Most of the time I spend discussing radio communications with others, its within the context of usage for voice traffic. However, in addition to voice Project 25 standard also includes the use of a radio to transmit IP data from both mobile and fixed hosts. Since the radios support encryption presumably any data traffic transmitted should be able to be encrypted just as voice traffic is, provided the encryption portion of the radios are configured properly I would think.

During discussions on embedded systems for a different class, I started thinking about the new radio systems going in for a lot of jurisdictions. Since most, if not all of these systems use IP for their networking I wondered how security is handled. In the case of P25 the requirements include the use of FIPS-approved encryption for the over-the-air programming messages for those systems using that option. The trunking control channel will also have security provided through encryption as an option. I’m still sorting through the standard for details on other aspects. As to other digital radio formats, its hard to say what is used since most of those are proprietary.