I’m gonna assume you’re not from the US given your lemmy instance. In the US most police radios transmit “in the clear”, i.e., not encrypted. As such, anyone can buy a “police scanner”, or a radio on the same band as police/first-responder frequencies.
In the internet age, there’s websites (and apparently apps now too), that physically monitor these radio channels and stream them online. Hence, a “police scanner app”. Hope that helps.
Having typed all that out, the only thing I ask is to let us know where you’re from, please.
In the US most police radios transmit “in the clear”, i.e., not encrypted
That’s wild. Where I’m from (western Europe) the police may be using an encryption protocol riddled with backdoors (TETRA, though the “governments the West likes” protocol is much safer than the “open for anyone” version), but at least it’s encrypted enough that you’ll need some serious compute power to listen in on the police, barring software bugs in sender/receiver.
You you know if there is a reason your police force allows criminals to listen in on police communication? Or do they simply not care? With all the money your police force seems to spend on big trucks and big guns, you’d expect an encrypted radio would fit inside the budget…
Some time ago some American politician used the phrase unironically. Most speculated they were referring to Latin American countries, but since the politician was a republican and correcting themselves is anathema, we’ll never know.
Anyway, it’s become a favorite of mine to repeat this, tongue in cheek.
Police scanner app?
Yup
I’m gonna assume you’re not from the US given your lemmy instance. In the US most police radios transmit “in the clear”, i.e., not encrypted. As such, anyone can buy a “police scanner”, or a radio on the same band as police/first-responder frequencies.
In the internet age, there’s websites (and apparently apps now too), that physically monitor these radio channels and stream them online. Hence, a “police scanner app”. Hope that helps.
Having typed all that out, the only thing I ask is to let us know where you’re from, please.
That’s wild. Where I’m from (western Europe) the police may be using an encryption protocol riddled with backdoors (TETRA, though the “governments the West likes” protocol is much safer than the “open for anyone” version), but at least it’s encrypted enough that you’ll need some serious compute power to listen in on the police, barring software bugs in sender/receiver.
You you know if there is a reason your police force allows criminals to listen in on police communication? Or do they simply not care? With all the money your police force seems to spend on big trucks and big guns, you’d expect an encrypted radio would fit inside the budget…
The police very much care, and want to be able to encrypt all their traffic.
It’s open for public transparency, mostly.
https://www.rcfp.org/police-radio-encryption-trend/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/03/new-york-police-encrypt-radio-nypd-transparency?ref=biztoc.com
One of the Mexican countries
Sooooo, Mexico or New Mexico?
Some time ago some American politician used the phrase unironically. Most speculated they were referring to Latin American countries, but since the politician was a republican and correcting themselves is anathema, we’ll never know.
Anyway, it’s become a favorite of mine to repeat this, tongue in cheek.
You assume correctly, UK. Seems kind of crazy, but the other reply chain explains it.
So wait need for speed radio chatter could be something street racers actually had??? I had no idea, I always thought it was kind of silly