On (12 Jan 98) Ron Taylor wrote to Blake Bowers...
 RT> BB>The standard MDT terminals that have been sold by the biggest
 RT>   >manufacturer in the business for years, use a format that
 RT>   >can be monitored using about $10.00 in parts from your
 RT>   >local radio shack, and shareware of the internet.
 RT> Is that $10.00 in _addition_ to a suitable receiver, computer, and TNC
 RT> :)
I should have explained better.  One would need a $60.00 scanner,
from your local WalMart, an old computer, 386 is most likely
overkill, for say $100.00, and the $10.00 in parts.  The TNC
is not needed, as the interface takes the place of that.
 RT> I don't know much about MDT technology, but it sure looks a lot like
 RT> packet radio that we HAMS have been doing for years.  Except for some
 RT> sort of encrypting protocol, it shouldn't be much of a problem.  We
 RT> don't have MDT locally so I've never looked into it.
Most of them are not encrypted.  However, the format is such that it
takes a while for someone to figure out.  It also normally assumes that
much of the information is already present on the recieving monitor,
so that a lot of the overhead in the message can be cut out.  
ie, a message that says 101060,101097,0,00,0,BOWERS,BLAKE,E,1212CR9800,WEST
PLAINS,MO,65775 could be my entire driving history.  One would need to be
able to figure it out from there.
--- PPoint 1.98
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