The article advocates for mesh networks to use message signing instead of encryption in amateur radio, highlighting benefits like authenticity and easier legal operation, while noting drawbacks such as reduced privacy.
# I want my mesh networks to be signed, not encrypted
Source: [https://andanti.no/blog/SignedMesh.html](https://andanti.no/blog/SignedMesh.html)
Lately \(last few years\) user\-friendly mesh networks have started to become a thing\.
As a radio amateur I am heavily in favour\. Both Meshtastic and Meshcore allow people to easily set up a quick little mesh for their friends or large city/region spanning networks\. It's frankly a bit impressive how much can be accomplished using low power \(0,5W\) on*highly*congested frequency bands\. But quite frankly I think this kind of radio experimentation falls squarely within the domain of amateur radio and it would be nice to be able to use bands where we have primary status and higher power limits\.
MT/C are however a bit inconvenient for this\. This is because they're encrypted by default and disabling encryption is cumbersome/impossible\. You can use "default passwords", but while that works to some extent, it's not a solution I'm happy with\.
What I would like is a protocol where every message is in cleartext, but signed\.
I'm not saying that signing should necessarily be mandatory, but it would be nice to have\. Benefits include:
- You can actually be sure about who's talking to you\.
- Other poeple can't pretend to be you\.
- Repeater operators can filter out unlicensed operators, making legal operation easy\.
- Everyone can see that people are talking, making it easier for people to join in\.
There are however some downsides:
- No privacy other than not participating\.
- People can dump all your messages online with your signature attached\.
- Getting a radio amateur license is a barrier to entry as you need to pass both an exam and pay a license fee\.
- If you want to verify the signatures then you need some sort of Public Key Infrastructure\. Either ad\-hoc key\-parties \(scales poorly\) or some Certificate Authorities \(politics\)\.
- Every signature uses up bandwidth\. For ed25519 you need to spend 64/bytes per message for the signature\.
Some readers might have been shouting at the monitor "But why not just use APRS\!?", well I don't have a good answer so I'll quote a past Prime Minister:No, don't wanna\.
In conclusion: I think it would be nice if meshes were open\. If you agree/disagree, have comments, et cetera, please let me know\.
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