrypted broadcasts to commercial media houses begin to leak. 

Will there really be a Times Leader sphere where no radio capable of listening to the encrypted radio traffic exists in the newsroom?  Or perhaps squirrled away in the glove compartment of some random reporter's car? 

The Times Leaders of the world are really going to try and crack that policy for them.  And the reason they will do that is because they have lost value ever since the Internet and, worse, social media, became actual things.   The newspaper industry has completely imploded in my lifetime because it lost its grip on both exclusive access to content, and the conduits of conversation. 

Remember, the people of Luzerne County bound police scanning and Facebook Groups together, creating an entirely chaotic ecosystem of news and views that left the Times Leader and other news houses "standing aside", irrelevant and kind of obnoxious in their own presumptive role.  And since advertisers are only willing to pay for where the attention flows, this means they pay places like Facebook and Twitter, not them.

A decision by county law enforcement to encrypt sets up a situation where the Times Leader can once again beat all the dynamics of free media and re-commodify itself if it can somehow make itself the exception to the rule. 

Exclusive access to encrypted Luzerne County communications would restore their advantage to both news gathering and story enrichment.  A little friendly dinner here, a little bribe there, a little anything that gets a newspaper's hand on even one of those radios capable of listening to encrypted traffic, is a life-saving potion.

You can absolutely guarantee that old school media houses will try.  If some kind of pressure campaign actually succeeds and newspaper and media house people actually acquire the very access being taken away from everyone else, Luzerne County will probably try to keep it all "hush-hush".  After all, some asshole in Buffalo might wind up blogging about it and everyone could just wind up looking like a hypocrite. 

Or worse...

Such an outcome would be the stuff of "corruption nightmares".  It would become a government agency colluding with private community entities to increase someone's profits.    And folks, I don't have to remind you that something like that has happened before in Luzerne County.

Well, okay, maybe I can, with just one picture.

Image of Mark Ciavarella, judge convicted in Kids for Cash scandal.

Linkage



  By Dave for for WBRAIL.

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The Openness, Calling All Citizens Nostalgia Tour

12/28/2021

This is a video of me touring my old "Calling All Citizens" (and later and as depicted in the video -- "Openness") online campaign, hoping to encourage public safety agencies to keep their radio systems open and scannable by the general public.  I was active with this between the mid-90s and mid-2000s.  

I'm not much with producing online video, so my advice is that if you actually watch this thing that you a) full-screen it (the expander is in the video's control tray), and b) consider skipping past my long narrative opener before I actually begin touring the site, if you're in some kind of hurry or something.

I suggest full-screen.

My campaign is still "technically" alive in the sense that I remain an advocate for everything I championed, but, I am no longer a standout producer or leader in the cause.   This very posting is probably the most interesting thing I've done related to the campaign outside an occasional forum rant or tweet in maybe 10 years.

But I am simply no longer needed.  I am living long enough to see the real world taking lead over the issue right before my very eyes.  The demand for police transparency has actually become a thing.  So much so, that police officers literally wear body cams.  I have encountered an influx of news stories about police "going undercover" with their radio systems, including in my birth town community of Luzerne County. 

There's been more attention by the mainstream press as the deployment of digital and digitally encrypted systems have picked up steam and people wonder why they can't listen in anymore.

And, speaking of the press, people are rejecting "authorized" media outlets in favor of ground journalism techniques, social media, and I expect, soon, Web 3.0 -- the decentralized accent of it (still being an ambiguous concept, there are several ideas of what 3.0 is, but decentralization is considered a major component). 

People insisting on raw authentic information has turned into a revolution.  My website tour is an oddity of focus on what I have to imagine was among the first flickering embers.



  By Dave for for BuffScan.

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Handing Police a Reason

07/26/2021

It's been years and years since I've had anything to grumble about regarding open police systems -- police radio systems that are left un-encrypted for the benefits of public consumption.  I was a lone nut back in the 90s crying online about the trend of trunking and digitalization, and advocating a movement against it, but these days, it's finally a big question given the demand for police transparency. 

My favorite perspective today is how anyone against the concept then must feel today when the actual debate has become about sticking cameras on the physical body of police officers.  If people were worried about a progression of my cause in the 90s, how do they feel now?

Many police officers themselves want the increased transparency given the campaign of backlash against their practices. Body cameras have protected them from false accusations.

But I took a stance of persecution assuming the "body" of law enforcement would be alarmed by my efforts.  I feared it would be nothing for police to begin taking note of any negative example of police scanner usage, no matter how rare, as ammunition to refute the cause.

And, in that department, this example takes the cake.  A guy regularly used a police scanner to patrol for incidents he could show up at (not bad itself under proper conditions and is something journalists have been doing forever) in order to "audit" situations. 

He did this in various other capacities outside things you might pick up on a scanner, but he really made a show of it on YouTube in his interactions with police and court officers under that guise of "public auditing".  Another weird concept not bad in principle, by the way, but alas, not with how this guy went about it.  In my view his point was to be obnoxious for clicks.

Anthony Michael Wicklace finally cracked, or finally showed his true colors -- when he showed up post-incident while following police calls, and picked up a female victim still in the vortex of some duress that had the police there in the first place, and then tried to engage in sex stuff with her.

Holy mother of Jesus.  She escaped the assault but Wicklace apparently allegedly tazed her when she was out of the car, seemingly angry at the rejection of his sexual proposition or advances.  Conveniently, a patrol car rolled up on the situation and found the tazer darts still in her.

Great. 



  By Dave for for BuffScan.

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