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<body>Ref the article in the NZ Herald about scanning in the US and how there's more trunking and encryption to prevent the casual scanner user from hearing the transmissions from the emergency and utility services.<div><br /></div><div>To my mind, the scanner users have themselves to blame by connecting the audio from their scanners onto the internet so that anyone can listen - they call it feeding and anyone can listen to them. When trunking became the next hurdle, trunking scanners soon came out and succesfully tracked the signals and again broadcast the audio on the net. Of course the crims listened too - you'd be silly not to. The emergency services responded with encryption so that all that was heard was garbled audio or digital noise - but sooner later somebody will find a way of cracking it. Some states ban the use of scanners in vehicles unless they have the right licences - this is to stop the 'ambulance chasers' being rubber-neckers at incident sites.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now if Joe scanner had not 're-broadcast' the audio, then he/she could have carried on listening to plain old AM of NFM with no need for more expensive equipment.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fortunately here in NZ we have laws about 'the secrecy of correspondence' - so if you should even by accident intercept some form of communication, including ordinary snail-mail or anything not intended for you personally, then you must not tell anyone about the contents of the message or even the existence of the message and definitely not use the knowledge you have gleaned to obtain an advantage. Anyone who has been in the services in a communications field has already signed documents concerning high levels of secrecy and although you have now returned to being a civilian you are still bound by the military law.</div><div><br /></div><div>There - I've done my rant. Cheers and all the best for 2019!</div></body></html>