The Numbers Stations Analyzed, Discussed

GMontag wrote to mention a Washington Post article about the always-intriguing 'number' radio broadcasts. The numbers stations, as they are known, are 'hiding in plain sight' spycraft. Random digits broadcast at little-used frequencies are known to be intelligence agencies broadcasting their secrets in encrypted form. The Post article gives a nice run-down on the truth behind the transmissions, and touches a bit on the odd community that has grown fascinated by them. From the article: "On 6840 kHz, you may hear a voice reading groups of letters. That's a station nicknamed 'E10,' thought to be Israel's Mossad intelligence. Chris Smolinski runs SpyNumbers.com and the 'Spooks' e-mail list, where 'number stations' hobbyists log hundreds of shortwave messages transmitted every month. 'It's like a puzzle. They're mystery stations,' explained Smolinski, who has tracked the spy broadcasts for 30 years." This article made me recall a great All Things Considered story from a few years back about Akin Fernandez's 'Numbers' CD, a CD compilation of some of the most interesting strings of randomly read numbers reaching out across the airwaves.

Re:Ad revenue

[xs650]

You missed numbers porn

Re:CIA? I suspect not.

[i_ate_god]

You're a spy. You're sent in to infiltrate a terrorist organization in some self sustaining desert town full of impoverished potential recruits for the terrorist organization. Shortwave is a common technology amongst these kinds of towns. Radios have been around for over 100 years now I believe (if not almost 100 years). Your laptop, PDA, or other fancy high tech equipment is going to give you away.

Re:1258965

[Mozk]

Oh my god... The single funniest and most fitting Soviet Russia joke I have ever seen. People looked at me weird because I was laughing at a computer.

Re:Interesting but moot

[Mr. Slippery]

The big boys can afford one time pads.

Er, afford a one-time pad? All you need to do is cat /dev/random, or if you're without a computer, spend an hour or two rolling polyhedral dice. Make two copies of your set of random numbers.

Re:Triangulation to locate sources?

[Macgyver7017]

Not to be rude, but I call BS.

The number of reflections that an HF signal would undergo in a decade of bouncing around anything the size of the earth, is simply astronomical. The efficiency of reflection would have to be similarly astronomical.

Let alone enough of the signal staying intact to still hear several seconds of it (enough to identify it as Vietnam chatter).

Not code but keys?

[plopez]

OK, what if the sequences are one time pad keys or other crypto keys? Then there would be nothing to crack, there is no message. The end user and the transmitter agree on a protocol, e.g., only use the sequence generated at 1620 UTC. Then after each day that sequence is discarded.

The info is then sent by email, ground mail, radio, etc. encrypted with that key.

So not only would there be nothing to crack, but the vast majority of the numbers would just be noise.