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From: claris!netcom!ergo@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Isaac Rabinovitch)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Interesting Police Technology
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Date: 26 May 90 16:29:09 GMT
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claris!netcom!onymouse@ames.arc.nasa.gov (John Debert) writes:
(about computer terminals in police cars)

>I have heard the transmissions to and from these units and estimate
>the rate at about 1200baud. It shouldn't be too hard for someone with
>perhaps a TNC to connect their scanner to a terminal and read the
>traffic.

True.  But it ought to be possible to encrypt transmissions, if they
haven't already done so.  I don't know if it's actually possible to
provide an unbreakable encryption method (this was claimed at one
time; I haven't followed the issue closely but I understand there are
doubts) but at least it can put evesdropping out of the reach of the
less resourceful villains.

For that matter, they could do the same thing with voice channels, but
it's a whole lot easier to do this with the relatively small number of
bits in a data channel.