Salem police have updated encrypted radio system, but it delays broadcast by 15 minutes - Statesman Journal

Posted: 31 Aug 2020 06:03 AM PDT

Catch up on any news you may have missed in the Mid-Valley. Salem Statesman Journal

The Salem Police Department has upgraded its radio system so officers now can communicate with other city departments and neighboring public safety agencies — but the new system leaves a 15-minute delay for avid listeners.

After operating on a decades-old radio system, the police department flipped the switch earlier this mont to an encrypted digital 800-megahertz system — a radio band that will be "critical" for quickly passing along real-time information, said Lt. Debbie Aguilar, a spokesperson with the police department.

The $11.2 million upgrade includes four antenna towers placed around the city, servers at the dispatch center, power generators and backup batteries, 226 handheld radios for officers and 100 mobile radios for patrol cars.

Mark Buchholz, the police department's communications division commander, compared operating in the 800-megahertz realm to driving on a three-lane freeway, while older systems — very-high frequency and ultra-high frequency — are like one-lane county roads.

The 800-megahertz, a trunked digital system, has the capability for more simultaneous communication using the same amount of frequency, he said. Buchholz is also the director of the Willamette Valley Communications Center.

The Motorola APX 8000 series tri-band radios will allow officers to communicate with the Salem fire and public works departments, and connect with nearly every public safety agency in the state with the turn of a knob, Buchholz said.

The upgrade comes with a "significant" increase to coverage area around the city; 10 different channels the police can use including a primary and a backup dispatch channel, one for detectives, one for training and SWAT, Buchholz said.

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It's also equipped with end-to-end encryption, GPS capabilities and has a clearer sound, he said.

Salem Police Chief Jerry Moore OKed a 15-minute transmission delay for the public — a move that will eliminate the concern a suspect is listening in on police operations in real-time, Aguilar said.

"We have numerous examples where it was clear our response to a crime had been compromised and those involved took actions to defeat, or place our officers in a dangerous position, as they knew our response plans and tactics," Moore said in a statement.

Lt. Treven Upkes, a spokesperson for the police department, said there have been other instances where a suspect on-the-run has had his or her scanner app open when caught by officers.

City of Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett called delay an "operational-level" decision made by the chief and said he's unaware of discussion within city council about the upgrade. "That's not the kind of stuff that usually comes to us," Bennett said.

A long road to upgrades

The city had been operating on two separate radio communication systems since 1990, Buchholz said.

City leaders intended to upgrade radio technology for its core operations — police, fire and public works — to meet the demand for a growing city. But when project funds fell short, officials upgraded fire and public works to the 800-megahertz system and left police on a 450-megahertz system, he said.

Police and fire couldn't communicate directly with each other using their radios. Instead, they relayed messages through the emergency dispatch center, or sometimes resorted to using cell phones.

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"They could even have a firefighter at the scene of an incident and across the street, a police officer, and they could not talk to each other without relaying through dispatch center before this project," Buchholz said.

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Making the radio enhancements became even more pressing when the department began experiencing technical glitches and spotty radio reception inside of some buildings a few years ago.

With infrastructure and equipment costs, initial estimates for the upgrade came to about $18 million, Buchholz said.

When city leaders were unsuccessful in securing grants from the federal government or funding through bond measures, they began contributing money to a "radio replacement fund."

Buchholz said technology advancements over 30 years helped reduce the amount of equipment and infrastructure needed, which helped lower the final cost.

Salem residents can still listen to police broadcasts — but with delay

Listening to police chatter through scanners and phone applications has become commonplace — and public safety officials know they're being heard.

Buchholz said "hundreds, if not thousands" of listeners tuned in during a 2015 standoff at a Walmart parking lot when a suspect shot at officers and wounded a police dog before retreating into an RV.

The public was able to hear "every command that the SWAT commander was giving to field personnel," he said.

Before last week, scanner enthusiasts had a myriad of options that would rebroadcast Salem police feeds. Now, they'll just hear static on most scanners.

But in efforts to maintain transparency, city officials agreed to continue streaming their feed through Broadcastify — an online public safety audio streaming service — with a 15-minute delay.

The delay "will still allow the community the ability to listen to the public safety activity, but in a manner which does not endanger officers as they respond to calls for service," Moore said in a statement. Salem fire's broadcast is not delayed.

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The Eugene Police Department encrypted its radio system nearly 15 years ago and choose to not broadcast to the public mainly to protect personal information.

"Names, date of birth, Social Security numbers — all that stuff goes over the radio," said Sgt. Wayne Dorman. "There's really no way for us to have officers be able to broadcast information and protect it without encrypting the radio."

Dorman, a property and financial crimes detective, said the department operates on a Motorola digital UHF system.

"I'm very surprised that Salem is continuing to broadcast," Dorman said. "With the ability to protect that information, and the officers, it's definitely best practices to not have that information available out there ... but I also understand the public interest."

Polk County Emergency Manager Dean Bender said the sheriff's office has been using the VHF system for nearly 25 years and are looking to transition to a digital system.

Bender said the sheriff's office radio stream is not encrypted and can be accessed on a scanner or app with a seconds-long delay at most.

Salem's decision to delay their broadcast is "logical," Bender said. "It provides safety to the officers, but it still provides information to the public."

"The bad thing about our system is it's broadcasted live and people could listen in and know exactly where we're at, what we're doing," he said. "Bottom line is the officers don't want something bad to happen to the person they're trying to deal with, nor do we want the officer to get hurt."

Salem resident Joel Pickett said he switched to Broadcastify when police upgraded their system.

Pickett said he's been listening to various feeds since the early '60s and remembers buying crystals from Radio Shack and tuning his radio to the right frequency.

He said the delay doesn't bother him. "Still hear all the same conversations," he said.

Salem residents who still wish to listen to police and fire broadcasts can go to the website www.broadcastify.com and search for the Oregon, Salem Police channel.

Virginia Barreda is the breaking news and public safety reporter for the Statesman Journal. She can be reached at 503-399-6657 or at vbarreda@statesmanjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at @vbarreda2.

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These Are Currently the Best Ways to Back Up Your Smartphone - Gizmodo

Posted: 17 Aug 2020 12:00 AM PDT

Illustration for article titled These Are Currently the Best Ways to Back Up Your Smartphone — Photo: Sam Rutherford/Gizmodo

Chances are, you rely on your smartphone an awful lot—so what would happen if it fell off a cliff or down a well? What would you do if you left it in a different country or it got lifted out of your pocket? You should always have a phone data backup in place should the worst happen, and we're going to talk you through the best options currently available.

The good news is that backing up a phone is a lot less stressful and tedious than it used to be, as the majority of apps (and Apple and Google themselves) have come around to the idea of keeping copies of everything in the cloud. The bad news is it can still be a chore to figure out which app preserves data in the cloud and which does not.

Backing up your iPhone

Apple wouldn't leave you without a backup option for your precious iPhone, and if you go to iOS Settings then tap your name, iCloud, and iCloud Backup, you can have a backup automatically sent to the cloud on a regular basis. If you turn this option off, you can still back up your device to macOS (via Finder) or Windows (via iTunes) whenever you connect to a computer.

iCloud backups are easier and more convenient, but they also count against your iCloud storage (so you'll need to pay if you go over 5GB), and they can also be decrypted by Apple, if requested by law enforcement agencies. Local backups are more secure, as long as you turn encryption on (the Encrypt local backup check box on the main screen), but you have to do them manually.

iCloud is a quick and convenient backup option for iOS.

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Apple backups include data such as device settings and home screen layouts, but how much app data they back up really depends on the app. Apple apps such as Contacts and Calendar use iCloud anyway, and the Messages app gives you the option to use iCloud to sync between devices—apps like this that are already making use of iCloud on their own won't be included when you run a backup, because they don't need to be (from iOS Settings, tap your name then iCloud to see which apps are using the cloud storage).

As more apps become cloud-based and sync data between devices, it can be confusing about what is and isn't included in a backup—even the Apple support documents can't be definitive, because it depends on your own configuration. Your best bet is to do an audit of your apps and work out how each one saves and stores data (think especially about messaging apps, where a lot of data is stored locally).

More iPhone apps than you might realize already use iCloud backups.

iPhones being iPhones, third-party access to the system is limited, so you won't find a host of alternatives to the cloud backups and local backups that Apple itself provides (any apps that promise iPhone backups are usually talking about backing up the local data dumps that you save to your computer).

There is one new contender to talk about: Google One. The upcoming storage app for iOS will now back up your iPhone if you want it to, covering photos and videos plus the Contacts and Calendar apps on iOS. It's hardly the most comprehensive option in the world, and it ignores other apps and device settings, but if you like to keep everything Google-ified (including your iPhone) then it's worth a look—the iOS app will be available soon, Google says.

Backing up your Android phone

Android being Android, there are tons of third-party options here, but we'll start with Google: If you've got a Pixel phone you can go to System, Advanced, and Backup to backup your phone to Google Drive in encrypted form. This includes data from Google Calendar and Google Contacts, as well as photos and videos up to your Drive storage limit (you get 15GB for free). Apps and app data (up to 25MB per app), call history, phone settings and SMS texts (but not MMS messages) are included too.

Rather confusingly, Google One for Android will also back up some of this data to Google servers too (this used to only be available to those who were already paying for Google One storage, but now it's available to everyone). Inside the app, tap Settings and Manage backup settings—in this case MMS data is included, as well as device settings and photos and videos (via Google Photos).

Android comes with a backup tool built-in.

As on iOS, individual apps are a bit of a free-for-all—a lot of your apps will already lean on the cloud for backups, some will have backup settings built into them, and others (such as WhatsApp) will make use of Google Drive but must be configured individually. Again, it's worth going through all of your apps and working out what's saved where.

Android apps can get much more access to the system than iOS apps, and you'll find a number of Play Store apps that will do quite a comprehensive job of backing up different parts of your phone. The freemium Autosync is a good example: It makes use of the storage you've got in Google Drive to sync any file or folder on your device with the cloud, working like Google Drive does on the desktop to keep your Android phone and your Google Drive storage account mirrored at all times.

Autosync is one of the third-party backup options on Android.

Another popular and well-known option is the freemium Super Backup & Restore, which can cover app data, contacts, call logs, SMS messages, files stored locally, and more. Accepted backup locations are Gmail, Google Drive, or an installed memory card—which is a reminder that to be as safe as possible, you should really have your most important data stored in three different locations, not just two.

Assuming Google Photos is handling your photos and videos, and your messaging apps are being backed up somewhere, you should have the majority of bases covered—file management apps such as Google Drive and Dropbox already store everything in the cloud anyway. Certain information, including the apps you've downloaded and bought from the Play Store, is automatically linked to your Google account, no backup needed.

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