Datotek, or Datotek Inc., was a
manufacturer
of cryptographic solutions,
based in Dallas (Texas, USA). The company was established in 1969 by
Ray Whitson, George Good and Fred Kinch. It specialised in voice
encryption systems (scramblers) and later also in digital message encryptors.
Under the tenure of
John H. Nugent, the company grew to a major player in the cryptographic
industry, and by the time they were taken over by AT&T
in 1989,
it had a ~30% market share [1].
After the takeover by AT&T, Datotek became an independent wholly-owned
subsidary of AT&T,
under the name AT&T Datotek. In 1994, AT&T Datotek had a revenue
of US$ 7.5 million [2].
In June 1995, AT&T sold the company
to arch rival Technical Communications Corporations (TCC)
— for the relatively low sum of US$ 4,069,000 —
and the name Datotek disappeared.
In February 2020 it became clear that for many years,
Datotek had been under control of NSA and CIA[4].
Digital voice, message, data and fax encryptor 1 (STU-II like)
TA-2000
XMP-500
Portable digital message unit 1
XMP-800
Portable digital message unit 1
XMP-1500
Mobile digital message unit 1
XMP-5500
High-traffic digital message unit 1
Part of Datotek's Integrated Combat Cryptographic Network (ICCN).
Under control of NSA and CIA
In February 2020, it was revealed in
Operation RUBICON, that for many years
Datotek had been under control of the
American intelligence services —
in particular the
National Security Agency (NSA) —
who influenced the designs of the crypto algorithms, in return for export licences [4].
By manipulating the algorithms, they became readable1 to the NSA.
For this reason, Datotek equipment was not used by NATO, but was exported to
countries like Argentina and Austria.
In this context, readable means that the cryptographic algorithms
could be broken by the NSA.
Also known as friendly. In contrast:
algorithms that are not breakable by NSA,
are called unfriendly or unreadable.
Last known addresses
Note that Datotek no longer exists. The addresses below are provided
for reference only.
Datotek Inc.
13740 Midway Road
Dallas, Texas 75240, USA
Phone: (214) 233-1030
Datotek New York
521 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10017, USA
Phone: (212) 687-7754
Datotek UK
35 Piccadilly, Airwork House
London W1V 9PB, England, United Kingdom
Phone: +44 1 734-7282
Any links shown in red are currently unavailable.
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Crypto Museum. Created: Thursday 28 May 2015. Last changed: Sunday, 10 May 2026 - 08:32 CET.
