> In HAM circles some people do use WiFi in an arguably legal manner by making the SSID their callsign and either making the network open or putting the password somewhere public.

And presumably also no SSL when browsing?

Part of why I never really understood the appeal to getting a ham license. Things like no encrypted communications really limits the utility.

Anything outside of talking to randoms on the open air, and you'll better served by the computer networking infrastructure where encryption is allowed, you can speak to anyone in the world anyway, and the medium (IE physical device) you're using is irrelevant.

Well, ham radio is an EXTREMELY diverse field. I mean, some people are using kilowatts and arrays of yagi antenna to transmit earth-moon-earth. Others are using minimal power (e.g. less than a typical bicycle lamp) to reach someone at the other side of the earth. Some are designing nice sound compression algorithms or algorithms for software designed radio in FPGAs on their self-designed board. Other try to build a full transceiver with less than 40 components total. Some are seeking contacts "rare" countries like other seek rare post stamps.

And most of this isn't really done to communicate. For that, most ham amateurs would use cell-phones, Facebook or whatnot. It's done for the sake of doing it. Or, in other words, to have an excuse to tinker with technical things.

That you can actually communicate is often just a consequence, a by-product. And the "communication" e.g. in contests to seek rare countries is actually really, really bland and boring. Translated to english: "Here is Mike, Calling Reunion, calling Reunion, calling Reunion, Mike here" - "Here is Jaques, Renunion, answering to Mike. I can your you very bad" - "Mike here, to Jaque. I can your you quite nice. And thanks for the talks ... calling Mongolia, calling Mongolia, here is Mike, calling Mongolia ..." --- and it's on PSK31 or CW even shorter.

You see, the ACTUAL communication is boring. The kick is probably to be able to manage and adjust your transceiver, wires, antenna, technical skills to actually be able to connect to these countries.

Or to be able to program and use in-real-life a sound compression algorithm with machine-learning and to test that with alike people on e.g. HF, Meteoscatter, via Satellite (which all produce very different channel characteristics).

Or to produce your own 6-layer PCP with an FPGA that actually does nice SDR algorithms.

It's a means to self-gratification.

I always find the anti-encryption arguments frustrating because all the digital modes are going to have data whitening anyway, and are therefore (if you are not aware of the exact protocol) indistinguishable from encrypted transmissions for all practical purposes. We already have a number of common systems that are basically encrypted because the codecs are proprietary.

The actual mechanism preventing abuse is the requirement to broadcast a callsign in a way that casual observers can interpret it.

There are several legal digital formats (e.g. PSK31, FT8, RTTY) that, while not encrypted, will render 'reading the mail' hard for anyone not aware of those formats and/or the right equipment and where to get it.

Most hams can enjoy the hobby without encryption. The limits discourage uses that endanger the hobby.

Thats the arguably legal part. Using a VPN or SSL over it violates the law, so...

I don't see the point personally. I'm just aware of the arguments. The "best" use case I saw was some hunting and lake cabins extending coverage.