Timeline DES Breakthroughs & Motorola Police Radios
1977
• U.S. adopts DES (Data Encryption Standard) as a federal cipher (56-bit key length).
• Motorola begins integrating DES into secure law enforcement radios like the MX and later Syntor series for scrambled police communications.
1980s (late)
• Advances in computing make it clear DES is aging. Large mainframes and early supercomputers can brute-force DES keys in days or weeks.
• DES radio modules (Motorola DES-XL boards) are considered “good enough” for street-level crime prevention but vulnerable to state-level actors.
1992–1993
• Academic cryptographers publish attacks showing DES can be cracked much faster than previously believed, especially with hardware optimization.
• Well-funded intelligence agencies could realistically intercept and decrypt DES-based Motorola police traffic in near-real time.
1994
• Public demonstrations prove DES cracking is achievable without government-only resources.
• Example: RSA Security issues a “DES Challenge,” and hobbyist groups start attempting brute-force attacks.
• Motorola quietly begins advising some agencies to migrate to stronger ciphers like DES-XL (proprietary) or DVP-XL (Digital Voice Protection).
1997–1998
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) builds the “DES Cracker” machine (~$250K) that brute-forces a DES key in about 22 hours.
• This makes it undeniable that DES is broken in practical terms.
• Law enforcement encryption standards begin formally shifting toward AES (Advanced Encryption Standard).
2000s (early)
• Project 25 (P25) digital radio systems roll out with AES-256 encryption as the gold standard.
• DES is still supported in legacy mode but is officially deprecated for sensitive communications.
Why It Matters
When DES fell in the early 1990s, many police agencies unknowingly operated on “secure” channels that intelligence agencies and in rare cases, organized crime could crack. Some Motorola customers upgraded immediately, but others stayed on vulnerable DES gear for budget reasons, creating a security gap for years.