Editing Mobile data terminal (section)

==History==
During the late 1960s, a surge in crime in the United States spurred the police community to modernize tactics. This led to a push for the adoption of computers by police departments, which would turn out to be a slow process.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.police-technology.net/id59.html |title=POLICE TECHNOLOGY - History of Technology }}</ref> Some police officials attributed this to a few specific factors including, "the complexities of the new technology, the cautious, conservative nature of many police officers, and citizens' 'fear of Big Brother'. Lack of funds for computer training and equipment maintenance also played a part."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.police-technology.net/id59.html#The%20Computerization%20of%20American%20Policing |title=POLICE TECHNOLOGY - History of Technology }}</ref>

The earliest MDTs began showing up in police cars in the early 1970s. In 1973, the [[Cleveland Police Department]] introduced the specialized [[AMC Ambassador]] Impact task force police car equipped with a Kustom electronics MDT, capable of checking for license numbers or owner information, stolen vehicles, verifying wanted persons, and exchange private messages between vehicles. These would be the first police computers to be used in the [[Ohio|State of Ohio]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/vintage-fleet/1973-amc-ambassador-patrol-car/ |title=1973 AMC Ambassador Impact Task Force Patrol Car 601 - Cleveland Police Museum }}</ref>

Motorola would become a major provider of MDTs by the late 1970s. One of these earliest models was the D-1118, which would be succeeded by the MDT-9100 in the 1980s. By the early 1990s, police departments began to increasingly use computers for more advanced activities, as opposed to routine patrol tasks that accounted for the typical modicum of usage. According to Bureau of Justice statistics, there was a considerable uptake in adoption between 1990 and 1993, with one half of departments using computers compared to two thirds by 1993. Police departments with computers staffed approximately 95 percent of local officers by 1993.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.police-technology.net/id59.html#The%20Computerization%20of%20American%20Policing |title=POLICE TECHNOLOGY - History of Technology }}</ref>

These early police computers, including those developed by Motorola, became notorious for security issues due to the relatively basic data protocol used. Despite Motorola's marketed appearance of secure communications, it was soon discovered that this conspicuous “special code” for bit interleaving and data stream obfuscation was nothing more than simple [[ASCII]]. This approach taken by Motorola would have been considered [[security by obscurity]]. In the 1990s, hackers deciphered the properties of the protocol and PC programs soon began appearing on the market allowing the general public to monitor police communications - an issue that lasted well into the 2000s.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/motorola/mdt9100/index.htm |title=MDT-9100 }}</ref>